3DS Max To Unreal Origin Nightmare Discussion

[Guest dialog]

Just opening some dialogue about importing FULL Arch Viz scenes that are constantly changing design through the various stages of a project. From what I understand in the gaming world when building scenes, it is ok to have every object created at the origin 0,0,0 in max and imported into Unreal and then build the entire scene there. From our experience in Arch Viz, our models cant work like this.

 

Here's the scenario... you get your model from Revit, SketchUp or model in Max from scratch. All is fine. You can bring in the model as one import into Unreal and you can place wherever. Now the issue becomes updating... nothing will line up again in UE4 unless things are all at 0,0,0....which, now creates a complete nightmare solution of having to manually move objects pivot points to 0,0,0 in max (assuming your architecture project goes through multiple rounds of revisions). We have tried the TS Tools FBX Export script and this claims to do this, but with our experience it does not work (the fbx generator part works amazing).

 

So curious as to what others are using as a workflow around this issue. With our initial testing right now this alone adds unnecessary time to the workflow and will kill any chance of this technology being able to get implemented in Arch Viz with such tight deadlines and budgets.

 

The 2nd killer we have found is the requirement to Unwrap Every single object to use lightmass in UE4. This task is tedious at best and again, not practical in the world of Architecture with sometimes hundreds of thousands of objects.

 

Looking to open up discussions about this topic in general and see if anyone else has any solutions. Maybe UE4 won't be the solution for Real Time for Arch Viz. Maybe Autodesk will develop Bitsquid to be less of a hassle? ....

Edited December 12, 2014 by dialog
Wrong Title

[Scott Schroeder]

Look at how games build their environments. One word. Modularity. If architecture wants real time to work, we MUST look at games as a reference point. They have been doing real time environments far longer than we have. No matter what engine you choose, modularity is always going to be the common thread.

 

If you are trying to build the entire structure in Max then import into UE, you are asking for a level of pain that you won't be able to deal with. Break your building down into modular parts or bays, because all buildings have it. Where I work, we tend to build on a 32' bay style. A building might have 3-6 different bays. So I only need to model and unwrap X bays, then assemble in UE. If a bay changes, make one change, re-export the FBX for the bay, and presto it is updated in UE. For filler pieces, I will either make a custom piece or build it in UE.

 

Also, keep it simple. If the plan calls for a wall at 50' 1 1/2", make it easy and make it 50'. No one will ever tell in real time anyways. This also goes to the second major tip. Love the grid, and I mean really love it. Make the grid in max = the grid in UE. That way, you know things will snap together perfectly when you are building. If you build a 1x1x1 box in Max, it should be a 1x1x1 box in UE.

 

This also applies to textures. Most of our texture libraries are a complete mess. All brick maps must equal each other so if you do use UE geometry to fill walls, the maps will work correctly. Again, love love love the grid but this time in Photoshop. Make the grid so one grid space equals 1' so you can quickly make maps to real world scale.

 

To recap, just look at how games assemble their environments.

[RyderSK]

There really isn't that much issue with this in UE4.

 

You can bring whole assembled environments from Max into UE4, and if you then drag it (together)from content browser into viewport, it will keep all the relative relations.

 

If you then forgot to bring your sofa model, or anything else, you can as well keep it in its position inside 3dsMax. After importing it into UE4, drag it onto viewport from content browser anywhere, and set your coordinates of that asset to [0;0;0] and it will snap into same world position it was inside 3dsMax.

{i.e this means it doesn't matter where the pivot is set to 0, if it's done in EU it will simply make it worse to deal with but if you're simply after duplicating your Max scene, that what is the issue}

 

This way you can keep working parallel between 3dsMax and UE4, keeping the same scene assembly in each.

 

 

Btw Bitsquid is 3rd grade engine that Autodesk went for because they wouldn't even splurge for Unity. Don't expect anything out of it, and by the time it will be capable of anything, other competitors will be far ahead.

[Guest dialog]

I will have to try this out. SO far when I drag and drop it just places the scene where my cursor is. So if we add new things, it really doesnt keep the coordinate system.

 

Interesting about Bitsquid. I think there is potential for an easier workflow at some point in the future for ArchViz or the Artists with little to no gaming backgrounds in programming. That is my hope.

[RyderSK]

Of course, and then if you set the pivot to [0;0;0] in UE it will snap into where it was inside 3dsMax.

 

There is potential, and that niche was filled with Lumion. UE4 is as easy as it gets to asset manipulation and link between 3dsMax and Engine editor. It's just not one button like Lumion, but it's almost as same level.

[Guest dialog]

Sweet. Will give it a shot. Thanks.

[Scott Schroeder]

I was at the BitSquid talk at AU a few weeks ago. It looked like something from Unity 2.5. It has some cool collaboration features and they did a hint-hint wink-wink at direct 3ds max integration for BitSquid, but that could be several releases away.