And material colors.
#aec-visualization
grizzled nest
and while it's not necessarily obvious, the blender shot has a serious white out problem. (But that's fixable.)
royal osprey
you will have a harder time seting up lighting in Unreal, because you have to bake everytime you want to see a change. But after you are done with that you can render out the whole sequence in seconds. So it's more set up time vrs more render time.
and as much as I like blender, it is not known for fast renders
noble geyser
@dusty gyro it's not about intensity or angle. It's about overall lighting and indirect lighting being physically correct in Blender
In UE4 it's super exaggerated
dusty gyro
hmm
noble geyser
For example, on the left hand side the half-wall bounces too much light off itself to the floor. As if it's not a wall but an area light.
noble geyser
How do I work around it?
@grizzled nest what's wrong with material colors?
@royal osprey Blender renders instantly, using Cycles and GPU compute. UE4 bakes on CPU and literally takes an hour more in my case.
dusty gyro
@noble geyser what an hour for this scene ?
dusty gyro
oh right the i3 explains why it took so long :p
noble geyser
And 1060GTX, which is a way more powerful that i3 in terms of computation power
dusty gyro
I think a GPU progressive lightmapper is in the works for UE4
Not sure when it'll be available though
noble geyser
The only workaround that comes to mind right now is baking lightmaps as emissive texture in Blender
Then pluging it into emissive pin of each material and having those meshes not to receive any Unreal lighting somehow
dusty gyro
that's overkill
what are your lightmass settings ?
try with a lower bounce count
like 5 or 10
noble geyser
Aye, will do
dusty gyro
also, you can reduce the quality a bit if you want fast bakes to check for errors like that leaking light
royal osprey
@noble geyser If you keep your lightmaps under control lightmass render is not that bad, you can also use distributed render for it. But once the bake is complete all frames are almost instantaneous, takes longer to save them than to render them, even at 4k
noble geyser
well, that's obvious 😉 But to get that after-bake time takes too long on i3 :/
dusty gyro
@noble geyser have you tried reducing the lightmap resolution a bit ?
when you go in lightmap reoslution preview mode in the scene view, what color are your objects ?
noble geyser
I haven't checked :/ I am using 2048 res in the World Settings and each mesh has 1024 min. lightmap size and 2048 lightmap size
royal osprey
it is quite high
press alt 0 to check, alt4 to go back to regular view
this is the density I use, render time about 10 minutes (16 core 2.6ghz)
dusty gyro
2048 should almost never be used
1024 is high already
128 to 512 is good
if 512 is not enough, split the mesh
:p
royal osprey
you can see my ceiling is red, it's because I have some hidden led lights I wanted to be really crisp
noble geyser
that too.. It's just a test run before I split mesh and all that. I need to get more or less decent lighting and then figure out world to meters scale. After that I can continue with modeling and all that stuff.
@royal osprey how do you know that lighting will look pretty close to your rendering in real-life?
I saw lumens and candelas measuring units for lights in UE4, but that seems to be for spot/point lights only
so no way to set realistic sun/sky light "units"
royal osprey
I depend on my eyes only.. Things that are key is to use lighter base colors than I originaly thought. the blackest black I use is over 50 rgb. disable auto exposure when editing, Keep the image relatively flat and add contrast later with gama in post processig volume.
noble geyser
aye, but that's not what I mean.. Let's say you present this to a client. They approve, build, but then when it's all said and done, lighting doesn't quite look like what was presented.
how to avoid that kind of situation ? I know in Blender you can literally setup realistic lighting and it will closely match real-life project.
royal osprey
I understand, you can use IES lights for interiors, exterior changes depending on time of day, time of year weather etc so exteriors are harder to aproximate
I have used IES lights in Unreal, but I have not paid attention to the brightness, and never thought of how real it is.
noble geyser
my issue is basically this - having real-life interiors to be too dark during the day because of maybe wrongly chosen size of windows or not having enough windows.
royal osprey
in reality, interiors are very dark compared to exteriors, try to take a photograph of a window from the inside when the day is bright. Your eyes will see detail outside the window, your camera will seee pure white ouside, or pure black inside, depending on what it exposes
noble geyser
aye, thanks
royal osprey
that is what autoexposure fixes in a way. when you go inside it adjusts, just like our eyes.
clients usually want this https://i.stack.imgur.com/L9UkF.jpg
the reality is more like this https://i.stack.imgur.com/4X35x.jpg
noble geyser
got this going today https://s13.postimg.org/lidxewdx1/Highres_Screenshot00000.png
(never mind aliasing - it's gone when running in mobile VR thanks to 2x MSAA)
with reduced lightmap sizes (512 on meshes, 1024 in the world) lighting builds a way faster
but
I am not sure how people do archviz in VR
the scale feels off and playing with World to Meters doesn't help :/
royal osprey
for VR you have to model to scale, it's very sensitive. Your model doesn't look like any real building I've seen, windows are too low, and those divider walls don't make much sense.
noble geyser
Divider wall does just that - separates areas (And it's just initial design, things might change)
Windows are not standard, but wall thickness is.
10 ft ceilings (which is somewhat standard nowadays in US)
So, the model is built in real-life units (had to convert imperial to metric though), 1:1 scale
And the reason I know it doesn't feel right in VR is due to queen size mattress with spring box in one of the bedrooms - when I stand next to it in VR it looks small.
median mural
use meters probably I don't know ft and inches very confusing
put more objects that are correct size build a scene and after that talk about feeling
correct scale is relative to other things it's not like there is only one set of window sizes in real world
walls can be any scale in real life. Probably your brain just can't guess correctly before you have more objects. Or your VR settings are wrong.
noble geyser
Well, in US it's all inches and feet 😃 But for this purpose I converted units to model in cm in Blender, so that there are no issues when bringing it into UE4..
everything can be of any size, but since this is about real life project, the cost comes into consideration pretty quickly. Anything that isn't common standard in US costs an additional arm and a leg.
like I said (and it's not shown on this screenshot) I have a queen size bed in the bedroom and that feels off to me in VR.
median mural
just use real life values
noble geyser
I did
median mural
do you use plans?
noble geyser
worth mentioning I am using Gear VR, not Rift/Vive, for VR
yeah, I drafted floor plan before I modeled this interior
median mural
you probably don't want to go 512 on the lighmap then
you will run out of memory very quick that way
as in you texture memory on the gpu
noble geyser
Aye.. So far it hasn't been an issue, but if I run into it, I will reduce the size
median mural
¯_(ツ)_/¯
I kinda think it's better to make it bigger if you need it
wasn't you saying that render takes a lot of time?
noble geyser
well, the idea is to see if it's big enough before finding a builder. Sq. ft. costs ~$150 nowadays. My house came up to ~3k+ sq. ft., which would end up ~$500k to build. That's impossible amount of money. So I figured I can re-design it to be smaller, but I need to make sure it's not hobbit's house at the end of the day. I hate crammed spaces. Thus I figured testing it in VR would be a good idea, since I could see how it feels, before going forward with final design and real-life construction.
