New at Unreal Engine - my first conclusions

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

Hi there.
I’ve been trying to understand what can/cannot be done with UE and wanted to have your opinions on my conclusions:

  1. Can I do modeling in UE? NO - I need to use external 3d modeling soft for that (I use Cinema 4D, but I understand that Maya is the “standard”)
  2. Can I do texturing in UE? YES (New Material Pipeline?) - if so, is it more helpful to do the texturing directly in UE and not in my usual 3d modeling soft?
  3. Can I do rigging/animating in UE? YES (Persona Animation?) - if so, is it more helpful to do the rigging/animation directly in UE and not in my 3d modeling soft?
  4. Can I do particles in UE? YES (Cascade Visual Effects?) Example 1: create wind in UE and make my foliage react to it? Example 2: create a sorcere’s staff’s fireball effect and target

explosion in UE?
5. Modeling/rigging/animating foliage, humans/animals - any special considerations?
6. Human clothing - any special considerations?

I’m about to start my adventure in game design so I’m willing to make adjustments that’ll help on the long run (like starting to do my modeling in Maya*).
Thanx.

PR

  • Assuming there’s budget, of course. :slight_smile:
2

Welcome in the UE4 community! :slight_smile:

  1. actually you can create models in the UE4 (BSP brushes) -> but it’s not recommended, because of the lack of flexibility and performance
  2. no, you still have to texture your mesh in a 3d program (uv mapping) -> you can just add different effects/combine stuff/… in the material
  3. rigging -> no, animations -> yes (record button) but it’s better when you do it in your 3d program
  4. Yes, you can create particles in the UE4.
    foilage react/fireball effect -> a combination between the material + blueprints
  5. you can use apex to create realistic cloths
3

Thank you for the crystal clear feedback. :slight_smile:
About Apex, it’s a 3DS or Maya only plugin, right?

PR

4

Maya is not a standard at all :smiley:
You can use any software you like. I’ve tested pipeline with Maya, 3dsMax and MODO - clean and trouble-free workflow.

There is 2 elements of nice picture: textures AND material. Textures are images you want to use in your material.
Popular software for texture editing nowadays is Substance Designer/ Painter, dDo, Adobe Photoshop, Gimp(free). Also a lot of textures you will get from baking details from high resolution model(Which often made in your modeling problem or sculpting software like Zbrush or Mudbox) into low poly model.
Material is the way to combine all your textures into final, well, material :slight_smile:

Rigging is the part you have to do in your modeling software. You can animate in UE4, but it’s complimentary tool, rather than main animation tool. You can enhance your animations, improve their blending, customize them and modify to get outstanding result(IMHO animation tools are VERY powerful in UE4), but base animations you have to create in modeling software

Wind + Foliage actually is shader magic inside above mentioned materials :slight_smile:
For everything else - yep, Cascade is what you’re looking for!

You can use SpeedTree for modeling and animating foliage(no rigging needed). For humans and animals there are some special software, but they produce very generic and bad(at my taste) result so I recommend you to not rely of them. However it’s only my opinion of course and it’s okay if you choose to use it :slight_smile:

It’s a tough question. In order to get really neat clothing you either sculpt it manually or use something like Marvellous Designer, which is outstanding tool(and weird when you open it for the first time :D) and produce realistic result.

5

3ds /maya pluging + there is also a SDK version :slight_smile:

6

Thank you for the feedback as well, . :slight_smile:
About Marvelous Designer, is it adequate for Game production?

PR

7

You bet :slight_smile:

://www.marvelousdesigner/cases/

8

That’s a resounding yes. :slight_smile:

PR