Any Unreal Engine Experts Here?

You got a link to the video? I tried looking it up, but couldn't find it.
 
Huntn said:
Am I going crazy? ;) He was talking about applying “art” to meshes while in the tutorial, in Maya it looked like he was applying textures. This just about blew my mind, sure model some nice finished meshes to replace the block meshes, but I’ll be damned if you are going to be putting textures on these items destined for a UE project, aren’t I? ;)
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I watched through about 2/3rds of the video. What he's doing is fairly simple. He's simply exporting basic geometry created in Unreal to use as a template/guideline in Maya/Blender/Whathaveyou. The advantages of doing this are that you can bang out basic shapes fairly quicklike to get an idea for proportions, size, and flow, then send it to one of the big editors for the heavy detailing.

You need to dissuade yourself of the idea that objects in Unreal are just for Unreal, and objects made elsewhere are incompatible. Geometry is geometry, UVs are UVs, no matter where you're making them. The same applies to texture based materials. If you UV unwrap an object, and texture it in Blender, it's gonna look exactly the same there as it does in UE. PBR textures are simply image files, and are universal among all 3D applications. The only thing you may have to do in the transition is reapply the image files to their appropriate material slots in UE.

I think what you need to do right now is make a basic object, and UV unwrap it. I still think you're focusing too much on the big picture, while you should be focusing on the smaller day to day things that make up 3D editing. After all, having a good grasp on the workflows for creating sweeping landscapes won't do you much good if you don't know how to make a simple rock.

Do what I did when I was first starting out with modeling, and try to copy things you like the looks of. Like the building in that video? Try to recreate it yourself, bit by bit. He gives you a good start point. Block out the overall shape with simple primitives. Once you've done that, use that as a foundation, and expand from there.
 
Renzatic said:
I watched through about 2/3rds of the video. What he's doing is fairly simple. He's simply exporting basic geometry created in Unreal to use as a template/guideline in Maya/Blender/Whathaveyou. The advantages of doing this are that you can bang out basic shapes fairly quicklike to get an idea for proportions, size, and flow, then send it to one of the big editors for the heavy detailing.

You need to dissuade yourself of the idea that objects in Unreal are just for Unreal, and objects made elsewhere are incompatible. Geometry is geometry, UVs are UVs, no matter where you're making them. The same applies to texture based materials. If you UV unwrap an object, and texture it in Blender, it's gonna look exactly the same there as it does in UE. PBR textures are simply image files, and are universal among all 3D applications. The only thing you may have to do in the transition is reapply the image files to their appropriate material slots in UE.

I think what you need to do right now is make a basic object, and UV unwrap it. I still think you're focusing too much on the big picture, while you should be focusing on the smaller day to day things that make up 3D editing. After all, having a good grasp on the workflows for creating sweeping landscapes won't do you much good if you don't know how to make a simple rock.

Do what I did when I was first starting out with modeling, and try to copy things you like the looks of. Like the building in that video? Try to recreate it yourself, bit by bit. He gives you a good start point. Block out the overall shape with simple primitives. Once you've done that, use that as a foundation, and expand from there.
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Thanks I appreciate the advice. I understand the importance of modeling, I want to get though these UE environmental tutorials, I want to set up a basic scene using these UE fundamentals, and then when it comes time to model a building, I'll be back doing blender again.

The reason I am questioning what the guy is doing, is because the UE materials are basically programming that control how the inserted textures look in UE, all sorts of visual qualities controlled by material logic. Some are highly complex, and if I understand it correctly, there is no cross over of these material functions from UE to Blender or the other way around.

So if these meshes are to be placed in UE ultimately, I can see them being exported as rough meshes to Blender to finish them to look properly. But I don't see doing anything with textures in Blender, because once these come back to UE, you are going to be applying textures via materials to them, so why do that at all in Blender? I don't think the UE materials can cross to other products.
 
@Renzatic Ok someone in the UE forum answered my question. This maybe what you were saying too:
Obviously the materials in a DCC app won’t look the same, as it’s not the same renderer, but there are some things you can check by applying the textures there, such as whether if the texture wraps properly around the mesh.

Have no fear about me getting back into Blender, but environment in UE is kind of like the Big Kahuna. I'm doing these UE material/environmental tutorials and if I don't start working with them, I'll lose them in my memory. I did an entire scene based on zero modeling. And since I want to get the UE environment down pat. I'll complete this section, but more importantly work with these UE tools, and when I actually start putting a scene together that takes me beyond the UE environment where 3D modeling is required, I'll be hitting that again hard.

In this current Landscape I've learned some very important things such as
  • Landscape Layering.- This is how you can do a large area, and give different sections unique materials for each area.
  • Landscape Material- Different than the Vertex Painting (I think- currently in this section), this is for large areas likely with mountains where you want an texture appearance based on height, like green for the mountain bottoms and rock for the tops.
 