I guess I should just make my existing place in VR and tweak scale and camera height to where it feels 1:1, and based on those proportions make a new interior.
dusty gyro
@noble geyser prototyping for future irl construction is awesome :p
I've done this for a colleague who wanted to see if the volumes were right for his wife's future Orthodontics cabinet
very rough one, only walls and lighting. But it sure was enough for the wife to be amazed to see how it'll look like to walk inside it
median mural
it would be tough if you never did that before
dusty gyro
yeah
you can also do the layout with BSP @noble geyser
much faster iterations within UE4
dusty gyro
well from a modelling perspective its faster since you don't have to transition from a tool to another
performance yeah for sure its slower
I was referring to it as a prototyping tool :p
median mural
I kinda like my set up with blender scripts I just press re import and I got my edits in ue4
modeling is very fast in blender
dusty gyro
dreaming of a live link between autodesk tools and UE4, no button press, only bliss
noble geyser
there is Mesh Tool plugin for UE4, but I haven't purchased it just yet
I've done game dev and mobile VR before, but it's nothing like trying to match real-life architecture 😃
median mural
I ditched autodesk to switch to UE4 + blender. Cheap and effective workflow
not free because of Substance Designer
dusty gyro
still cheap :p
median mural
like I made 2 variants of a thing in 60 minutes of rendering it was like 6 renders
in corona it would be like 30 min per image and pretty noisy. And also not in 4k
stark sandal
does anybody know why is it crash so often? when I build a lightmap and get some overlapping warnings I usually get a crash every fucking time, its so annoying! cuz for 30 min a have 15 times crash, a have simple scene with a one house and ground from fbx, so is it possible because of build of version unreal is bad?
i changed main UV a few times, changed uv lightmap, and nothing, just getting different number percent of overlapping more or less, and always crash after build lightmap
stark sandal
12 ram
stark sandal
didnt change it yet, default i guess
stark sandal
yes but for me there useless info ) nothing much
dusty gyro
well you could check what caused UE to crash
stark sandal
there so much to read, about hundred lines, should i find something specific?
stark sandal
dusty gyro
most likely the problems are here
stark sandal
so much errors)
stark sandal
hmm, no, it was long time ago when i update it, maybe i should try)
dusty gyro
yep, try to update the drivers
I had a lot of crashes when running months old drivers
crashes are less frequent with an updated driver
stark sandal
right, forgot about driver, one of the most popular problem solving bugs thing ))
dusty gyro
😉
stark sandal
updated, created a new scene, dropped fbx model, created material with texture and again crash 2 times, with no error in log file (
stark sandal
@dusty gyro i tried different models and different fbx version, and even obj format, the same problem
@median mural only after lightmap build, sometimes after Apply button in material editor, but rarely
my specs
median mural
everything last version?
median mural
it never crushed on my machine
stark sandal
you lucky)
median mural
I have skill of bug avoidance from years of 3d max usage
I feel then software will crush and save often
stark sandal
haha thats why) i dont have that skill i worked all my life in XSI 😃
then now in Houdini
median mural
Yeah I want to pick up houdini for procedural modeling great stuff
but learning curve isn't great
atm I use blender for modeling
apparently some people think that it's not stable but after 3d max everything stable
stark sandal
"after 3d max everything stable" - the best quote and description about 3d max )
median mural
anyway about your issue. There is a software in the tray called Swarm and you can change how it logs things
can help you track your issue
dusty gyro
S U P E R V E R B O S E
stark sandal
@median mural ok ill try, thanx
stark sandal
installed 4.17 and still didnt get any crash ) works fine
short cairn
So, I have a lighting problem and I think I'm overthinking it. I'm building a visualization of an art project that irl was comprised of a bunch of small LED lights (100+, spread out) and displayed at nighttime. I'm currently using emissive materials for these lights, which looks fine close up. My problem is that when the camera gets too far away from the lights, the light disappears due to the led model being too small.
I was thinking of abusing LODs to make the emissive model larger as the camera gets further away, but was wondering if there's a smarter way to do this.
thorn parcel
I'd probably just use a lot of tiny static lights for that. But it depends on how exactly your scene looks. You could potentially also use a long source length for the light if they are very close together.
You could also check out that material option to use emissive as area lights (material options). But Idk if that gets baked or if that was just for LPVs. @short cairn
short cairn
I forgot to mention the leds blink, so I would have to use dynamic lighting.
It looks like Light propagation volumes could achieve this, I'll look into that.
along with lots of directional lights
grizzled nest
It's the light models and not the light emission you're after?
short cairn
I think I'm confused as to what I can do with the engine. What I'm trying to achieve is being able to see many blinking leds at a distance.
they don't need to cast light onto any other surfaces
grizzled nest
Found a post saying increasing the bounds scale of an object will increase the distance before it culls.
https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/445098/disable-lod-distance-cull.html
short cairn
thanks, I'll give that a shot!
thorn parcel
@short cairn can you maybe show a screen of the scene?
tulip prawn
does anyone use sketchup here with ue4?
tepid jasper
Wondering where to start if I wanna get into architectural visualization with unreal (with VR-Support) ? I'd be new to unreal ... just looking for the right tool to get my hands on if I want to realize some indoor/outdoor scene to walk through. Any ideas? Tutorials?
lucid orbit
@tulip prawn few people use su, better ask straight away and pray
solemn hawk
you can use sketchup, but most of the time (read: unless you're just making boxes) you'd have to clean the geometry in a more traditional 3d tool like 3ds max or blender
sketchup is good for blocking out scenes quickly, but not for detail unless you're really anal about how you model with it
tulip prawn
Mhh... I take it you use 3dsMax? - When shifting from 3dsmax to UE4... are you able to maintain groups/order of some sort?
For example, in sketchup you may have one group for a door and within that group several others for door handles, hinges, whatever else. But upon taking it into UE4, it all becomes separate entities
cyan ether
imho groups should be banished by artists , they're cumbersome and obfuscated in both apps, assemble your structures with heirarchies instead and have direct selectable access to all objects, and none of the matrix transforms can go haywire like with groups
datasmith supports heirarchies and carries them across
median mural
@tulip prawn sketchup isn't very good modeling software. Chances are if you want to do something good you will have to change software package.
by default ue4 will make everything separate and it's better then groups of stuff for performance reasons
you want to reuse everything
tulip prawn
@median mural Mhm, I suppose the problem is that at work 3dsMax would be an unnecessary expense compared to Sketchup/Vray
median mural
@tulip prawn there is blender I use blender
actually I prefer blender to 3d max
3d max is painfully slow for modeling
but it's good for rendering and some advanced stuff. But then you can do most things in blender for free
but my workflow is blender(meshes)->Substance(textures)->ue4(rendering)
lucid orbit
you can combine meshes on ue4 import
so you can make component for door full of subgroups/subcomponents and merge them in ue4
sketchup is generally fine, but it requires some knowledge and practice to make it working nicely in ue4
comparing to standard workflow where you model everything in real 3d modeller like 3dsmax/blender, you waste time on preparing meshes for ue4 and gain time on iterating/blocking meshes in sketchup (which it does really, really fast), but balance between wasted/gained time varies on your skill and what kind of meshes youre doing
if you go sketchup->blender route, i suggest pretty much mandatory and free sketchup importer plugin for blender and optionally yavne plugin for vertex normal fixing if your sketchup meshes are bit more complex (like cylinders attached to walls, meshes with bevels etc)
tulip prawn
I have heard of blender, but never actually used it.
For doing renders with Vray in sketchup - I would normally build the entire thing in SketchUp. Afterwards , I would populate it with furniture/fixings from warehouse if necessary (or if theyre simple enough draw it myself). I think quite often furniture/curvy stuff from 3D warehouse tend to be... meshes? And, the few times I have tried importing such sketchup models into UE4 - I have found those precise items (say a toilet) missing textures with text overlay saying that something could not be assigned to the model (the toilet)
Blender being free is a bonus if it were to be used at work as that would mean them not having to fork out an insane money for 3dsMax which would be used on occasions rather than daily basis.
But is it inferior to 3dsmax?
P.S. In blender - can you work with precise dimensions, or is it more 'free' like 3ds max?
royal osprey
You can work with precision in Blender. I have never used Sketchup, they say it's pretty easy to use. The thing is every object I have found made in sketchup transfers to other software with lots of duplicate and wonky geometry. Looks ok till you try to render it. or clean it up.
tulip prawn
How do you work with precision in Blender?
