Building 1st level in unreal engine

atreyuroboto

I am not 100 precent sure on what I should be doing, Should I build the entire level in maya and then .fbx export the entire thing? or should I build it in unreal engine? Thanks for your time.

jaker3278

You should make assets in your 3d application and then export them to Unreal (Things like rocks,buildings, trees ,plants) . There is no way to model assets inside of unreal. You can however sculpt the landscape inside of unreal, it has a tool set that allows you to push and pull the terrain to the shape you want. You can paint the terrain inside of unreal as well but you have to make textures like grass etc to do this. Look at the unreal documentation for more information. 

zachagreg

@jaker3278 I believe he means "build" as in composition and scene construction not so much asset creation.

In terms of the project what is the scope of the project? Are you creating a room, a building, an outdoor scene, how big is it?
Just need some detail in terms of scope and what you want to achieve with the environment. For instance if you want it to be fully playable, in vr, or just rendered shots and videos they can all have different workflows because some aspects will need to be addressed and some not.

However to help you in your project right now blockout your scene in your modeling software if its interior and in ue4 if exterior, its just easier that way IMO.

atreyuroboto

I am working on a 3d side scroller. Blockout the scene, I follow.

zachagreg

Ahh so yea block it all out in unreal so that way you can quickly test any mechanics you build, then start to dissect your level into objects and pieces that you can make modular. The workflow from then on out will be to create any modular assets and set pieces in maya as well as any props. Unwrap and texture in you choice of program and then import the completed meshes and textures into unreal. There are couple of wikis to help with this process as well.

Modular Environments
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Modular_environments

Level Design
http://wiki.polycount.com/wiki/Level_Design

As always feel free to keep asking questions though happy to help out.  

Edit: Also don't be too worried about details right now, start with grey box and BSPs so you can get a feel for the level then start adding in basic shapes representing set dressing and how you want the level to look and take it one step at a time.

Apocrs1980

Depending on what you're building I would say a combination of both works really well, unreal terrain alows more control for tweaking the ground and having moddeled assets you can use with it for the more detailed stuff.