Import Models

CVee

Hello

I'm trying to add some of my assets to unreal's asset store, but I'm struggling quite a bit since I've only worked with Unity.

 I have this unrigged torture chair asset that doesn't contain animations. It is divided by the main body, and then all the components that I want to be possible to animate in unreal. 

 So in unity, when I had something to import like this, I would export a .fbx that contained all the separate objects that form this torture chair model. When I import it to Unity it gets imported as 1 model, that when I click on it, it's actually divided into multiple objects that I can animate separately. The only thing I had to worry about was to make sure the pivot points where correct.

 In Unreal, however, I try to import this same model, and it either imports my model in all separate pieces, making a mess of the menu thing where I see all the models. Or it imports me 1 solid object that would only be useful if I had a skeleton. The pivot points don't even stay the same.

Is there any way to make unreal do the thing I described in Unity? Do models with these characteristics have to be rigged (it seems like it)?

Alex_J

Sorry to bump an old thread but it's unanswered and I have the same question. 

I've seen this same question asked a few places around the internet and never an answer, so I am guessing it's just the way it is. I am having the same issue, I think I will just have to export the model parts individually and reassemble in a blueprint. Rigging is fine too, but it looks like I can't access bones through blueprints (or at least, I can get but not set anything), it has to go through the anim graph. I'd rather avoid having to use the animation graph if I can just keep the animations simple in a single blueprint. 

If OP is still around, did you ever figure a workflow?

poopipe

there's nothing stopping you building a blueprint utility/ python script to handle the import. 
eg - an exporter from max/maya/whatever collects the exported assets into a csv, imports them as static meshes. converts the csv to a datatable and constructs a blueprint/ 

I've done this recently - its pretty straightforward once you've got past the substandard docs for the python API 

Alex_J

good to know that is possible @poopipe but I think it's a little over my head at the moment. I am still taking all day to make an actor move around when I push a key.

I did find an old answer from unreal official that the origin will always be the pivot point, so for now I'll just do the extra twenty minute deal of exporting part by part. Having a tool like you are talking about is definitely something to look into if I have to do this more than once though.

poopipe

one thing thats worth knowing in the meantime is that the unreal scene format is xml based and that you can create actors by pasting appropriate xml in the view window

a few years ago (i say a few, about 7-8) I made a scene exporter that exploited this so it might be a hacky/ quick way to get what you need without arguing with the blueprint/python system (which is not seamless) 

Alex_J

Hey, I just want to update, I actually found some in-built tools that solve this problem. THey are a little hard to find but got an answer on the unreal forums: 



The bake vertex is "experimental", so I imagine it was added recently.