Is it along the lines of AutoCad/Sketchup where you enter specific dimensions
or... more along the lines of 3ds max where you will start with a mesh of specific size but after that it's all art 😄
correct me if I'm wrong (I cant use 3ds max or blender)...
royal osprey
well, I'm not the best one to answer that, I only use CAD software to convert client's floorplans, and I haven't used max in over a decade. What I can tell you is that there are ways of knowing and modifying the size of objects or selections in Blender. and it does tell you the sizes as you create prmitives etc. There are also a few plugins to help with drawing floorplans, adding windows and other arch viz stuff.
limber canopy
@tulip prawn what you can do is import stuff from a cad software to have more precise dimensions as a base but still that's just a base and the precision will be lost, software like Blender, Maya, Max are not like CAD software.
You just approximate dimensions, but thats generally enough for viz work.
you don't needed to have a precision of .01 microns, just make sure you follow your grid and try to have the scale correct in the extend blender/max will let you.
of course this greatly depends on what kind of viz work your clients want.
grizzled nest
CAD has a precision of .01 microns? Those are some tight tolerances.
limber canopy
I don't know if all cad has that kind of precision but some let you work at .01 microns
they are probably all different :p
grizzled nest
I was thinking... Blender uses floating point, and dimensions are abstract, so you can work at .01 microns, so long as your scene is 0.01 micron = 1 unit.
But I don't think that's what LooKahs meant by precision. You can enter specific dimensions in Blender, but I don't think you can, say, make a Cylinder object, give it dimensions and expect to interact with it non-destructively as an analytical object. It's going to take the form of X vertices, even if it's made from an extruded curve.
limber canopy
oh ok I was mostly thinking of the precision of the scale, like you want a object to move just one millimetre to the side.
this is actually not possible in max/blender because the unit size and the entire scale of the project is not perfect, it might tell you its 1 mm but its actually more (5 ~ 20 mm).
the scale is really off, specially with things like bevels, but usually for animation and viz work thats fine.
but if his worry is about having a non destructive workflow that's a different matter.
well 20 mm off is a bit of a exaggeration, but it can happen specially with bevels.
anyway, dont know what to recommend then XD
grizzled nest
The bevel modifier is somewhat broken. Too bad it's the most direct way to have nondestructive bevels/chamfers. There are likely plugins that do it better.
limber canopy
its not blender, thats the same in maya and max. its just that they are not built to be used as a cad software.
median mural
asaik CAD software don't actually work with triangles and uses math instead. You will not be able to render this kind of stuff in ue4 because it uses triangles
dusty gyro
yep, that's the difference between surface modelling and parametric modelling
when you modify your file to a format like .fbx, you loose all the parametric stuff and move to a triangle based mesh
it would be pretty awesome to do something like parametric modelling within UE4 though, maybe with the runtime procedural mesh component ?
median mural
that would be bad idea gpu designed to work with polygons
dusty gyro
you most CAD models are made with parametric tools 😬
if you go to surface, you loose data
which is quite important in CAD
median mural
but you gain uv's and performance
dusty gyro
yep
I'm working on a solution to get more or less the best of both worlds
at least performance AND cad data
dusty gyro
Finally finished the base stuff for a future CAD metadata workflow with datasmith 😤
Mesh is merged by selected layers for performance, but we keep the separated bits hidden unless you raycast them
drawcalls are kept to a minimum (~40/50 here with a dynamic sky+directional setup) and you still can check for individual part information 😃
dusty gyro
Very good progress on that tool, as we just integrated it with the Datasmith stuff (which I won't talk about here, since we're under nda ! I will post it on the forums though 😃 )
cyan ether
neat, I'll try check it
median mural
is this mistake?
cyan ether
sorta, having to boost global illumination like that usually takes you outta the trajectory of photorealism and good balanced lighting
if corrections need to be made its best boosting the sources, the lights that generated that gi, and lastly exposure control
median mural
but then correct value for sun is 3.14
cyan ether
could be, many variables in the complexities of a 3d scene, maybe no much sun is bleeding into the scene
median mural
interior is very dark on 1
cyan ether
skylight boosts should help more
median mural
hm ok I will try doing something with skylight
probably good idea to switch to proper hdri
median mural
lighting a scene properly have so many moving parts crazy
lucid orbit
hmm, how do you use cameras for mulitple views?
is there something similiar to viewport bookmark?
assuming that views have same camera settings at worst, at best they can differ in few parameters such as focal and blur
brute force would be duplicating cameras i guess, but i lose some sort of global control
hard oar
Do you mean to add multiple cameras, setup them independently and save the image from each view?
lucid orbit
not fully independently, all parameters are shared (like color adjustments), some are independent, such as blur settings
sounds complicated probably 😄
median mural
@lucid orbit I created cinematic and jump to seconds with level blueprint
pause->with 1,2,3,4,5 switch to seconds with correct camera locations. -> enter saves high quality screenshot
and you can automate this with for loop too
lucid orbit
nice idea, thanks
hard oar
If you have different cameras you can set color parameters independently. Just keep the original scene untouched
median mural
You can do that with cinematic just create new shot It will be new camera
also you can create a shot for every view. And have some fancy movement then you switch cameras
normal river
I am trying to find a good tutorial about illumination for Archviz. Where can i find a good one. Every tutorial i found has about two or three years. Thanks¡
hard oar
If I will ever have time, I would do a tutorial about illumination
There are so many different tutorials, the best is to check them and then make your own, based on your needs
lucid orbit
@normal river evermotion has good one
proper surge
Hello
hard oar
Anyway @lucid orbit use cinematics and then place as many cameras as you need. You can switch using the top-left menu on the editor. If you need to customize you camera settings (individually) you just need to select the camera using the world outliner
lucid orbit
thanks man, will check it
molten narwhal
does anyone know if i7s, ryzen, or xeons are better for lightmass?
hard oar
i work with ryzen, works perfectly
grizzled nest
Cores multiplied by clockspeed
i7/i9/Xeon are a few % better even after that
There is a 28-core Xeon monster somewhere out there and you can squeeze up to 4 of them on a board. Or 8 in some kind of freak multiple-rack scenario.
median mural
I feel like having swarm is better for lightmass
and apparently more cores better results
dusty gyro
yep that's the logic
need dem high end xeons gold or higher
or on a budget you can get some server racks maybe
median mural
what is correct way to work with exposure? I find it very hard. I want to set correct exposure on the camera and I can't find proper way to do it. Without autoexposure
hard oar
With exposure I usually set it differently for each project
If you need different effects you could try with more post process volumes
delicate garden
For different time of day and different types of scenes you use different exposure values, have to get a hang of it.
fallen basin
Hey all, I'm an architecture student delving into the realms of UE4. I have no game design background. But I'm very much a fan of the field. Here's something I made in UE4 using BSPs and Koola's samples. Purely an exercise in architectural composition and cinematic framing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckTmGD3E210
^This was from last year. I'm currently back into UE4 for my thesis project. Doing something with a fully dynamically lit scene. I'll be around asking a bunch of questions regarding dynamic GI lighting. thanks
lucid orbit
lovely minimalistic scene, roughness map on concrete could be less contrasty
gentle osprey
Would Architectural VR walkthroughs fit in the category of discussion for this room?
median mural
why not?
gentle osprey
Wanted to check first, because there is a lot of other development that happens like motion controller and what not. I guess the materials and lighting can at least be discussed here :]
hard oar
I love vr but it has still a low resolution for archviz at t the moment
normal river
@hard oar i’ll try. Thanks u
median mural
is there some way to clip cameras individually?
gentle osprey
@hard oar I agree that the resolution is too low for high quality presentation print board graphics, but I disagree that it's too low resolution for immersive experiences.
