Smoothing groups

Development Asset Creation
1

I’ve looked for an answer to this but I’m afraid I’m stuck. When I import my static meshes into UE I get the error that no smoothing group information was found and to please enable smoothing groups in the FBX exporter. However, I’m using LightWave for modeling and there is no option for smoothing groups in the FBX exporter. Looking around the UE boards, I saw there was an option in the LOD panel to recompute normals but that doesn’t appear to fix the issue and the faceting in the surface of my model is still as present. I’ve tried both using the import normals as well as the compute normals in the UE importer but can’t seem to get smoothing on my imports.

2

Well I may have answered my own question. It seems I need to have smoothing turned on (LightWave uses an angle based smoothing) inside of LightWave when I export it and then I need to uncheck recompute normals inside of UE, resave the model and then it appears to smooth correctly.

3

Fixed it? I have the same here. You mean I have to select smoothing in the surfaces/ materials? I still have the same error (please enable smoothing groups). Other thing is, I don’t see in UE4.9 the recompute normals…

4

You also use LightWave? -> you have to enable smoothing in the exporter window :slight_smile:

5

I know this thread is old, but it shows up as a top result in Google, so I must say something.

There is no smoothing option in the Lightwave exporter. (By that I also mean that… please don’t assume there is such an option available, just because a tool exports to FBX.)
The correct option here is to let NewTek know that they must fix this. Maybe even a call from Epic to them could help.

6

Smoothing groups are a term that only a couple programs use, all 3D programs use something like it, to make polygons smooth together (otherwise you would need very high poly counts to avoid a “faceted” look)
I would be surprised if a 3D program didn’t have a way of editing how that effect is handled.

7

People have be bringing that up the Lightwave developers for years. It doesn’t sound like they are going to add those features in anytime soon.