Any Unreal Engine Experts Here?

[Renzatic]

Yet when I clicked on a very large collection of leaves, choosing individual leaves, they all registered as 0,0,0, although they were clearly in different locations.

Yeah, because they've had their transforms reset. That's now their default position. Thing is, you don't want the default position of your leaf to be above and to the right of where you want to put it. You'll need to move them all back to the center of the grid individually, reset their transforms, then export them out one at a time so they're each their own object inside of Unreal.

Also, while you can use a lot of leaves to do this, it really only takes 4 or 5 to make things look random enough. When they're all scattered, rotated, and scaled individually, you won't notice that much repetition.

 

[Huntn]

Yeah, because they've had their transforms reset. That's now their default position. Thing is, you don't want the default position of your leaf to be above and to the right of where you want to put it. You'll need to move them all back to the center of the grid individually, reset their transforms, then export them out one at a time so they're each their own object inside of Unreal.

Also, while you can use a lot of leaves to do this, it really only takes 4 or 5 to make things look random enough. When they're all scattered, rotated, and scaled individually, you won't notice that much repetition.

I’m just about done with the road, will be adding some hills and trees soon. I can actually see the end of this project.

 

[Renzatic]

I’m just about done with the road, will be adding some hills and trees soon. I can actually see the end of this project.

So, what are you planning on doing next?

 

[Huntn]

So, what are you planning on doing next?

After the Forest scene? More UE tutorials of course! I’ll need to study post processing for this project, but I can see some rock and water sculpting in my furture.

 

[Renzatic]

After the Forest scene? More UE tutorials of course! I’ll need to study post processing for this project, but I can see some rock and water sculpting in my furture.

I still think you should try low poly stuff.

 

[Huntn]

I still think you should try low poly stuff.

Such as? I’m not sure of the significance of low vs high poly when it comes to learning.

 

[Renzatic]

Such as? I’m not sure of the significance of low vs high poly when it comes to learning.

It's good, because you don't have to worry about textures, shading, UVs, or anything of the more complicated bits and pieces. All you're dealing with are colors, shapes, and lighting. It lets you build up your foundational modeling skills, giving you quicker feedback without having to get bogged down in the minutiae.

 

[Huntn]

It's good, because you don't have to worry about textures, shading, UVs, or anything of the more complicated bits and pieces. All you're dealing with are colors, shapes, and lighting. It lets you build up your foundational modeling skills, giving you quicker feedback without having to get bogged down in the minutiae.

I've been thinking about this suggestion and it sounds good. My question: I know UE is not your thing, so I'm wondering for low poly modeling would this be a Blender thing, and then export meshes into UE?

My impression is the huge advantage is that of UE, is that without any effort it gives you a framework for a game, with even a character who can walk around in an interact with a setting. Now in Blender can anything like this be created, with basically a game start position and a character who can interact with the environment? I'm assuming no.

Even though I've been told modeling can be done in UE, my impression is that it is primarily used to create game environments and something like Blender or Maya would be used to create many, most of the assets that go into a game scene, but really I have no clue.

 

[Renzatic]

I've been thinking about this suggestion and it sounds good. My question: I know UE is not your thing, so I'm wondering for low poly modeling would this be a Blender thing, and then export meshes into UE?

Your workflow won't be vastly different than what you've experienced already. You build your toys in Blender, which is your workshop, then boot them over to Unreal, your sandbox, to play with.

By themselves, Blender, Maya, and their ilk are primarily for making still renders and movies out of the objects you create. They don't have anything like player starts, or control schemes. If you want direct interactivity, that's what engines like Unreal are for.

If you want to get started on trying it out yourself, hit up Grant Abbitt's tutorials. He's got tons of tutorials on beginner friendly low poly work.

 

[Renzatic]

Another plus, that video shows the importance of origin points, and object/edit mode scaling, like what we were talking about earlier.

 

[Huntn]

Things are getting scary now,just started working on adding a terrain. I'll show that after it is decent.

​

 

[Huntn]

Actually I'm a little excited with a realization, the more I know, the more i realize I don't know, LOL

 

[Renzatic]

Actually I'm a little excited with a realization, the more I know, the more i realize I don't know, LOL

​

You did a really good job with that landscape.

 

[Huntn]

You did a really good job with that landscape.

Trees and bushes to come. For this landscape I had to review one of my 3rd party tutorials to add in volumetric fog.

 

[Huntn]

@Renzatic, I don't expect you to know what is going on with UE, but after getting the trees I want into my project, I'm trying to paint them in using the Foliage Tool (procedural painting?) and they appear perfectly perpendicular to the slope, so in essence instead of being vertical in the world, they are perpendicular to the slope and consequently lean down the slope. I'm been playing with for a couple hours, trying to figure out what setting controls this, been searching online, no luck so far.
If I place the trees individually they go in vertical like they should.

So I'll curse UE and put it aside until I get a clue. Also posted this over in the UE Forums. Maybe I'll get lucky.

I don't expect an answer from you just crying on your shoulder. It reconfirms that after I finish this up going to go back to basics.

 

[Renzatic]

@Renzatic, I don't expect you to know what is going on with UE, but after getting the trees I want into my project, I'm trying to paint them in using the Foliage Tool (procedural painting?) and they appear perfectly perpendicular to the slope, so in essence instead of being vertical in the world, they are perpendicular to the slope and consequently lean down the slope. I'm been playing with for a couple hours, trying to figure out what setting controls this, been searching online, no luck so far.
If I place the trees individually they go in vertical like they should.

So I'll curse UE and put it aside until I get a clue. Also posted this over in the UE Forums. Maybe I'll get lucky.

I don't expect an answer from you just crying on your shoulder. It reconfirms that after I finish this up going to go back to basics.

Yeah, that’s something I can’t answer. There will probably be a setting somewhere in the foliage paint properties that’ll allow you to adjust orientation, but I can’t tell you exactly what.

I’ll see if I can look it up tomorrow, when I’m back at my computer.

 

[Huntn]

Yeah, that’s something I can’t answer. There will probably be a setting somewhere in the foliage paint properties that’ll allow you to adjust orientation, but I can’t tell you exactly what.

I’ll see if I can look it up tomorrow, when I’m back at my computer.

OMG, I was making setting changes and nothing happened. I did this for a couple of hours, and the program seemed functional but it was not until when I quit in disgust, but then restarted UE, that the settings I had been playing with actually started working the way they should, $%#!!@!!er!!.

 

[Huntn]

This is not finished, more to add, and dark spots need light
which i assume will happen in post processing...
Despite all the work, this is giving me good vibes about the future. ​

Ok, almost after pulling what hair I have left out trying to figure out which settings I was to use to make my trees straight/verticle and not perpendicular/slanted down the hill with the terrain, and by accident I discovered that this engine program can sometime act like it's working but the settings are not taking effect. Restarting the app is the answer for that.

 

[Renzatic]

and by accident I discovered that this engine program can sometime act like it's working but the settings are not taking effect. Restarting the app is the answer for that.

How often do you rebuild your scenes? That may help.

 

[Huntn]

I’m still working with this, but frequently take a day or 2 off, or I download something that takes a while or the program takes an un-godly amount of time to process freaking 18000 shaders in a project I loaded up to pluck assets from, in this case bushes… I finally found some bushes to use and fingers crossed I can place them tomorrow. But that is the issue I frequently run into, getting bogged down with this kind of stuff.

Yes, I’m still going to jump to low poly design, I think that will help a lot in the planning stages of a project besides learning something that will benefit me. my plan will be to build a project first as low poly, to make sure the layout works, and then transistion to high poly.