You and I could pick apart a VR walktrhough in the sense of what is missing resolution wise, but our clients wouldn't even be able to get over the experience in order to start nit picking things like poor resolution textures
Speaking of not being able to... can anyone help me understand this? https://i.imgur.com/5YZsPYz.png Even just a good lighting tutorial I think would help solve this
fringe tulip
@gentle osprey - I use Prefab Tool it make the job allot easier 😃
hard oar
@gentle osprey it's an UV problem. There are overlapping UVs and that's the black result. In any case try to not combine meshes while importing, cause you could often have problems like that
gentle osprey
Just before stopping for the evening I was finding that if I don't combine meshes, but then have to reimport submesh from the fbx, it ends up combining everything during the reimport.
I figured the uvs were the issue, thanks for confirming!
median mural
just export everything as separate files
gentle osprey
Not quite that easy from Revit, not that I can see anyhow.
Could maybe automate that using categories.
median mural
there is no option to export selected?
gentle osprey
No, I would have to isolate a category, export, isolate next category, export.
median mural
I personally use python script in blender for this
probably there is some scripting option there too?
gentle osprey
Currently I'm using a DAE exporter in Revit which just so happens to combine geometries with similar material names into a mesh
Then using a DAE to fbx converter.
Probably an option, just not a lot of time to figure that out between now and Thursday.
dusty gyro
@gentle osprey have you asked for an access to datasmith ?
gentle osprey
Yes, unfortunately their timeline doesn't match for mine on this project. :/
dusty gyro
argh :/
gentle osprey
oh, interesting. Thanks @median mural
gentle osprey
that didn't seem to help my situation, but it's good to know for alternate GI options
I think, too, that this would be too CPU intensive for a VR process
I found in Unity that I needed to bake the lighting because real time was just too much to maintain a good frame rate
gentle osprey
Just a quick update, I've made the actor movable to disable lightmap calculations for now: https://i.imgur.com/rrboN7s.png
hard oar
maybe it's just a theory, but did you separate everything in revit? i mean that maybe, if meshes are under the same level, ue group up everything. so u just need to have completely different layers in revit
gentle osprey
Do you mean to make separate FBX exports out of revit?
If so, what would youre recommended export categories be?
wow, youre? your*
it's been a long week already
hard oar
no i mean that probably ue reads your fbx as unique mesh so i think there's a export problem. i am thinking that there could be objects, in revit, under the same layer and ue reads them as unique
but it's just a theory
gentle osprey
I'm afraid I'm not familiar enough with UE to know what you mean by unique. Is this in reference to the light mapping or the reimporting the FBX
cinder remnant
when you combine Meshes, the Lightmap Resolution needs to be adjusted, since every single mesh still needs the same space for the Lightmap - just on a single texture.
You have to crank the LIghtmap Resolution very high with combined Meshes
@gentle osprey
dusty gyro
@cinder remnant @gentle osprey and, surprise, it doesn't work well at all with big meshes from revit 😄
I've kinda lost hope that AEC CAD will be able to use lightmaps for now , so we use fully dynamic lighting
gentle osprey
@dusty gyro thanks for that verification. Have you done work with Dynamic lighting in VR? We've found it to cause drastic performance issues which make the FPS too slow to work with VR. Especially with the reflection captures and point lights.
@cinder remnant thanks fro that information. The mesh is house sized :] Part of the problem is that the UV that comes with the FBX is poorly generated so even with a high resolution we get a poorly mapped lightmap on the surface of the mesh. For now I'm afraid the best experience for what we are trying to provide is to disable lightmaps for those actors
dusty gyro
@gentle osprey yeah we have some performance issues aswell, but we bare with it and avoid supersampling for now. What kind of machine do you use ?
our projects also mostly don't have any other light than the dir and sky, since we're doing engineering and not truly archviz
gentle osprey
I'd have to go remind myself of the specs for the presentation machine
I know I built it to run the VR executables (but not necessarily develop them)
dusty gyro
On this project we're getting between 10 and 12ms of rendertime for now
SS is at 1.1 in steamvr
And this is how our interiors with the dynamic sky/direct lighting looks like
hard oar
huuuge archviz
dusty gyro
yeah, that's why we're not going for models as detailed as what we see most of the time with "Archviz" and "UE4" tags 😄
sonic hawk
@dusty gyro that is really cool though!
dusty gyro
@sonic hawk it was a brainfuck to make a solid workflow, but we're getting really close to a revit > unreal integration in a few clicks 😃
at least for our needs
sonic hawk
I had no idea arch viz was a thing until I started looking at Unreal, all the stuff looks super cool
Especially that building, where is that gonna be - are you allowed to say?
dusty gyro
can you read french ? 😄
sonic hawk
nope 😛
dusty gyro
its gonna the new conservatory in the city or Rennes in France
obviously we're not gonna go as far in terms of rendering 😬
sonic hawk
That's so awesome
dusty gyro
the building has some really good architectural choices
all these diamond shapes are giving quite the futuristic looks
exterior view
sonic hawk
I really like the courtyard bit, those offices behind (if that's what they are) will be amazing
dusty gyro
yeah that's a bunch of offices and meeting rooms
hard oar
post-processed renders are awesome for prints and all the 2D communications. for the rest there's unreal 😛
lucid orbit
so i got email saying datasmith beta is ending soon and they still didnt make sketchup plugin
interesting
i thought sketchup was very popular
warm sentinel
gentle osprey
ah, is this what they are developing datasmith for?
nice building @dusty gyro , although, I'm not convinced that diamonds are a "futuristic look". This coming from someone who just finished a security shift in a building built in the 60s with diamond shaped patterns in the cmu block walls.
;]
No native support for Revit :/
@dusty gyro any part of the Revit>UE4 workflow you interested in sharing? >_>
dusty gyro
😄
well, I share a lot of the workflow on the Datasmith forums :x
we're under NDA on the technical details soo
@gentle osprey
gentle osprey
I am also under the NDA >_>
I'll check out the forums
I think I know who you are based on your posts though
python workflow?
I find it disturbing how little consideration is put towards developing the workflow to be used for packages which architects use to actually.. you know.. architect.
@dusty gyro are you guys using the static meshes for VR teleportation or are you using brushes to generate the spaces you can teleport to for VR?
dusty gyro
yeah that's me
we're using the untouched mesh for raycasting and TP, and a merged mesh with python for the visuals
fuck I reposted something that was above xD
gentle osprey
That makes sense.
I'm just trying to impress builders and home owners into thinking they need to invest in VR for pre construction walktrhoughs
so far everyone who has seen it wants it... until they see the price tag
man, I need to step up my material game
dusty gyro
no need 👌
wait if they revealed it
does it mean the NDA is lifted ?
