The below two conversations are very interesting to a sketchup user. but……
They don’t really answer my main problem. It looks like I can export from sketchup fine using the .fbx format and all the textures (or base colours in UE4 terms) come across but i have to assign them again to the meshes/geometry/model i’ve brought across - so not really fine, but with a bit of work I get it in. Avoiding this would be great - and to have all your groups (or assets) in the location they where in, in sketchup. see below conversations
So where was I….I see my model/models imported and base colours/textures are now UE4 materials (specularity applied etc) - BUT
Then when I build lighting I get errors that say my uvs are overlapping.
As a long time sketchup-er, UV’s aren’t that common in the work flow, they’re there but one never knew that until you work in another program - so I have limited knowledge of them.
can anyone help?
It would be great if the answer wasn’t just - learn Blender or Maya and do it all from there. As in one of the conversations above Sketchup would work amazingly if it was incorporated into a ‘games creation’ work flow. Modelling fast and easy and easy to learn. Huge amounts of time and effort needed to learn those programs, UE4 would be leapt upon by sketchup architects - myself, I’m a set designer.
I’m sorry that this is an issue. It’s actually a common one that comes up for those that are beginners and intermediate users learning modeling and using UVs and for those like yourself that are Sketchup users who don’t have to set UVs.
First and foremost, Unreal Engine is not a modeling program. There are ways to assist with some modeling errors like the overlapping UV error that comes up within the engine but these are more stop gaps to assist with the issue rather than to fix the issue as you would be able to do in Blender, Maya, or 3Ds Max.
This particular error can be fixed by opening up your static mesh inside the content browser > go the ‘Window’ tab > select 'Generate Unique UVs.> This will open a tab under the details panel on the right. Click Apply.
In the details panel, you’ll want to search ‘lightmap’. two selections will appear. Change the Light Map Coordinate Index to 1. This is effectively choosing the second uv channel you just created. This will be used to store your shadow information for the mesh and get rid of the overlapping uvs error that pops up.
You will also want to adjust the light map resolution to a higher value to get better shadow resolution. something in the 128-256 range should work for you depending on your needs.
I hope this helps shed some light on your questions.
progress - heres the result - there seems to be some problems
I’m showing you a stage with some screens behind. its just a test scene i made very dark with some general lighting around and then 3 spots pointing down to the circular stage.
as you can see where its been triangulated (during the .fbx i suppose) it looks rough
That looks more like a UV error more than anything else. Can you post a screen shot of your UV image for channel 1 and channel 2? When viewing in the mesh editor window make sure that the UV button is selected in the toolbar to show them along with your mesh.
Depending on how the lights are setup here and UV that was generated by UE4 (not the best solution because it can be wonky) Also depending on how the texture is laid out coule cause the line/stretching on the right hand side.
If you are having trouble still, you can always upload your asset here and I will take a look and give you direct steps on what needs to be done or you can create an asset that does the same thing for me to give you guidance on.
