Thanks for the feedback, Trenton! This is all really, really useful!
I wanted to preserve SketchUp layers by importing them as Unreal levels but that kills the attachment hierarchy. I suppose I could have the layers import to Unreal layers. Would that be useful?
Good feedback about not calling the project “GeneratedProject”. I think I can wrangle that change pretty easily.Done!
It’s so good to hear that we’re competitive with PlayUp! This project is still in its infancy, so we’re only going to leave the competitors further behind.
Yes, the lighting errors are unfortunately expected. Lighting builds involve having lightmap UVs, which Unreal Engine cannot generate from scratch. I’ve experimented with creating them in my own code, but it’s a hard problem! We’ve been doing okay with using fully dynamic lighting and LPV.
We do not currently have terms of use, since we haven’t really honed our business model for the importer. Our income comes from close partnerships with local architectural design firms. Right now, we retain uploaded models — we don’t redistribute them in any way, but only use them for testing the importer, troubleshooting, and understanding how people are using the tool. Please email me if you have privacy concerns and I can help you import files without them going through our system.
I don’t understand what you mean about building a library of textures, photo texture conversion, and blank textures. Please elaborate!
(1). the normal use for levels is for stuff that you want to load /unload (switching between design options for instance, or going to a different floor in a multi-story building) OR lighting scenario’s (using lights in different levels tot toggle between day/night scenario).
My guess would be that people want to convert a layer in SketchUp to an object in Unreal. Personally I use an Outliner based workflow (naming every group and component and building a hierarchy that way) so I’m just guessing here.
(4). Dynamic lights and LPV are normally used for large outdoor scenes or scenes that need to stay dynamic (moving content). For archviz you really would want to use lightmass calculations. The difference in quality / effect for indoor scenes is huge.
ThomThom’s Material Tools makes quick work of applying the group materials to the geometry which solved my scale problem. Your converter makes it as quick to get sketchup into Unreal as it is for Unity and Lumion, two engines that advertise Sketchup support as a key feature. I did a screenshot comparison between the three options without any work at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BzE5aMM7nmBZczJvaS1JSVJHc00?usp=sharing
Obviously Unreal’s surface rendering looks best but it was also the only engine that didn’t have some degree of z-fighting. I use this model for basic construction documents as well so I have different groups as close together as 1/8". However, as you can also see, the absense of unwrapped textures uvs and therefore lightmaps uvs means that the Unreal version of the model is by far the worst in terms of shadows. (Edit: at least I think this is why the shadows lack all definition, hopefully its actually an easier fix)
Most architects and designers, myself included, don’t know anything about UV mapping. I was suggesting that you could handle the unwrapping as a premium service but I didn’t know how to put it. It was a nice surprise seeing the file name change implemented early this morning.
So now I’m looking for a workaround to get shadows without unwrapping, the ability to unwrap manually in the sketchup model (tried http://wrap-r.com/), the ability to automatically unwrap the meshes in Unreal, or the ability to unwrap the files after they are converted but before they are brought into unreal. I may also be conflating unwrapping with unpacking as I’m not sure if the jumble of overlapping UVs counts as unwrapped or not. Again, I’m pretty clueless with respect to entertainment industry workflows and terms.
If a material with a texture is applied to the surfaces, building models (not blobby designs like Gehry’s, Calatrava’s or Zaha’s) normally should work fine with generating lightmaps by Unreal. In that case there would be no need for unwrapping yourself, although doing it yourself in Blender could give better results.
Maybe you can share the SketchUp file of just the object in the screenshot above? I could have a look and see whats going on.
Dan, first of all I have to say thank you, because this is great.
And second, I’ve used your importer for the first time and I have something to ask. Do I need to put all the collinsions in the meshes? Because I`m floating through the walls.
Thanks.
When simulating physics, Unreal uses a special “collision” channel, which can have a simplified mesh for performance purposes. We don’t generate that mesh, since for our purposes, the performance difference is miniscule.
One way to get collisions to work right is to select Project Settings → Engine → Physics → Default Shape Complexity: Use Complex Collision As Simple. Another option is in the Blueprint Editor for your Character, on the root CapsuleComponent, select Trace Complex on Move.
I wonder, after seeing this post, if there is an option to have the SketchUp file converted into a certain version of Unreal in your importer, as there are some (like me) using older versions of the engine…
But what I meant to ask was if Digilabs could add a function that allows the person who is exporting a certain SketchUp model to select the version of Unreal the model would be saved in (export as 4.15, 4.16, 4.17 etc.), as it seems that it is fixed for the latest version of UE from what I see in the page…
Hi Aaron! Quick question - I’m working with the Datasmith importer right now - it seems to be importing textures from SketchUp fine, but if I try to apply any of the materials from the Unreal Engine Starter content, the texture sizing comes in far too small (see image below) -
Is this related to UV mapping in some way? It’s odd that the same material shows up fine on the Unreal Engine box geometry, but is scaled different on the static mesh actors created by Datasmith from the SketchUp file.
I am aware about the UE Datasmith importer being in UE 4.20 and above only. What I want to ask if the Digilabs importer can create a setting on which version of Unreal anyone who would use the Digilabs importer to be able to select which version of Unreal they would like their model imported into.
