I am working on a personal project in maya for unreal 4 and would like some feedback.
CONCEPT
I would like to know the best way to round off the smooth corners of my buildings. Bevel?
Here’s what I have so far, rendered out.
Wireframe
I’m a novice modeler and would like to know if there’s anything that I am starting to do wrong, thanks!
I don’t use Maya (and have no experience with it). I’m more of a Max guy. However, doesn’t it have a chamfer?
Yeah you’re going to want to play around with the bevel of the edges. From the looks of it your geometry seems fine, but you will no doubt have to clean up sometimes after using bevel depending on segment amount and width.
Thanks guys, I’m not sure if it has a chamfer or not actually. I’ll upload more photos once I bevel them and see how it turns out.
It looks like he just built with an assortment of forms, instead of extruding and shaping a single form.
That’s correct, that one is two seperate objects. It won’t be veiwable in the way I’m going to use it so I left it alone for now.
Yeah it’s already separated into different parts but thanks man! 
What I really need to know is how people handle getting rid of sharp edges on buildings for unreal. Do they bevel or is there some kind of way to get your smooth preview into unreal? What do people do to their sharp edges before planting their models in unreal?
Hi Ranok,
I’ve taken a few moments and made a simple models. I started with something that looks similar to the edge you modeled and then iterated it out so that you can see the differences I’ve added along the way.
The first is the base.
The second is the edges added to round out the curve (may not be the exact look you’re going for but an example of how I round out edges): I added edge loops then from the side view placed those where I wanted the curve to be. I do so in halves every step so that I can evenly distribute the curve I am wanting to achieve.
The third is where I’ve added chamfers on my edge from top to bottom to get a smoother look rather than the hard edge.
If you have any other modeling questions or need tips feel free to ask!
Thank you!
Thanks very much , I now know how to continue on with my models for this project. I appreciate the feedback! These forums are perfect.
its hard to help a blender user as a max user but let me
explain with max workflow and you do the research for blender then, ok ?
in max you can assign any face to a specific “smoothing group”.
this can save lots of polygons if your polylimit is rather low.
whatever edge needs to be sharp you can either chamfer it on low scale (e.g. 1cm)
or assign it to a different smoothing group.
but then again never overdo one technique !
too many polys can bring any engine on its knees the same way as too many
smoothing groups. as i m new to ue4 and need to find those limits myself so…
edit:
for sketchup users: if you want to smooth a corner by smoothing group:
while in rubber delete tool hit strg+leftclick [edit: or alt+leftclick - i forgot]
and delete the line that separates the two faces you want to be in one smoothing group.
this is one of the “pro tricks” in sktechup 
Actually I am a Maya user so it’s a little closer to your 3ds max workflow. I have heard of smoothing groups but have never played with them. I may check those out! Thanks
Another question, I’m ready to import one of my assets into unreal4. Do I need to triangulate my geo? What’s the best way to do this?
Hey Ranok,
Maya doesnt have smoothing groups. The big suggestion i would make for you model is to chamfer the edges a bit.
- YouTube
When you are ready to export you simply export your scene (or selected object) as an .FBX file, unreal will triangulate your Geo and gets it right 90% of the time. If you noticed any errors caused by bad Triangulation you can go back and manualy fix it. But with a structural model like you have there shouldn’t be any issues
I know this really isn’t an unreal issue, but I scaled up all my objects in the scene to be larger and now maya is having trouble displaying them. All the edges are kind of jagged and if i zoom out far enough the buildings start to dissapear.
Hi Ranok,
Maya does have smoothing groups they can a little more cumbersome to use than in 3Ds Max though. You can check out this link to really look at it. I do use 3Ds max so I can’t say for sure how Maya’s stuff is to use, I’ve just always heard it can be cumbersome because there are a lot of differences.
If, however, you have access to Maya 2015 they have made some significant improvements that bring it more in-line with 3Ds Max and it’s functionality for modeling. I attended the local AAUGA (Autodesk Anaimation User Group Association) here in the Raleigh/Durham, NC area. Autodesk came out and did a demonstration of the new features in 3Ds Max and Maya 2015. They were very candid in how much Maya has been overhauled and needing to be for so long! Some of the features I saw them demoing and saying that it’s now supported, I thought, “wow this has been in Max for a while!” They completely overhauled the UV Unwrap process which definitely had me intrigued!
As for Triangulating your mesh, that is completely up to you. If you’re working on simple boxes and nothing complex I would say you are fine to let it auto-triangulate when being brought into UE4. However, if you’ve got some complex organic looking model I would suggest triangulating that to some degree to control your edges the way you would want.
If you have any other questions feel free to ask! I’m more than happy to help! 
Thank you!
You have to change the Camera far clip distance in Maya.
Good thing to get into practice is to hot-key smooth/hard edges so you can just highlight what you want smooth and press the hotkey. It’s also available in a marking menu that makes it really quick to do. I’ve not played with 2015 yet so cannot comment on the new tools (eagerly awaiting bifrost :P).
Maya don’t have smoothing groups because don’t need it (this is not mean that it is better or worst). The main difference between both, it is that Maya can store the info on the edge, so you select the edge and assign direct the smooth at you want. Imo is minus cumbersome because you can change any edge so fast working straight in the mesh.
