Export from Blender To Unreal Engine 5 Via USD | An Alternative When Datasmith is Not Available
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 31 พ.ค. 2024
- Hey guys!
I know you've thought before that there should be a way to export your Blender project to Unreal without the hassle of creating materials and bringing textures all over again.
Unfortunately, there's no Datasmith plugin/add-on for Blender, but luckily, Pixar has made their USD file format open source and Blender can export such files, and Unreal has a plugin to be able to import them, lucky us!
In this video, I'll show you how to export a project from Blender to Unreal via USD and some limitations and issues you might face to take into consideration.
I'm using Unreal Engine Version 5.3 in this video.
Links:
To the 3D Model courtesy of Architecture Topics
• 5 High Quality ArchViz...
USD Documentation:
www.pixar.com/usd
openusd.org/release/index.html
Inspired by Riley Brown's Tutorial, check it out!
• My Indie Blender to Un...
My personal Archviz Template if you ever want to purchase it: www.unrealengine.com/marketpl...
Chapters:
0:00 No Datasmith, but USD!
1:45 Exporting from Blender
3:47 Importing to Unreal
5:43 Issues with Materials and How to Solve Them
9:51 Re-Exporting/Re-Importing
10:32 Checking and Tweaking our Assets
16:30 Final Import
18:30 Be Mindful of Your Scales
20:00 If you Want to Change Materials
My Spec:
Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6900K CPU @ 3.20GHz
Ram: 64GB
Graphics Card: Nvidia RTX 3090
Life saver! I used to use gltf but in unreal 5 datasmith doesn't support it anymore, this fixed my issue, thanks
I’m glad it was helpful! 😁
Thank you! This is a great walkthrough.
Glad it was helpful 🙌
Bien hecho. Gracias!
Gracias por ver el video y tus comentarios 🙏
really nice ❤
Thank you. This is an eye opener. #Blender #UnrealEngine
It was for me as well 🙌
for info, by default, exporting from blender, there is an option Root Prim set to /root (when I keep this option, in UE, I'll have only one actor Root, showing in outliner)
Hmm ok ok, I’ll play with the different parameters this weekend, to be honest I just leave the default and only use this workflow if the blender file with materials is given to me. If I start from scratch, I prefer fbx because I’ve got a library of assets in that format and is easier for me to just drop them in the scene.
@@mdandrade what is cool with usd, is that you easily keep, parenting, pivot and material.
I usually turn off root (delete the text), so my objects don’t have an extra parent inside UE. Just for personal preference.
Also, I noticed that emissive materials do not transfer over from blender to unreal engine for me. I have to re-create those in unreal
I’m working on a client’s project using this method and what I’ve been doing is not doing the final import until the client makes up his mind, so I’ve been just using the usd stage and refresh each time there’s a change. I’ll keep testing workarounds and show what works for my workflow on the next video.
@@mdandrade seems to be the best practice. importing usd, alllow to make more change and to be more reliable, but it break the link usd reference.
build in blender render in unreal, seems a game changer thank you
And both free, we’re so lucky for their approach in that regard.
Thats great! TY a lot!!!
Thanks for the walkthrough Miguel! Very cool to see the ins and outs of this system. Is there a reference for your lumen glass material that you could share? I'm currently getting bizarre reflections/refractions of my scene and the sky in my ceiling-mounted windows and having difficulty finding a guide online for this architectural-type glass. Cheers!
Hi @tovermoran4360 thank you for watching the video 🙏 you can download the template from my video updating our archviz template, in there you’ll find the glass material I use for my archviz projects.
In the video I’m working now, I’ll show how to make a simple glass for windows and doors and some tips and tricks to avoid those refraction issues.
You can download the template for free on this link mdandrade.gumroad.com/l/templateupdatematerialinstances
Hi Miguel, great tips - I follow your tutorial and everything works great - but do you have any ways to enable collision for this USD type format ? Thank you
Thank you Tam! If you’re bringing collisions from your modelling software, you should have a tick for importing collisions when doing the final import. In my case I like to work with simple box collisions.
hey, i want to know what will happen with pivot points. will It be according to blender? i mean if i put the pivot point of individual mesh on the bottom in blender, is it going to be the same in unreal engine?
Yes, it should respect the pivot point you had in Blender.
After the final import, what is the best method of updating if there is a big change in blender? Would you recommend dividing the scene into several USDs to avoid too much rework?
Hi Graham, if I were to use this method and had to do a big change in Blender, I’d prefer to create a new level and import the updated USD onto that level. Personally I prefer to use FBX and I only use this method if the blender file has been given to me with all its textures and materials.
@@mdandrade In saying this would you rather put the scene together in Unreal Engine then Blender? " I prefer to use FBX "
@helix8847 indeed, that way I can manage my assets library much better.
Simply export a new USD from Blender, import to UE, and delete the old meshes from UE.
A better approach is to stage the USD from Blender to UE, check everything to make sure it’s good, then import only when all looks good.
However, for big changes later, you’ll need to reimport and delete the old meshes.
After deleting the parent material, the material window disappeared in the mesh imported into usd. How can I restore it?
Hi @Hobijak I think you'll need to re-import the USD and then delete the duplicate meshes. You'll have your master material back.
I've try exporting USD with blender 3.6 and 4.0, and have an error : missing plugin . don't know why it's working for some people and not for others (I'm on windows)
Hi, is it this error? blender.stackexchange.com/questions/259402/usd-export-unable-to-find-suitable-usd-plugin-to-write
@@mdandrade yes this this error. and have try all extension trick, but nothing solve it (Im installing 4.1 to test)
That’s strange, to be honest it never happened to me nor I paid attention to the extension of the file. Try with the 4.1 version to see if works. Also, try to export it to desktop.
after some tries, I've found that exporting on our server was the problem. If I export in FBX in the same location , all is good, but if I try USD, I have the plug... error
I'm not the only one on net to have face this problem. the error it gave is not fair to find that, it is the location the problem and not the usdplug
为什么我的 Blender 无法导出美元?单击“导出”将导致它崩溃
Hi! Does this happen with any mesh? Try to export a simple box. Also, which version of Blender are you using? Does it happen on all recent versions?
Thank you.. blender has a free datasmith export addon.
Is that the one from GitHub? By Andres Botero? I haven’t tried it to be honest, but it’s not an official one by Epic like the 3DsMax/Revit/Sketchup ones, that’s what I meant in the video.
But thank you for sharing!
@@mdandrade yes.. himself... working very well in blender 3.6 exporting for twinmotion and UE.. I tried send the link but comments was removed.
Will have a look for sure.
with blender 4.0, datasmith is not working. pb exporting problem
5.4 doesn’t import camera animation
Did it work on 5.3?
@@mdandradeyes
Maybe there’s a bug, it might be worth submitting a bug report to Epic. I’ll try myself to see if works.
为什么我的 Blender 无法导出美元?单击“导出”将导致它崩溃
Hi! Just replied on your other comment. :)