if anyone can sub
gentle osprey
I would have to go read through the forums. This is my first unreal beat, Autodesk usually sends an email when NDA is lifted
dusty gyro
right
gentle osprey
beta*
dusty gyro
looks like there's a lot of new stuff, tomorrow is gonna be an interesting day discovering everything :p
gentle osprey
tomorrow? I'm already done installing
dusty gyro
I don't have 4.19 on my home desktop 😄
I can remote control the workstation, but that's not gonna be very useable with teamviewer
gentle osprey
When I was trying to get my business up and going I used to try and do Arch viz with Lumion over a cellphone hotspot wifi connection via teamviewer and Chrome Remote Desktop
talk about learning to have patience
dusty gyro
😂
gentle osprey
Unless it's a pay as you go thing, It's going to be tough to validate a monthly subscription without having a constant flow of archviz jobs. It's more of a skill set we can offer to our clients
but I'm pretty sold on unreal right now
to be fair I was sold on Unity 4 months ago
dusty gyro
I've been working with UE for a while, and it is awesome to use for arch and CAD
gentle osprey
not sure I will go back to Lumion... guess I have to finish paying off that license bill still
dusty gyro
and I'm coming from Unity gamedev
we've got a bunch of softwares for revit and VR (enscape and twinmotion), and I feel like twinmotion is going to be sooo redundant once they implement the Revit to UE linker
gentle osprey
what I really need is a way to swap materials in vr. That's kind of my end goal for what I want to have VR for: customer interior material selections
gentle osprey
which is why I didn't go Enscape to begin with
dusty gyro
I should have a video somewhere, sec
gentle osprey
I've seen some nice material swapping videos. I just need to figure out how to do it :]
dusty gyro
here 😃
need to redo all the VR tools though
there's actually a glimpse of the CAD data visualisation in that video
with the green overlay
the material swapper is at the end
its basically a structure based swapper you define in editor
for instance, the meshes A/B and C can have material 1 2 and 3
when you raycast the meshes, it checks if it has a material swapper structure associated, and shows on the tablet the materials you can assign to it 😃
gentle osprey
that's a great set of tools for people in the industry.
I have to develop something for people who will probably have never been in VR and will likely never be in another VR environment again for a long time after
dusty gyro
yeah that's our kind of customer aswell 😄
gentle osprey
and are not familiar with BIM or building technology
dusty gyro
they come back to use for more though !
gentle osprey
all that work into opening the appliances and the doors don't swing? ;]
gentle osprey
right... gateway drug
dusty gyro
doors need the user to put his controller in the handle, use the grip button and do the IRL swing 😃
all doors are parametric btw
another tool I've been working on
this is a prototype though, nothing useable without proper recoding
but it allows the user to switch between revit phases
through revit ID datatables
good to see it confirmed 😄
gentle osprey
where did you find that? I was looking on the supported format but didn't see Revit
also was told 6 months + before expecting soemthing
dusk pelican
hmmm free beta for unreal studio, woot
dusty gyro
@dusk pelican welcome to the family 😄
gentle osprey
I wasn't really impressed with the substance assets... unless I'm just ignant on how to use them properly
I take that back, the carpet asset was prety dope
maybe they just suck in my lighting setup
dusty gyro
some really good materials in here, looks dope with 4k resolution https://i.imgur.com/nDgwTpk.png
hard oar
I want datasmith for Cinema 4D 😭
dusty gyro
🔜
dusk pelican
is datasmith geared towards max and autocad or will maya be useful?
gentle osprey
@dusty gyro Mostly the ones "Included in Studio"
tonioght I will be trying to button up the materials and get 2 models exported
show starts tomorrow
gentle osprey
@dusty gyro turns out I just didn't know how to use Substance materials
resolution was too low for my expectations
dusty gyro
Yeah the initial resolution is way too low, you have to bump it up from 256 to at least 1024 to to get more clarity @gentle osprey
dusty gyro
@gentle osprey resolution set to 4k
Default resolution (256)
😁
same substance
this one is actually the Concrete Smooth from Substance source @grizzled nest @rustic silo 😃
median mural
and then you can use Substance Designer to combine source materials and pack textures
then you need to recreate real world materials it's fastest workflow.
median mural
Can somebody tell me how Datasmith works better then custom scripts for export? As far as I understand it's just for artist that do not script?
median mural
So it's just transfers project with textures?
I just very skeptical that it will create good lightmass
dusty gyro
its more about converting from CAD standards to unreal
median mural
will it automatically find instances and reuse objects?
dusty gyro
you can't just export your stuff to fbx and bring it into unreal
yeah if your initial stuff uses instances it will use instances in ue4
median mural
ok cool
dusty gyro
for us its cutting our workflow times 10x with python scripting
dusty gyro
well datasmith can be used with python 😃
median mural
I should probably watch this experience design thing
dusty gyro
yeah I watched it yesterday and it explains quite well what studio is
Datasmith works really well with max projects using spcial renderers like vray, corona etc..
Its supposed to translate the materials almost perfectly
but we don't go that far so I can't really say anything more about it ¯_(ツ)_/¯
median mural
what about performance will it pack textures for example?
dusty gyro
hmm maybe you can yeah
with python scripting again
we're using python scripting with blueprints utilities to merge our meshes
for example our project is hierarchized by CAD entities (floors, walls, glass, furniture)
our script searches every mesh in that category and merges it for improved performance
it might not be much, but when you have thousands of small entities merging is the best solution since the culling craps itself and takes too much CPU ressources (same with drawcalls)
median mural
depends on the project probably
like I cut walls in two parts for better lightmass
dusty gyro
for a single room it might be the right way
median mural
then export that with simple script as separate fbx files
dusty gyro
but when you do full office buildings you don't have the time for this 😄
we can't change the mesh topology either
median mural
you use revit right?
dusty gyro
yeah
a lot of the stuff we get from contractors are IFCs aswell, which is a mess of a format
median mural
is there anything for ArchiCad? my arch viz client use that
dusty gyro
lemme check
median mural
but they thought about switching to revit
dusty gyro
doesn't look like archicad is in the list
but you should be able to export in a compatible file type
without loosing too much data
what kind of file do you usually get from your contractors ?
dusty gyro
yeah nah it won't be of any use if you don't have geometry
median mural
sometimes they send dwg stuff but I rearly use that
and this will be a lot more costs to have all this software compared to what I do now
dusty gyro
dwg will be supported at some point by datasmith
but then again, dwgs can be just a bunch of lines and a texture
median mural
yeah so not really worth it unless some huge buildings
and exporting from to blender isn't bad
and costs a lot less 😃
dusty gyro
yeah datasmith for small scale projects isn't really needed
unless you are porting offline projects made for other renderers
median mural
if I thought that my old 3d max projects good enough for something probably would worth it
dusty gyro
well the beta is free until november, so you could at least give the tools a try 😃
median mural
ok thanks for your time it's really helped me understand 😃
don't want to deal with 3d max atm
dusty gyro
😄
median mural
I finally were able to stop using it
dusty gyro
I'm still figuring out what you can do with datasmith and haven't even starting going deep into python coding, but I'm glad to talk about it
what tools are you using now @median mural ?
dusty gyro
😄
median mural
I meant that I don't do archicad or revit stuff
median mural
I use measured plans
basically in current workflow I do work twice
like I recreate walls and stuff that could be available from archicad
dusty gyro
you're not doing any BIM related stuff right ?
median mural
no just simple interior visualization
I do small games so ue4 kinda merging work with passion
dusty gyro
alright make sense to only use surface modelling softwares then
yeah I'm the same 😃
I do Virtual Reality BIM stuff during the day, gamedev during the night 😄
median mural
Actually mostly I use Substance Designer somehow my work about recreating materials from photos most of the time
more then modeling
looks like colors and feeling is most important thing in visualization for my clients
dusty gyro
yeah that's a very important part indeed
our clients want awesome materials, but don't even know how to describe how it should look though 😂
median mural
and in the end they probably wanted GI 😃
in my experience this what they feel but don't see
dusty gyro
yeah
we use Twinmotion for short deadlined projects
they have a decent GI integrated in their UE4 branch
their tools are way too simplified though, you can't fine tune anything
but I guess its enough for "simple" viz
but being a realtime GI, the lighting will never be as refined as stuff with lightmass baked
median mural
well light mass is faster compared to corona(what I used last in 3dmax)
but you need more technical knowledge
dusty gyro
really ?
