[3dsMax] Weightpainting a book for UE4

reibach

I'm working on an animated book for UE4 - open, close, pageflip. To keep it simple, it doesn't have many vertices. Instead I just put a TurboSmooth modifier with 2 iterations on top of Skin to get a nice, smooth shape. Of course I cannot export it just like that into UE4. First I simply used tessellation on the book which gave ok results - it is smoother but by far not as nice as with TurboSmooth in Max. Also, it'd be better not to rely on tessellation.

So, is there a way to get everything nice and smooth from Max into the engine without tedious hours of weightpainting the subdivided mesh by hand? The thought of it just creeps me out.

Mirbobo

It would help if you could share some images of what you are trying to achieve as well as tell us the software you are using. But If I understood the question correctly, you could just create the book model like usual and use vertex animations for the page flip animations.

musashidan

Here's the easy way   http://www.scriptspot.com/3ds-max/scripts/book-rigger

In UE 4.13 you can now import Alembic cached vertex anims, so this should be perfect.

reibach

Thanks for the hint, Alembic geometry cache might just be what I need. I'm gonna stick to tessellation until we have upgraded our project to 4.13 though, I've been looking for other solutions for hours but there doesn't seem to be one.