Unreal Engine 4 beginners queries

Development Architectural and Design Visualization
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Hi all,

I’ve finally managed to get into Unreal Engine 4 over the past week and I’ve a number of queries I’m hoping you can help with… the list was longer so it does show I’m learning!

  1. For complex objects what is the best way to set up collision detection? – I have used the ‘Complex collision detection’ setting under the static mesh settings, is that a very expensive way to calculate collision?.. it seems to work at least.
  2. How to I set up the geographic location & time of day?
  3. How do I speed up the arch-vis camera walking pace?
  4. How do I apply foliage/trees to imported meshes/imported planes? – similar to Forest Pack Pro/multiscatter workflows
  5. If I’ve applied a transparent texture (glass/water) to a mesh can I select that object with the cursor in lit mode? – just a minor annoyance, I know I can select the object in the world outliner or change view to wireframe and the select mesh
  6. Regarding normals, am I right in saying all normals have to face the correct way or the mesh is not shown? – is there a tip so that I don’t have this issue?
  7. I UV mapped everything in 3ds with simple box mapping, in UE4 I’ve been using materials from the open world demo but I always have to change the UV texture coordinate settings to get the right scale, should the UDK texture scale be correct?, any tips/settings for UV mapping in 3ds so I don’t have to change the UV tiling in UE4?
  8. Following on from the above, if I go into some of the more complex UE4 material nodes and try to alter the tiling size of textures I find a number of different ‘TexCoord’ nodes, such as ‘Large scale tiling’ - ‘macro texture variation’ - ‘Base color Texture samples’ - ‘micro texture variation’ – do I need to alter all the ‘TexCoord’ nodes?, how do I know which node is the correct one?
  9. Regarding light build issues, what are the essential things I can alter for a better result?
  10. Is it possible to rotate/scale a large number of objects randomly?
  11. Finally, any essential scripts/tips?, specifically 3ds related. – I’m currently using TS Tools for exporting my FBXs and also one called ‘UVW AutoUnwrap which automatically unwraps for light UVs to channel 2.
  12. Are there any animated people/figures for UE4? – or do you just export them from 3ds ?
  13. Should the ‘post process volume’ and the ‘lightmassomportancevolume’ encompass the entire scene – I’m currently working on an exterior scene, it has a focal point/area and there is a lot of context into the distance. – Also, if you increase the size of those volume do you also have to increase other settings to match it?

Appreciate any answers to my many queries, I’m picking up stuff every day so no doubt I’ll find a few answers of my own.

Thanks all,

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I don’t have all the answers you need but I have one!

  1. There’s a MapScaler modifier in 3ds . If you select everything you want to have the same texel density and add the modifier it should give you exactly what you want. Just make sure the modifier is set to your texture UVW channel and not your lightmap UVW channel.
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  1. the “use complex as simple” will use a per poly collision -> so in a way the model gets rendered twice. So it’s better when you somehow try to create a more basic collision
  2. do you mean how you can build the place + set it to night/day?
  3. depends on how you made your camera -> e.g when you use a character bp, you can just increase the walk speed
  4. you either place them by hand or use one of the foliage tools (foliage tool, landscape grass type, procedural spawner) -> when you want to permanently attach them (so that you can place the mesh + the foliage should be attached) you will have to create an actor bp and place everything in there
  5. Under Quick Settings drop down you’ll find a tick box for Allow Translucent Selection.
  6. yep, they should face the correct way to avoid problems -> just always check this before you export your mesh
  7. to get a good result you should always scale everything down/up -> e.g when you just scale the base colour/diffuse, the normal map wont look right anymore
  8. you could either place them with the foliage tool (then they will be rotated randomly) or create your own spawner
  9. you can use the ones from different demo projects which you can find in the learn tab -> otherwise take a look at the marketplace or create your own ones
  10. post process -> it defines the area where those effects will be displayed. So when the player isn’t in this volume, the effect wont be displayed – just add it to the playabel areas. The lightmass importance volume -> it should just cover the area where you want the best light quality :slight_smile:
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Thanks James_Gallagher, I’ll try that.

Thanks , for all your answers!
2. In my job we need to have a accurate sun, in terms of where it is in the world, so in we can use a Vray sun and set it for example to be in London and then set the correct time/day. Is there a way of doing that in UE4?
3. I’m using the Arch-vis character, where is the node to change the walking speed?
5. I have that on but it doesn’t seem to do what it’s supposed to

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  1. hmm, dont know the arch vis character -> where can I find it, then I will tell you how you can change the speed :slight_smile:
  2. so you are still not abel to select transparent surfaces?
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  1. This is where the arch-vis character can be foun - ?v=n6hl3QR89iA
  2. Seems to be working today! :slight_smile:
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friends pls answer my question .
i use sketchup to model
i want to import sketchup model into ue4 and apply materials and create a walkthrough .

Pls tell me
how to import sketchup model in to ue4 and apply materials .
Pls suggest me with a link pls !

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  1. just use an ordinary fps blueprint - delete the arms and the shooting part - now you have an arch vis character (in the blueprint - movement component you can change the speed)

You will have to create the mesh + make sure that you uv map it (dont know if that’s possible in sketchup -> otherwise you will have to do it in another tool e.g blender, 3ds , maya) - export it as a fbx file + the textures as png/jpg/tga - import everything - create a material and add the textures - apply the materials to the mesh :slight_smile:

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  1. Best light build result depends on many factors I think. But the tools that I find most useful in ‘debugging’ my levels and speed up build time is Lightmap Density (press alt + 0) and Lighting Build Time [build button (down arrow) -> lighting info -> lighting static mesh info -> light build time]. Lightmap resolution of 256 sometimes is enough to produce better/smoother shadows and also it’s 64 times faster to build than 1024 resolution (according to DanielW, the UE4 developer)

Don’t forget to always fix overlapping lightmap UV error no matter how small the object is. I found that if you get more than one of this error (meaning multiple objects have overlapping lightmap UVs), they could slow your level down while ‘playing’, and they also make UE4 to always re-cache the lightmaps and this caching process causing pauses in the editor and inside the game. Not to mention longer build time.