I've always thought of offline renderers to be too complex to learn :p
lightmass is about getting the right setting and having nice UVs for your lightmaps
median mural
Probably I am biased
for me renderers are simple
technical knowledge in how to prepare assets for lightmass feels harder to me then learning offline renderer
dusty gyro
well it all comes down to how you've learned how to do 3D stuff :p
realtime rendering is much more difficult since you have to optimize everything
but that's also the fun of it !
median mural
totally
And added bonus you can change materials and there is no need to rerender everything
and just this makes this workflow 100x better
dusty gyro
yesh !
you should watch the Studio presentation video asap 😃
I really like how Unreal is now a tool not only for games
and a lot of people from offline rendering are coming over
median mural
and that will make ue4 only better for this
median mural
it's like you doing nothing but your possibilities grow
I also think that it's very possible to make animated short cartoon alone now
all I need now is time
dusty gyro
oh people are already using realtime engine to make cartoons and shorts
if you have enough room for a VR setup you can also do realtime motion capture directly in engine now
for a fraction of the cost of these massive mocap rigs with infrared cameras
median mural
huh interesting
it will change tv cartoons. It's actually a bit scary how Epic can get big quick
lets hope it not going to become Autodesk or something evil
dusty gyro
oh no please 😂
storm condor
$4500 for a copy of unreal engine or a $130 a month subscription please
dusty gyro
studio is a bargain next to autodesk stuff 😄
median mural
and it's not like they force us to use it
dusty gyro
yeah a lot of archviz people won't need it at all
median mural
what would be good way to isolate object from background?
I need to render png without background of an object
dusty gyro
you should be able to use a render texture @median mural
and clip everything behind your object as alpha
median mural
not sure how this works
HighResShot 2 50 50 120 500 1 1 1 this works but strange
got to edit
dusty gyro
wait I've got an object viewer bp in my template
it should give us some directions
alpha masked
dusty gyro
uh weird
median mural
yeah cool stuff
median mural
well it doing what I need
HighResShot 2 50 50 120 500 1 0 0 this console command
it's incredibly hard to read
and I sure that this black square comes from 50 50 120 500 but I don't know how to disable that
so got to be a bit messy then
I need it as console command because I use blueprints to save stuff in a easier way
like batch render
dusty gyro
alright yeah
median mural
I went crazy with HighResShot my screenshot folder already 1 gb
dusty gyro
😂
hard oar
Hahaha
median mural
should we care about uniform texel density for archviz?
median mural
UV's
dusty gyro
yeah triplanar projection
since we have no time to UVmap or box uv the meshes we use world aligned projection for everything
median mural
how you do lightmass then?
or you don't
It' just for game environments they say it's good to have uniform texel density
and I not sure if I should try to do that in archviz or just maxing everything is good
like engine should use correct mipmap anyway so should I really worry about making something too dense
gentle osprey
lightmass is for people who use proper worfklows
median mural
that's what I am trying to do. To have a proper workflow
hard oar
i believe in lightmass ❤ lol
minor fox
did someone already make the #auchwitz joke
hard oar
UVs are our best friends!
gentle osprey
Unless you import directly from Revit... then they are the worst
the absolute worst
I was actually wondering if anyone has used meshlab to see if it can help with that issue on revit exports
hard oar
Not me. I use cinema 4d for modelling and unwrapping
cyan ether
i use bryce
fallen basin
Has anyone started the Unreal Studio beta? I'm currently still under the Datasmith beta. Can I just sign up for the free beta even though I still have Datasmith? Also how do the free substance credits work? Do you have to link it with your Allegorithmic account?
dusty gyro
@ExpiredYogurt#8618 you should have recieved an email with a link to get the studio subscription 😃
proper surge
How did you all learn Archiviz and unreal?
dusty gyro
by learning unreal and design ? ¯_(ツ)_/¯
proper surge
Where from, little genius?
dusty gyro
coming from a Unity gamedev background
a little less than two years ago I was not even thinking about doing archviz or anything related to construction
my mind was set on making either games or vehicle simulations
saw a job offer asking for someone to do VR BIM, shrugged, applied and here I am right now
when you learn the basics of coding UE4 is quite simple to use for what archviz requires
then its a matter of experimenting, and experimenting, and.... to get enough experience with the tools and the best way to use it
still learning a lot after a few years of using UE4, and a year of daily use
median mural
my family in interior business so I learned architecture from young age and started making interior visualization at some point
took 3d max course
and then I went to uni and learned web design (scripting)
and knowledge of some coding made me able to do prototypes
and then I just merged game dev with day work of interior visualization
hard oar
Oh well i learned cause i dont know what to do during the night hahah
gentle osprey
Learned by telling a client I can make renderings for a project then coming back my desk and going "shitshitshitshit how do I do this?" And trying to produce renderings
Mind you, these were hand renderings at the time
@hard oar do you work from other people's designs or are you producing documentation from your models also?
hard oar
both
gentle osprey
What are you using for documentation?
And do the other designs already have a model or just documentation?
hard oar
for documentation you mean 2D cad files?
gentle osprey
/me throws up a little
Well, I mean instructions for building it
I prefer a BIModel over 2d cad, but yes, cad files are one form of documentation
hard oar
ok well i am an architect so i design mainly with cad (cause my boss doesnt want to use BIM - idk why)..and then, with other personal clients depends.. till now i got some BIM and some 2d cad
so i have to model them in C4D and export them
gentle osprey
When you say you are an architect, you mean licensed in your jurisdiction to take the responsibility of the lives in the spaces built from the drawings you stamp or that you work in the architectural branch of Arc?
We use Revit, so I'm trying to find a way to use the geometric information we already produce from the documentation process without rebuilding it
hard oar
i am graduated in architecture. i didnt want to take license for now cause i am focusing in other branches (like archviz and other applications)
gentle osprey
Gotcha, thanks for clarifying.
Depending on where you are, be sure you are careful about who you tell that you are an architect ;)
gentle osprey
Yes, but no Revit plugin
And I don't have access to 3ds
I know @dusty gyro has figured out a non 3ds workflow using some form of python and datasmith.
By the way, thanks to @dusty gyro and @dark oriole for the help on the graphics and vis side of things this weekend. I had a hugely successful VR demo.
It's amazing that people were so impressed with what little realism level we were at.
dusty gyro
sweet !
and no I'm not getting rid of 3dsMax yet 😄
'cause Datasmith isn't Revit interoperable yet
you still need max to translate your revit content to unreal. This workflow is really valuable for big BIM and Arch projects with thousands of entities
gentle osprey
and when you say "need" you mean in order to get really great results
because I don't use 3ds and I can translate to unreal from revit
dusty gyro
yeah but then you are gonna have a bad time with project updates :p
datasmith aslo brings some optimisation tools that are quite handy
when the revit addin for UE4 will be available this year, it'll be even simpler to translate content
gentle osprey
the only bad time I have right now is reapplying materials which are shifted by ID because new materials/geometry get added. For some reason, I actually view it as worse of a time to have to run the geometry through another program to reapply lightmaps, UVs, and MATIDs than to have to reapply materials (by dragging and dropping)
for now anyhow
dusty gyro
I made a script with datasmith for that exact purpose :p
once setup you can switch between materials at import and reassigned materials
BTW unreal can make lightmaps directly, these aren't the best but are enough for simple stuff
gentle osprey
Unfortunately an entire building isn't simple. They are always overlapping and never good enough to use lightmasses with
ultimately, I would need to split these elements out individually and get the workflow of reimporting the pieces I need
gentle osprey
I need to look into the datasmith python documentation to see what you are talking about, for reimporting and reassigning
proper surge
@gentle osprey that was an interesting story 😂 I'd appreciate some pointers or suggestions because I'm starting off on my own with minimal to no prior experience.
gentle osprey
my suggestion is to ask questions :]
proper surge
What kind of questions?
proper surge
@median mural what 3dmax course was it?
median mural
it was courses by company made under Bauman Moscow State Technical University. it was In year 2007 - 2008
but as education goes I now switched to mostly reading documentations as main way to learn software
proper surge
I have been reliant on tutorials mostly because they're straight to the point. I'll try it your way soon.
gentle osprey
The problem with tutorials is that they are right to the point. You don't get much of the WHY behind the things you are learning to do. That WHY can be a great tool later down the road when you need to do something similar but through a different approach.
