We have a 3D scanner, which quickly produces rigged 3D models of people (Portal 3D scanner).
Currently the rigged model is saved in single FBX file, but it’s not a big problem to have it in any other format (glTF, DAE, BLEND, X3D).
We need to place every model in a prepared scene, and render a video sequence: this way we give everybody either a video where he or she is the main hero, or a game, where he or she is the playable character.
How would it be possible to have an UE4 package for Windows that takes FBX (or any other similar format) files for input in run-time? Is it possible?
regards the question, i do not have experience with that, but i can propose an alternative. you can add morph targets to one face 3D object per gender, calculate the facial details from your 3D scanner, and apply these details as input for morph targets.
if it is possible in your case, it will cost much less memory and CPU power.
That’s creative approach, never thought of it But unfortunately the topology is quite different (totally different hairstyles, scarfs, ruffles, pleats, …), and polygon count is quite different, so this approach if implemented would give noticeable artifacts.
I’m also very curious about run-time FBX input. I’ve many animation sequences in FBX format in the disc and i want to play all those animations during gameplay without importing them manually one by one.
Unreal ships with Autodesk’s FBXSDK as a third-party module. I wrote about linking it for runtime use on my blog.
Alternatively you could use the RuntimeMeshLoader plugin. It uses assimp for mesh import, supports many formats and even has blueprints exposed.
But unfortunately the topology is quite different (totally different hairstyles, scarfs, ruffles, pleats, …), and polygon count is quite different, so this approach if implemented would give noticeable artifacts.