UE4 and 3d software for an indie

Development Character & Animation
1

I have been a long time unity user, and thought i would play around with UE4, and to behonest, it is really really great. However, one thing that i guess i got spoiled with in unity was how easy it was to create characters and animation and blender, and bring them into unity. The blender to UE4 workflow seems really…complicated. I read threads like this and think why so hard :frowning:

(guy modified blender to work better with UE4)
I have watch GeoDev’s videos, and they are great, but the blender to ue4 workflow just seems difficult?

I understand that UE4 was built with bigger studios in mind, and that is fine. I guess my question is this, for the indie devs out there on a budget, do you guys use blender and work past the issues? Or is there another modeling\animation software you use like modo, maya, maya lt, etc that you find the workflow better for UE4?
Penny for your thoughts!

2

The issue with Blender is its FBX exporter, which just isn’t as good as it is in software like Maya or 3ds Max–that’s probably due to the format being an Autodesk format so it works the best in Autodesk products.

3

Im learning MODO at the moment.
I have been working for years and years with 3DSMax, but recent Autodesk pricing policies provided enough incentive to see what else is around.
I tried blender as well, but found the UI too counter intuitive. And when you have worked with Max for so long, blender apears somewhat “limited” to say the least.

Then I found a nice little offer on Steam for Modo+Mari Indie…
(MARI is a texturing and mesh painting app)

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/91036/

The price (for both applications) is pretty reasonable.

Before buying, Im currently testing ou the 30 day trial.
My expieriences so far:

  • A slight different workflow than Max, but definitely not as “weird” as blender
  • Absolutely superior to 3DSMax in each and every aspect. (sorry Autodesk)
  • Boolean tools that actually work. And MeshFusion for non destructive booleans that will blow your mind.
  • A much much mor intuitive workflow.
  • After just now 3 weeks into the app, I already work as fast as in Max, sometimes even faster, but always with better results.
  • In every state along the modeling, the object always stays correctly standard UV mapped. No more messy UVs by default.
  • The FBX import into the engine works flawlessly.

And there are great tutorials out there.

To be honest, i used to be a little Max fanboy. Loved it since 1995. But Modo managed me to convert in less than 3 weeks :smiley:
I definitely gonna buy it.

PS: Also animation is both: easy and awesome

4

It’s gotten quite a bit better of late, and there’s always Autodesk’s own FBX exporter tool that works with a variety of formats. Don’t get me wrong, in a larger studio I think industry standard tools like Maya/Max are the way to go, but Blender actually works quite well with UE4 these days.

5

I’ve had no problems whatsoever with Blender’s fbx exporter ever since they updated it in 2.7x.

Not sure if it’s something Blender did or Epic did, but I think the issues it once had are fixed now

6

And you are doing character models and animation?

Thank you all for your helpful feedback!

7

yeah, animated models/characters, etc