That is the kind of knowledge you get when reading through documentation or full lesson style books.
I would also recommend going through the short tutorials provided both online and through the interface (via the graduation cap next to the minimize button)
median mural
there is less and less tutorials that suit my needs nowadays
proper surge
What are your needs exactly?
@gentle osprey I'll keep that in mind, thanks! Keep the suggestions coming if there's more.
gentle osprey
@The Legend 27 ⚡ what is your background in? Are you a student? Are you coming from another industry? That may also help.
royal osprey
4.19 release notes on sequencer "Rotations will no longer flip when autokeying/adding a new key." does that mean we no longer have to fix rotations by hand using splines?!
I'm DLing 4.19 will let you know when I try
royal osprey
yay! it works much better, it will still not record your rotations correctly, but it will if you go incrementally. in 4.18 if you wanted to make like a circular animation with the camera looking at the center (withoout a look at trackin actor) it would suddently turn the camera around, then you could only fix the z rotation by going into the curves. In 4.19 you can turn all the way around without the camera suddenly going backwards, as long as you make incremental keyframes. (it still doesn't work with just two keyframes)
lucid orbit
@ripe troutn#6226 better than nothing, it gave me headaches too until i found curve workaround
dusty gyro
Damn python stuff sure is powerful for dataprep with studio
requires a bit of preparation work though
gentle osprey
now you're just rubbing it in
dusty gyro
Can't reveal everything to you guys or I'll loose my job 😘
proper surge
@gentle osprey I am just a hobbyist so no serious background so far unfortunately. Which is why I want to collect and soak in what I could find and learn.
median mural
@The Legend 27 ⚡#2355 ways to iterate fast, workflow stuff, creating custom scripts. Art direction, performance, new things that just came out
fallen basin
so I have Unreal Studio. I'm wondering where the free assets and Substances are
Is it supposed to be in my Library Vault?
Is it because it's still Beta?
dusty gyro
You need to download the substance plugin @fallen basin
And there will be an Unreal studio category in the substance plugin browser
fallen basin
@dusty gyro I do have the substance plugin. I am on the free educational license though.
@dusty gyro I have Unreal Studio active, and I open up Substance Source in-engine. But I have 0 available downloads
dark oriole
Check the free downloads, some preselected stuff you can download is in htere
But no, you're not going to get points on your account from it
fallen basin
@dark oriole Oh, so the 100 free substances is still not available yet since it's Beta?
dark oriole
You know, you don't need to @ every single person you reply to. And again, those downloads are probably either packaged somewhere in it or available under the free section, if they're even in the engine right now available.
opal zodiac
@fallen basin You don't need actually any licence to download assets free for all UE4 users, but you'll need an account. Take a look at image; on the right there is a screen from regular store (12 free assets), on the left there is screen from UE4 (37 free assets: 12 free plus 25 exclusive for UE4 users). There are also 95 additional assets free for UE4 Enterprise users in database, but I don't know if they are available yet as I'm not interested in UE4 Enterprise.
I've made a list of all 12+25+95 free assets: https://fiddle.jshell.net/Ltw5jm3o/show/
dusty gyro
There's an unreal studio category available when you log in
At least I get it when I log with my professional email, registered on unreal studio and the substance website
fallen basin
It must be my educational license for Substance. I'm logged into Substance Source via 4.18 with Datasmith plugin installed and enabled. I only see 12 Free Assets. 0 Available Downloads. My Unreal Studio is Active on Epic Launcher
fallen basin
@dusty gyro Unreal Studio category in the Substance Source window in ue4?
fallen basin
So I signed up for the post-grad indie Substance license. I got the standard 30 downloads, but still no 25 free for UE4 users, or any of the Unreal Studio stuff. 😦
dusty gyro
Same email @fallen basin ?
fallen basin
Ugh, I figured it out. It's just only available in 4.19.
I was on 4.16 and 4.18 the whole time
lethal vigil
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaK1e59-oAA dynamic global illumination? wow
stark sandal
is it possible exclude visible object for camera but keep reflections ?
median mural
@stark sandal try custom depth
humble cloak
Has any one figured out how to show outlines from Sketchup imports? I'll make faces to represent drawers in a kitchen, but when I import I can't figure out how to show the outlines.
glossy delta
@gentle osprey Do you think this would sell as an asset on the marketplace
Just regular 3D grass meshes from megascans
gentle osprey
when you say shaders in Unreal (coming from the Unity side here) are you talking about the material graphs?
glossy delta
Yes material graphs
gentle osprey
K, wanted to make sure I have my terminology correct
glossy delta
Though you can run hlsl code in there using a node so there's a lot of capabilities
gentle osprey
good to know
I mean, it looks good to me, but I'm pretty frugal so I'm not the best person to ask about how well it would sell on the asset store
royal osprey
I dunno if that would sell as the kite demo grass is very nice ,easy to use, and it's free. It has some limitations, it has to be used on a terrain, it can't be used on regular geometry, and most arch viz grass needs to be more "manicured" as one client put it.
clear stag
It also doesn't look particularly cheap to render, though I suppose that's less of a problem with arch-viz
lucid orbit
anyone got some thoughts on todays email about integrating vray to ue4?
molten spear
hello. i wanna "implement" my apartment in UE4 and what's the best way to do the moddeling? should I import walls one by one? it's better to do all walls in one mesh? if i import walls one by one do they need to have the same origin or each wall to have it's on origin? can some one answer to my questions and tell me how to it well ?
proper surge
I'm working on my first room. I imported the fbx file but the first person scale is bigger so the room seems small. Any suggestions?
gentle osprey
@mellow crater where did you export your FBX from? When you imported it into Unreal, did you check the box to convert to UE units?
@molten spear my suggestions would be to use modeling software like Blender, Sketchup, 3DS to model the geometry. You can use BSP shapes to represent the geometry but that won't be the best method for high quality renderings.
You should also look at the beginner's guide for artists, which gets you started on placing and importing geometry
molten spear
I used the wrong word when i asked "what's the best way to do the moddeling". ik how to model. I ment what's the best way to do the job done. How should I do the walls? All in one mesh or one by one?
gentle osprey
I think you can do it as a single mesh so long as you have a properly done UV for lightmapping
proper surge
@gentle osprey I wasn't aware of the settings. The fbx was from AutoCAD.
gentle osprey
I come from the Revit side of the modeling, and I can tell you that FBX from Revit is no bueno
I export to collada (DAE) which splits the geometry into meshes by material name, and then convert that into FBX. So I have submeshes. With realtime lighting this works fine for me so I don't worry much about lightmapping and the horrible UVs don't bother me... too much.
I think the concensus though is that this is not the best method.
consensus *
proper surge
I know alot of people use Maya/3ds so I'm trying to get a grip on them.
gentle osprey
@The Legend 27 ⚡#2355 https://i.imgur.com/VmWtQTq.png
If that doesn't work, you'll need to find the unit conversion factor and scale it manually on import or once it's placed as an instance
@The Legend 27 ⚡#2355 "I know alot of people use Maya/3ds so I'm trying to get a grip on them." --- actually.... https://youtu.be/qJEWOTZnFeg?t=3675
be sure you click the link to the timestamp and not the image. The image will take you to the beginning of the 2 hour long interview.
oh wait.. did they fix that?
proper surge
Blender too I guess. 😄 Thanks for the tip though, I didn't know you had to convert. I'll try that. Really appreciate it. @gentle osprey
gentle osprey
Hey, just trying to give back to this community which already gave me so much
barren crest
Huh, there I was setting Blender to cm or m to export.
