To get the best result you would likely need a custom shader on which the transparency only affects the diffuse term but not the specular term. I believe the default transparency in Painter will mask everything, resulting in the loss of the specular reflection as well on translucent surfaces.
the default scenes should already have a dominant light in there. if you've added another one then the viewport will only show which ever one you last edited. when you build it may mess up because it may not know which to use.
Make the unfolded blendshape a wrap deformer for the object you want to deform. If the object is large you'll probably need to do some fiddling around with the deformer's tolerances, as its default settings assume small distances are involved, i.e. less than a centimetre.
You could try switching shading modes in Unity and see if all of your maps look like they should. It’s the top left dropdown in your scene viewport. Also, is your normal map set to “normal map” and not default “texture” in the import settings?
I think the issue is with linear vs. sRGB color space. DDo is supposed to export using sRGB with the Unreal preset, because that's what Unreal uses by default, but I think the new version broke that. You can uncheck sRGB in Unreal and it fixes it.
Get Roadkill free, its an invaluable tool. With that and the default maya UV tools, you have the best UV mapping toolset ever. Really, really powerful. If there is anything you dont figure out, feel free to ask for specifics. Good luck!
UE4 already uses HDR by default, and clamps it down to LDR using (mostly) the post processing settings. You can view the histogram by using VisualizeHDR. Also 4.15 added a filmic tonemapper that mimics the desaturation in film talked about at 22:10.
3ds Max adds dithering by default. This can be disabled in the Preferences. It's helpful to hide banding artifacts in diffuse or lightmap or other non-precision bakes. But not good for normal map bakes. This thread is a good read on the subject: Of Bit Depths, Banding and Normal Maps
getting there with all the detailing now, still need to stamp on the decals. Need to sort the plastic transparency bits out too, theyre still using default glass so they just look wrong. Then its time to set up a scene and some lighting.
Yeah, no crazy mouse button switching here - just using the defaults, it works fine ! Middle finger ftw :D And it makes the back button pretty easy to reach too with the ring finger (which I personally use for relead in FPS games)