Huntn said:
Obviously the materials in a DCC app won’t look the same, as it’s not the same renderer, but there are some things you can check by applying the textures there, such as whether if the texture wraps properly around the mesh.
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It won't look EXACTLY the same, but they'll otherwise look like the same object. UVs are UVs. Image textures are image textures. A rocket ship textured in Maya will look like a rocket ship in Unreal, in Blender, or in Unity. What I'm speaking of here are basic, bog standard texture based materials on UV mapped objects, which, yeah, you'll need to build in Blender to make sure everything fits together the way it should. If you were talking about things like procedural textures, master materials, or things like that, you'll want to stick exclusively to UE for those, since similar textures in Blender won't port over.
 
Renzatic said:
It won't look EXACTLY the same, but they'll otherwise look like the same object. UVs are UVs. Image textures are image textures. A rocket ship textured in Maya will look like a rocket ship in Unreal, in Blender, or in Unity. What I'm speaking of here are basic, bog standard texture based materials on UV mapped objects, which, yeah, you'll need to build in Blender to make sure everything fits together the way it should. If you were talking about things like procedural textures, master materials, or things like that, you'll want to stick exclusively to UE for those, since similar textures in Blender won't port over.
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This is why this tutorial blew my mind a little, the author does not take any time to explain why, he just says I’m doing this in Maya and damned if he is not applying textures and talking about modifying how things look on the side of a building, like variations in a weathered wood siding, while in Maya, while in a freaking Landscape Tools tutorial, while he subsequently working on these big fancy materials in UE that are how the textures are applied in the project. He was talking about work flow and how layout design differs from applying the artwork, and this section of the tutorial is more suited for a big picture view how projects are put together as part of a team.

I don‘t mind that but if he is going to talk about applying textures to a building in Maya, imo he should be saying why he is doing this in Maya, however as an “advanced course” maybe he is assuming that people watched this are already up to speed in the other aspects of game production.

Yes you can add a base color texture in UE, but then there is also typically a roughness component, a normal component, and sometimes a height component which comes into play frequently in vertex painting, and could easily be used on a texture like wood siding. My impression is that in Blender, maybe is a different manner, but to get this same appearance, a similiar amount of effort would have to be spent to insert these kinds of variation but why bother If your doing a UE project?

Regarding making sure a texture will tile properly on a mesh, created in Blender/Maya that makes sense to me and I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

Anyway, I understand your concern about how I am spending my time, and please don’t consider this post as any kind of a rebuff of your perspective or advice. This is how I see it, this is how I am motivated, UE offers the basis for creating an environmental world setting including terrain, water, lighting and atmosphere which is created and then it is populated with meshes for plants, natural features, buildings and other props that are made in seperste modeling programs.

It is the environment such as the Forest Road that got me going, and I want to have the confidence I know what I am doing with terrains/landscapes, and be able to layout a scene/setting for my project. I’m also familiar with blockout meshes which can help me rough out my idea.

And then, yes, you are absolutely right, I have to hit Blender hard for modeling when I want to start populating my scene with significant natural and man made objects that are specific to my scenes.
 
Huntn said:
My impression is that in Blender, maybe is a different manner, but to get this same appearance, a similiar amount of effort would have to be spent to insert these kinds of variation but why bother If your doing a UE project?
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Think of the majority of the texture work you'll be doing inside of UE as extra detailing. Like you have your little building, completely textured, and you want to overlay, say, some moss and dirt on top of the wood boards of your building. You already have the foundation in place. It's been built and textured in Blender already. You just want to add some random details to flesh out your object.

There are two ways you could do that.

One would be to paint all the overlay effects in Blender, bake all the new details down to a unique PBR texture stack, then export it out to UE. That would work, and it'd look fine, but then every instance of the building you place will have all those same details in the same place. If you want more unique buildings, you'll have to create more details, export them out, and give each one it's own PBR texture stack.

Or you could make a building with more generic details, and use master materials, vertex masks, and other material tricks to give you more flexibility with your details, allowing you to create as many unique iterations on same base as you want without using as much memory.

The important thing is that you have your generic base to work from. And with something with as many bits and bobs as your average building, all needing to be aligned properly in all their right places to look good, you'll need to UV map that.

Remember, the more specific detailing you need to do, the more likely it is you'll have to UV map it. For simple objects, like your underlying landscape mesh, a planar projection will be enough to get you buy. A formless blob of a rock? A spherical projection of a simple featureless stone texture will do. Both of these UE can do. It's when you start getting detailed, when you need to be able to say "this should go here on my model," that you need to UV.
 
It would really help tremendously if you knew exactly what UVs are, and how they work.

I'll throw up a quick shot of a simple UV layout of an old model I did awhile back. If you can look at it, and tell what's going on, you'll be pretty well set. If you can't, I'll need to explain it to you. In knowing what UVs are, and what they do, you'll understand SO much more about material work.

This is foundational stuff. If you don't understand these foundations, then everything is going to be so much more confusing for you than it needs to be.

