Maya to Unreal Workflow: World Orientation Z or Y up?

Hey there, it looks like UE4 is Z up while maya is by default Y up.

My question is: For my UE4 projects should I build all my asset preferences in maya to match UE and make Z up or should I change them during export or in UE4 upon import/after import?

I dont mind working in Z up… I have been asked to do that before on projects…

I am mostly looking for the “best” work flow… It seems to me that if UE is Z up, that my asset files should all be created Z up as well? (Im an artist, so this stuff usually a programmer tells me what to do hehe)

Should I change UE4 to be Y up instead of changing Maya?

My guess is to change maya to match UE4 because that will ultimately be less of a headache than fixing the orientation on export/import or in UE… If Im creating ALL new assets from scratch in maya, it wouldn’t be difficult to start with Z up from the beginning!

Thanks!

You don’t need to change either.
Maya is fully able to translate between its own (Z up) and UE4’s (Y up) on export, so you can work “upright” in both without any alterations.

120314-mayaexport.gif

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had a question about how to match the grid and model size between the two platforms but found this solution myself!:

I am adding a solution to my own question! I found this great video: UE4/Maya: Set Up Grid in MayaLT/Maya to Match Unreal Engine 4 - YouTube

Basically: set Maya to Cm… .set grid size to 1000 set grid units to 50 and youll get a 1:1 Maya to UE conversion!

Yay!

It would be better to keep Maya as default Y up I guess. Since other engines are mostly Y up if you want to reuse the asset in the future. And If someone uses the default Maya Y up to open your Z up assets, it will add a -90 rotation for x-axis. It might confuse people.
And since UE4’s default import option “convert scene” will convert to the Z up, we don’t need to worry about this.