Max to Unreal Engine 4 - Biggest Hurdles?

[Michael J. Brown]

I'm just trying to get a shortlist of things that I'll need to consider when making the transition to UE4. I currently do all my modeling in Max and use Vray.

 

Please share how long it took for you to clear that learning curve. Additionally, how easy (or hard) was it, once you got the hang of doing things in UE, for the quality of your work to equal (or surpass) your 3dsMax/Vray work?

 

 

BTW, I've been using Vray with the 'compact' material editor forever. I've never been comfortable with the workflow style of the 'slate' editor. However, it looks like the first hurdle I'll have to clear is working with my materials in that 'flowchart' type of interface that UE uses.

 

How's the transition been for you? How much time did you invest overall? What were the biggest hurdles?

 

- Thanks!

[philippelamoureux]

The transition isn't that bad but I've spent about 1 year on Unreal so...

 

Slate editor is much more intuitive imo, you'll learn to like it I'm sure.

 

The only real hard part is understanding how to fine tune the photon mapping G.I solver. If you know how that works in vray you have an advantage.

 

Thanks to this thread it's now a tad easier to get the grasp of it https://forums.unrealengine.com/showthread.php?88952-Lets-make-Lightmass-EPIC-(and-understandable)

 

Rafael Reis from UE4arch also did his 1st part of his tutorial series https://ue4arch.com/ue4archs-unreal-engine-4-lighting-workflow-part-1/

 

After that you can practice to make good looking materials (the fun part imo) and learn how post process effects work. I can say that I'm more comfortable doing cool stuff in ue4 than with vray but it's just because I've spent more time in unreal than with vray lol.

 

For a noob, the trial and error is more forgiving in unreal since you don't have render time (or very short lighting build time) while you iterate!!!

[Michael J. Brown]

Thanks, Philippe