Is there a plugin to export SketchUp Pro on a Mac to Unreal?
I’ve seen some other forum posts about this, but nothing open currently. Looks like the initial plugin was only available for PC, but wanted to check and see if there has been any update.
If no, can anyone recommend a workflow? Is it just export model as FBX?
I mainly use Unity, but I have Unreal installed. It does seem to like FBX a lot!
Until Epic ports Datasmth to MacOS (which I believe there are plans to do), there is no easy way back and forth between the two. Dtasmith for PC is a good workflow.
Unity imports sketchup files natively 2016 version when I last looked.
At 3D Basecamp Epic implied that so long as Fortnite does well it improves the chances of the Mac version being updated before the end of this year. Or something on those lines.
Do you need back and forth, if importing FBX models works ok on Mac?
With datasmith, changes to su model are reflected in UE. So it’s an interactive workflow.
I see, so no need to reimport. Hopefully they will keep improving the Mac version.
To be honest I don’t know what I need yet. I’m taking a class where I’m basically assisting six teams of students that are working on individual video games throughout the semester. My role is to be available to build custom assets on demand for them. The whole course is centered around Unreal, so I gotta get real good real quick at getting model made in SketchUp to perform well in Unreal.
The integration part may not matter then. Make a model of what they want, send them an FBX of it, send them a new version if they want changes.
I just did a quick test, and exported an FBX of a short wide cylinder and a long slim cylinder. A straight export shows them all as part of one mesh in Unreal. Making them be groups shows them as two groups in Unreal. Making them be components (axle and wheel in my case) made them show up with those names.
The naming is one advantage, but it’s the hierarchy that is useful. You should be able to model in a way that will help them when it comes to adding physics.
I just tried moving a model of a house into Unreal and it took SO LONG and basically broke the model into all of it’s groups? I’m not sure how to work with all of these lol
I guess make less groups. Only as many as the number of separate objects you need.
In Unreal, when importing the fbx - in the FBX Import Options panel tick the ‘combine meshes’ option. If you don’t use that option, unreal will split up objects (clusters of faces I guess) into a lot of individual objects. If you do use that option, you will have the same amount of objects as in SketchUp.
Also, the difference between components and groups is that a component in SketchUp has a pivot point - a group doesn’t. So if you need accurate control of the pivot in Unreal (door hinges?) you better use a component.
Edit: changed ‘recombine’ to ‘combine’
Have you installed bootcamp on OSX to try out Datasmith? You might struggle with the GT 750M GPU, Unreal really is geared towards high spec PC’s but it really does depend on your use case.
Here are the options available to me when I import a FBX file in Unreal. I don’t see the recombine option you’re referring to. Is it right in front of me and I’m just not seeing it?
Nevermind, I had to click the expand arrow under the mesh section. So I clicked Combine. Do the other settings look okay? I then clicked import all.
I got the following error messages:
No smoothing group information was found in this FBX scene. Please make sure to enable the ‘Export Smoothing Groups’ option in the FBX Exporter plug-in before exporting the file. Even for tools that don’t support smoothing groups, the FBX Exporter will generate appropriate smoothing data at export-time so that correct vertex normals can be inferred while importing.
Smith_Unreal_Test has degenerate tangent bases which will result in incorrect shading. MikkTSpace relies on tangent bases and may result in mesh corruption, consider disabling this option.
Smith_Unreal_Test has some nearly zero bi-normals which can create some issues. (Tolerance of 1E-4)
I got the following items on my shelf:
I can move the model into the viewer and it looks like this:
Which is promising, but how do I get the materials to load along with it?
They seem to be individually processed, but the materials themselves are blank?
Even if I try to swap a material out for a preloaded one that’s in the system (i.e. swapping Brick Smith on the front of the structure for cobblestone rough) it doesn’t actually show up on the model itself?
Nevermind, I guess I needed to click on the model as a whole and go into asset edit mode:
I guess I’d like to figure out how to get all the materials/textures to be preloaded and working off the bat. Is this possible?
Yes using datasmith Importing SketchUp Models to Unreal Engine with Materials - YouTube
Will this work for Mac Users?
I believe if you use bootcamp.
I can’t recall I ever had any problems getting my own materials/textures into Unreal. Can you find some pattern/logic for the missing textures? Are they integrated SketchUp materials/textures? Do the names have strange characters? etc. If you can’t find any logic yourself, maybe you can post a small skp model?
A small tip; make sure the textures are size 2^n (128x256, 512x512 etc). If they aren’t, they will import fine but Unreal won’t create mipmaps so the visual quality of these materials will suffer.
