Trying to export 3D models from Unreal to Blender
I want to import the mesh, material, and textures from a 1m foundation ficsit set (or any other foundation and buildable) to modify it for a new foundation I'm making. I've tried to export as FBX but it showed me some other weird shapes and I was unable to apply the material and textures to it. I've looked at some basic blender tutorials but I can't figure this thing out
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Also tried to export as GLTF file but this time I just got a cube without anything else
You won't get the material. Materials aren't portable between applications and the foundation materials use a few specific tricks I don't know if Blender supports.
What does the mesh look like in FModel?
This?
I see, but what about the weird shapes?
That's the strange part. When you export this as a gltf you get the cube?????
If you check my modeling repo I have a sample of every foundation's size and shape with proper orientation. If that helps.
When I first tried to export it I did it via unreal and not via FModel that may be why
I'm actually having trouble exporting on FModel directly
Can't find the option
Should be in the right click menu of the item in the list on the left
Unreal only has the cube, it doesn't have any valid meshes, so getting a cube from it makes sense
Is it export raw data?
Oh yeah fair
SaveModel
And then probably wave texture on one of them.
They share a texture so
Oooh I didn't think it worked because it didn't prompt me anything
Look for the log on the bottom line telling you it did it
Ok thanks I got the correct shape now, so it's normal if the textures are blank?
Yup. You'll need to bring them in separately but they'll look look they did in FModel with no simple fix.
And if I need to make my own textures for a material how would I do? I'm trying to do a quarter foundation mesh/texture
Btw, what's the link to your repo?
GitHub
Satisfactory_ModelingTools/SF_FoundationTemplates.blend at master ·...
Community modding tools and utilities for modeling assets intended for Coffee Stain Studios game Satisfactory - DavidHGillen/Satisfactory_ModelingTools
Thanks
Your mesh for the 1m foundation is much larger than the mesh imported from FModel, is it normal?
100x bigger actually
That's because you don't have your unit scale set right.
It's only important if you're animating but I set it in all my files anyway
Did you check the docs for the workflow setup?
Ooh I didn't
:thonk:
We'll did you have the mesh selected when you exported with "only export selection" checked?
Oh
x)
Might be a bit too big
That's better but it seems to lag a bit, I don't know if it's my computer or maybe it's the mesh
I know there is some stuff about LODs but I haven't touched it yet
Also, how would I change the texture so that it acts like half foundations and not a scaled down version of a foundation as it is now?
For concrete foundations, I'd chop the mesh and fix the UV mapping where you chopped it. Then it'd be a quarter foundation.
How do you change the UV mapping?
Whatever program you use for mesh editing. Blender, probably
Ah, I haven't seen a tutorial on that part yet, thanks
We don't have one specifically because it's a large part of 3D modeling in general
Not sure I understand, do you mean LODs?
LODS, UVs etc
But what do you mean by "we don't have one specifically"?
docs.ficsist.app
I'm so confused
You said you hadn't seen a tutorial on something, I said doc.ficist.app will not have one, then evverything there after has been trying to clarify the misunderstanding
AAAAH sorry I didn't understand you meant the tutorial ðŸ˜
LOD = Level Of Detail
Oh, I misread
What are the Relf and AOMasks textures? I understand what the base color and the normal map are for but I don't understand those
They might be channel packed textures
Example of mine. Three channel-packed masks
Hmm, what is it for? The textures I got don't really look like three channel packed
I think the one name Relf might be a mistype for Refl, so that would be reflection I'm guessing?
So it should be the roughness map if I'm correct, but the AO masks I have no idea
https://ficsit.app/mod/BuildableClocks
See where the textures are used in the editor
Sometimes you have info in the materials
AO doesn't help but relf seems to not only be the roughness
AO means ambient occlusion
Ah
Primary and Secondary are likely the masks used for the customiser colours
This idea is to be able to reuse the materials for the full sized ones
Hmm the issue I have is to set that up in blender
So far that's what I got but where do I put the masks in that?
You should be able to look at the base material
MM_BakedStencil_01
Which has disconnected thingsYeah but it's different than in blender
I guess it depends on how you shade in blender
In the editor for example AO is linked with nothing, but in blender I should link it with something right?
Hmmm
In the editor I see AO in use?
Added the missing connections in red to get the point through, but AO goes straight into the root node
Yes but it doesn't go anywhere
It goes straight from the red value to nothing
What does the root node look like?
What root node?
Hum
Oh, right
Disable "use material attributes"
Aaaah
But primary and secondary are still linked with nothing in the end
What is the mixed color used for?
That's a named reroute
What's this?
It allows redirecting something to another part of the material graph
Trace back Base Colour
Oooh ok
But I thought there was already a base color map?
Yes, Albedo
Then what are those for?
:thistbh:
See
MF_GetPrimaryColor and MF_GetSecondaryColorOk but how to tell that to blender?
