Hi everyone,
I am a newbie in the 3d world and I am working on visualizing a large building. My ideal goal is to be able to take a whole 3d CAD drawing in microstation with relevant material and textures, convert it to FBX and import it in UDK.
When I try to load my FBX file into UDK (content browser), I'm getting a message saying that the number of vertices of my FBX file exceeds the max allowed. I knew all along that this would challenging since, I think , the idea behind game engines is to work with little chunks of data either imported or locally created.
So my questions are :
1- Is what I'm doing even possible?
2- Is there any technique I can use to reduce the number of vertices of my drawing either in Microstaion, Blender, a File converter, or any other relevant program?
3- Is there any other game Engine which allows the importation of a voluminous file as a single "mesh" (probably with no limit).
4- If I have to switch gears and not follow the path of DGN->OBJ->FBX->UDK, what are the suggestion for the best way to render a 3D CAD drawing?
Replies
Yeah, good luck with any help at this point, I think google at this point is your best bet.
Well, I should've specified in my post that people with certain weird complexes and know-everything type of people shouldn't reply.
I'd say your best bet is to get the mesh into a 3d app and see what's wrong with it - I doubt you'd be able to have a workflow that goes from CAD to UDK. It sounds like the CAD model is too high poly.
For example, UDK has a limit of 60-70K vertices you can import, and need to break up in Mat-ID's if you want them to work properly ingame.
You can do certain stuff, like import with specific tangents in FBX format, or use the native ASE, both have their own stuff. Which can add or subtract the smooth-groups and total number of vertices.
UDK doesn't like open mesh's and they can add over the amount of poly vertices.
Removing vertices is as simple as deleting them, removing loops or using an Optimizer plugin, which to my knowledge, ALL competent software should have.
All engine have limits, games fake everything, even stuff like SSS, and importing large scale items over several million polies isn't helping anyone when the whole scene aims to be a couple of mills at best.
Render in CAD, be damned be if I know, but as I said, I'm sure the nice peeps who made CAD didn't leave you high and dry without some help to get you started.
Next time, a friendly bump of "Oh, please peeps, I really need help" would have been much better received then "Waah, waah, 17 minutes, I'm Seinfield".