General questions regarding modularity.

JamesRay

Hey! Damn.. been a long time since I was last on here and funny enough its a similar project I am embarking on haha. Well Ill get to the point... 

I am attempting to make some modular building pieces and I know these questions are going to have been asked before so please bare with me and if you can point me in the right direction I really appreciate that in advanced! Thank you! 

1.) I am exporting the pieces from maya and every time I apply a new material in maya it seems as the history of those old materials comes with into ue4?   See how lambert one (Red) is assigned whilst in maya I have 3 materials (Blue) assigned to the mesh. so why does lambert one want to come with for the ride? Hes a bit old and Id like to keep him in maya  

2.) So I have come across this issue where I'm not sure how to interpret making things line up.. I don't want to make a bunch of pieces to patch gaps in my scene and also I think that will ruin the tiling textures especially on the floor as it wont be a 1x1 piece. So I tried intersecting the pieces and then... The flicker. I knew this would happen but I am just wondering what the most appropriate way to do this is. Can I get rid of the flicker or do I need to make some pieces to fill in these gaps. 


3) So my understanding of this prefab/blueprint workflow is that I use my very small amount of unique pieces to make blueprint collections where I can then assign my materials to. This is so I can reskin the same blueprint for interiors and such. I can then populate my scene with these blueprints and then if I tweak the blueprints or re import the meshes with UV changes for example, these adjustments will be made to the references in the scene. Am I doing this right?  

Unique Piece


Blueprint



Thanks so much for reading this and thank you in advance if you can help! 
Cheers!
-James Ray Cock

JamesRay

So last night I found the little cross next to the material name which removes, the unassigned material so that's sorted, Yay.

corviera

1. Check the import dialog window, there's an option "import materials", it's probably that.
2. I didn't quite understand the issue. The problem is on the corners? It seems the mesh has both inner and outer walls, perhaps if you separate these it would work better, altough you would need to account for the space between the walls. I have done some modular kits and most of the time I had to make more than one legth for walls (ex: 1m, 50cm, 20cm, etc) because there's always some misalignment.
3. You are correct. Meshes will also update outside blueprints if you reimport them.

JamesRay

Thank you Corviera, Yes I started the corners being once piece, I agree that separating them would solve the spacing issue, I thought it might be inevitable to make some smaller pieces, as you said 1m, 50cm, 20cm. I was only worried that that would mean having a lot more smaller pieces such as the skirting and trims, I am busy making that change now and if it solves the issue Ill follow through and make the same changes to the skirting and trims. Thanks Corviera!