UVMap.jpg
 
Renzatic said:
Think of the majority of the texture work you'll be doing inside of UE as extra detailing. Like you have your little building, completely textured, and you want to overlay, say, some moss and dirt on top of the wood boards of your building. You already have the foundation in place. It's been built and textured in Blender already. You just want to add some random details to flesh out your object.

There are two ways you could do that.

One would be to paint all the overlay effects in Blender, bake all the new details down to a unique PBR texture stack, then export it out to UE. That would work, and it'd look fine, but then every instance of the building you place will have all those same details in the same place. If you want more unique buildings, you'll have to create more details, export them out, and give each one it's own PBR texture stack.

Or you could make a building with more generic details, and use master materials, vertex masks, and other material tricks to give you more flexibility with your details, allowing you to create as many unique iterations on same base as you want without using as much memory.

The important thing is that you have your generic base to work from. And with something with as many bits and bobs as your average building, all needing to be aligned properly in all their right places to look good, you'll need to UV map that.

Remember, the more specific detailing you need to do, the more likely it is you'll have to UV map it. For simple objects, like your underlying landscape mesh, a planar projection will be enough to get you buy. A formless blob of a rock? A spherical projection of a simple featureless stone texture will do. Both of these UE can do. It's when you start getting detailed, when you need to be able to say "this should go here on my model," that you need to UV.
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Thanks! Don’t take this as me arguing or disagreeing, just thinking out loud. :)
I’ve been exposed to UVs but obviously need to study them more, but so far I’ve used pre-made plant elements, which seem abundant, so I’m thinking as I step into modeling more, I’ll get up,to speed with UVs. Those question I have was because the tutor is briefly talking about applying textures to building parts while in an advanced landscape tools tutorial which really has nothing to do with building textures as far as I can tell.

Most of my exposure is to UE landscape type materials which tend to be very complex. When I get to architectural meshes, I need to see what, if any texture work these experts are doing outside of UE, because as far as I know say a texture is created in Blender and baked, then it would need the most simple of materials once in UE to apply the texture and this just does not seem to be the case, unless as you said more effects could be heaped on them.

However, there is a lot of lighting effects based on the environment in UE and the process of putting texture elements together brings them all into UE as separate material nodes, so at this point for landscapes, I don’t see a purpose to do anything in Blender for a UE project except check tiling when modeling and to create the base textures elements there? Or maybe in photoshop, but I’m not sure about the latter.

I understand how height and roughness gray scale images/texture nodes work, and there is no way so far that I can see that would equate to doing this in Blender, because these elements are effected by lighting in the setting before the baking occurs, because it has to reflect the setting and lighting conditions they are in.

Frequently one of the regular tutors in these tutorials talks about packing channels, and has briefly shown how to do this In Photoshop. I just have to see how that equates in the program you reccommrnded (what was the name again- Affinity Photo? :unsure:) I will buy that when I find myself having to pack channels.

When I did the Forest Road project, following along, I got it done to a degree, but that in no way prepared me for general terrain layout, but now after several more landscape/material tutorials I feel like I am getting a handle on that to actually know what my terrain options are. Landscape layering and landscape materials are big steps forward, and I look at landscape as a foundation I want to master first before expanding my modeling knowledge any further. But then I will be happily doing that. :D
 
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Renzatic said:
Figured I'd post this here too, since I love attention.
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BTW, I love the style of this, it's realistic while also having a sort of "game" type aesthetic (like I could totally see my character walking to the this area :D)
 
DT said:
BTW, I love the style of this, it's realistic while also having a sort of "game" type aesthetic (like I could totally see my character walking to the this area :D)
Click to expand...

I'm really trying for a more painterly look than a realistic one. I like being able to see all the brush strokes, which you can kinda fake with procedurals, but still never looked quite good enough for me to like it.

Right now, I'm trying this. I bought this brush set, which I'm now having to convert to Krita. I really like this style though, so it's worth the effort.

 
Renzatic said:
I'm really trying for a more painterly look than a realistic one. I like being able to see all the brush strokes, which you can kinda fake with procedurals, but still never looked quite good enough for me to like it.
Click to expand...

I'll take stylized artistry over attempts at photorealism all day for game design.
 
Renzatic said:
I painted a tree!


View attachment 13374
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Every leaf hand painted? ;) Looks great!

Regarding me and UT, I’ve realized that I needed to review my extensive material notes. Going through the examples, once was not enough. When I look at a material I see a bunch of nodes and the picture is not clear, but when I add labels the relationships become clearer, and it serves as learning reinforcement. Of interest, once you get a good material you really don’t need to know that much about it, other than you become more aware of the choices that are available.

The single most important thing I learned regarding landscapes is landscape layers. It really opens up variation in landscape texturing. I think I said that before. ;) So soon, again, I predict I’ll be out of the books and working on my UE project. It’s only been 6 months since I started this hobby and still feeling good about it. :D
 

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