Just to touch the topic of Blender more for a standard WER and Autodesk like workflow, I have helped develop a little of Bforartists, https://bforartists.de/ which is a UI centric version of Blender, where they clean everything up and add a toolbar and icons everywhere. It's just easier to use, also Lclick default.
Here is what I use for FBX from Blender to UE4. How do you guys do it?
median mural
@barren crest
I use this script
object = bpy.context.active_object
exportName = 'D:\\(your folders)\\Enviroment\\Furniture\\' + object.name + '.fbx'
bpy.ops.export_scene.fbx(filepath=exportName, use_selection=True,mesh_smooth_type='FACE')```I just press Run Script
it have nice benefit of not asking anything and you just press reimport on an object in ue4 and it updates
also you can add some useful stuff like placing object in world origin
teal cloak
i submitted a feature request where blender would save your fbx export settings. they said it wasn't in the scope of blender and i should talk to the plugin developer
i thought they were the ones developing the exporter
teal cloak
you don't need to. but every time you run blender you have to reconfigure the exporter
median mural
try using script that way you don't need to
also it works better for huge high poly objects
barren crest
You can save an export setting then choose it in a drop down.
gentle osprey
I pulled the ones out of the Realistic Rendering scene on the market
they work pretty well
do you mean transparent or do you mean like a material where light comes through, but not detail?
translucent.. that's the word I'm looking for
median mural
Yeah I tried by it looked kinda bad
median mural
yeah it's noise node not texture
dusty gyro
you wanted to get some kind of grain caused by light going through the cloth ?
median mural
no I want shadows from a curtain
median mural
dusty gyro
hmm
median mural
noise is there because I tried to use masked to cast shadow
would be nice if I could blur it
not sure how to do it properly
dusty gyro
I don't really see how too 😦
median mural
then shader renders it actually for a moment works as I want before adding noise so it is possible
dusty gyro
try to use TXAA maybe ?
median mural
dusty gyro
and dithering on your noise
median mural
I feel like making fake thing with light function would be faster by this point 😃
dusty gyro
well, sometimes yeah a good LF does the trick !
median mural
gosh just found why it works
dusty gyro
what is it ?
median mural
if I put standard opaque material it will render lines as I want
because shadows not double sided
dusty gyro
welp, nice 😃
median mural
and it actually better on preview
so I can probably put it on a second light channel or something
alright I think I am happy with a result
now I need to fix everything else
dusty gyro
what's next ? :p
median mural
I have no idea there this shadow from
dusty gyro
UV padding ?
maybe the resolution is just too low and what you see here is a pixel line from one of your UV islands border being stretched
median mural
fixed it
it was hidden object
I thought that you totally can hide objects and bake but apparently you can't
dusty gyro
nah
median mural
there was fancy blanket but they want tidy one and I not sure yet how to make it pretty
dusty gyro
it looks a bit too plastic rn
dusty gyro
😉
median mural
btw there is new pack of textures on substance source
dusty gyro
the automotive pack ?
median mural
yeah
cyan ether
i always find starting ue4 projects a pain
the templates are a bit messy
unreal studio projects dont come with an fps or archviz character
so i'm creating gamemodes and characters and inputs from scratch
anyone got a link to a generic fps input ini
barren crest
Curtains need more dispersion of the light. Blurred shadows.
cyan ether
hours later, sharing my ini
and the blueprint
still trying to replicate the smooth rotational lookaround movement
but it has a linear multiplier for now
teal cloak
is there a visualizer for mesh density?
median mural
@diffract#8730 it's called Quad Overdraw
it's ok to have quite large polygon count problem comes then your polygons smaller then pixel
wheat oak
I have a question - coming from a level dev background but never really done anything with genuine floorplans and arch before - is there a comprehensive resource for finding the standards/dimensions that should be used when working on things (ie doorframe width, depth, height, distance between storeys, average and oldschool storey heights etc)?
I have the actual blueprint for the home I'm building which provides floor dimensions and all which is useful, just no idea what everything else should be to be correct. I'm in Australia too so I guess the dimensions and heights etc will be different from US, maybe closer to European. https://i.imgur.com/vlO23Kf.jpg
blissful wing
Architectural Standard - Ernst & Peter Neufert - Architects' Data
https://archive.org/details/Architectural_Standard_Ernst_Peter_Neufert_Architects_Data
median mural
@Jasper Carmack#2570 actually architect can chose any detentions. So you should ask your interior designer what should you use
gentle osprey
@wheat oak here are some resources I use for every project in my studio:
https://express.google.com/u/0/product/6009002994593458293_12097549286467833441_8175035?mall=WashingtonDC&directCheckout=1&utm_source=google_shopping&utm_medium=product_ads&utm_campaign=gsx
Those will get you started
There's a lot of "you just have to know this from doing it so many times" standards
like knowing that if you're working with standard masonry, you want your dimensions to modular to the width of the brick to reduce cutoff and waste
a 36" door is actually wide enough for a 34" opening
etc, etc
blissful wing
oh... i guess you mean it for Jasper (a post above) 😉
gentle osprey
YES.. MY BAD
I blame @Monday
@wheat oak , that previous post with references was for you.
proper surge
Hey guys. I'm working on my first room and I need to send it to someone so they can move around, check things, etc. How can I share it with them?
hard oar
@proper surge package it for the OS he needs and send it to him
median mural
they will get same thing you get then you press play
but if it's work together thing you should probably use git it's pretty easy to set up
just don't work on a same files
proper surge
No, it's just to share the end result. Would packaging affect the lighting settings, etc.? Ps, are there any additional programs needed to view that project?
median mural
there some libraries I think you can include them in the package
dusty gyro
If you package for windows the lighting should pretty much be the same @The Legend 27 ⚡#2355
hard oar
Yes it's gonna be the same as you see in the editor, depending by the graphic card he has
dusty gyro
by experience I can tell you that though : depending on who you send this to, expect them to be whining about low framerate (while running it on a very low spec machine) or the .exe not even starting because there's missing stuff 😄
hard oar
@dusty gyro hahaha yes agree with that..
gentle osprey
I would test the package on an isolated machine before sharing
molten spear
any ideea why there are different colours even tho it's the same material? light map res is the same to all
gentle osprey
@molten spear, out of curiousity, if you switch to dynamic lighting, do you have the same issue?
dusty gyro
looks like either 1) lightmap res is too low 2) smooth lighting value is too high
@molten spear can you post us a screenshot of this view with the lightmap resolution density debug on ?
molten spear
@dusty gyro i solved the problem by lowering the Static Lighting Level Scale to 0.1
and increasing the Indirect Lighting Quality to 2
how can i take a screen shot of exact resolution?
like 1920x1080
dusty gyro
hmm
with the console command
hang on
HighResShot "3840x2160"
put in your resolution without the "
HighResShot 1920x1080 in your case
molten spear
ow. good to know
dusty gyro
😃
dusty gyro
I do a bit of everything 😄
mostly working in AEC viz for VR
what kind of trick do you seek ?
molten spear
how does this look? it's not finished, still need to add materials, tweek some things
@dusty gyro in special about lighting. how to make it more natural
dusty gyro
are you using baked lighting for everything ?
your directional looks like a movable light
molten spear
it's stationary
dusty gyro
alright
what are your lighting settings ?
lightmass in particular
same if you could post a lightmap resolution debug screenshot that'd be great 😃
this here is an awful lot of light bleeding