I'm having issues finding answers online
You have to set up a material graph
As in, throw more nodes at the problem
Yeah that's that but I have no clue if what I'm doing is right or not
You want to do this in Blender, but replace the disconnected MFs with a constant colour of your liking
Trying to take everything into account, I've got this but it looks wrong idk why
It looks wrong to me, but that's because I can't read the text 😅
Is this better?
Bruh it's the same
Discord resizing my image
It's larger
I can barely read it
Not sure how shader mixing is supposed to work
It's the max size of my monitor x)
It looks like that but it doesn't look like in game (I know the UV map isn't correct but let's forget that for now)
What is wrong with it?
The middle part looks too bright I think
That's primary colour
And not metallic enough imo
Hmm
Metallic also uses some masks I believe
Look at the UE material
That's what I meant by that, it's really confusing idk how to tell if it's correct
Yeah I did the same by separating the RGB values
Ah, only if actually using a stencil
Question is, are you going to play the game in Blender?
Yeaaah you're right, I wanted it to look as close as possible
As long as it looks right w.r.t. UVs I think it's fine
It kinda worked, but the pattern isn't reproduced like with half foundations when putting them together
Also the lines in the middle don't overlap like half foundations
Oh, ugh, that's not ideal
Any ideas how to fix that? ^
Not quite sure tbh, it's a matter of the quarter top not being rotationally symmetrical
Cut the surface where there's a visible edge with the grey strip. Then you can add a UV seam and move the floor tiling how you want
But when you do that. It might not line up to other floor tiles any more.
Concrete half foundations don't line up with full foundations :REEEE:
Which is why I wouldn't worry about the quarters like that
I mean, if someone is going to use quarter foundations like this, it's their problem 😛
Not sure I understand 🤔
Yeah but I want it to be like half foundations so it seems the most vanilla it can be x)
Cut where red line, move segment in direction shown by yellow
Is it possible to reuse the foundation material with this approach?
Why? Isn't it just a rotation issue?
Yes because this is just a UV edit. The texture already has a seam.
I'm still unsure how changing the UVs in that one mesh would work
I don't see how rotation will get you out of the mess when rotation.gotnyou in it. Your stuff isn't symmetrical. Fix that.
Sorry, I don't follow
Me neither
I thought the problem.was the lines didn't line up and look nice. My hack will fix that
This is just one quarter foundation mesh, placed 4 times, each time rotated 90 degrees
I know
What would the lines on the foundation's "central" area end up looking like?
If you did what I recommend you'd get them lining up across the rotated foundations
Oh, applying a diagonal offset
Like so
I'm still lost, that's what I understand from your recommendation
The idea is to only move the inner part of the texture by creating a seam in the mesh's UV mapping (see picture)
I just couldn't make sense out of the arrow, but then it clicked and I saw the light
Yup. It doesn't need to be diagonal linear is fine. The rotational symmetry does the work.
So moving the lines a bit downwards?
Ah, true
Not quite. Are you familiar with the idea of UV mapping?
Very little
I understand it very basically
Imagine a basic cube mesh. When applying a material to the mesh, the computer "glues" some "texture stickers" to the faces of the cube
Yeah that's the only thing I understand
The same idea applies to more complex meshes: since you have polygons, one can glue pieces of texture sticker to each of them
But imagine you need to control how the computer glues those stickers
The mesh describes which part of the texture sticker is to be applied to each polygon
For example
And since you have infinite stickers, it's OK if some polygons overlap
As long as the texture / material looks good, of course
I see, thank you, but how do I apply that to my case? How do I create a seam in the UV mapping?
Using Blender
I think I watched this video and I liked it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qa_1LjeWsJg
Yeah I suppose x) By seam do you mean a specific UV map related thing or the actual seam in the texture?
The texture has a visual seam already, in this case it means a seam in the UVs
UVs are simply 2D coordinates
Ah ok I see
But why doesn't the UV mapping in blender match the texture in game? In blender it looks like that (the sides)
Likely because of how the material is set up
The thing I was struggling with yesterday?
Yes
But the textures looked like that before I touched them
I don't know what your Blender material looks like, but it doesn't seem to match the material in UE
Yeah, that's intentional
You only need a texture for a quarter of the top side
That makes sense
It looks like that too in FModel
FModel can't extract UE materials in a usable format
Ah that's why
But how do I know if my UV map is correct then?
Trial and error?
1. make the Blender material do the same as the UE material, even if it's just for the albedo
2. edit the mesh's UV mapping in Blender to add that seam and adjust the UVs so that things line up
You don't need to reimplement the entire foundation material in Blender, just the Albedo part
Yeah but how do I make it the same as in UE?
For now, try to make a material like this and preview it on various meshes.
TexCoord[0] is UV channel 0, so the colours you see are the values of UVs at each point on the surface of the mesh
One sec
I think I remember, it's mirrored UVs something
I didn't manage to do that but I did cut the face like that
Though I eyeballed it so I don't know how that'll go
Eyeballing it is fine. Now just move that segment's UVs so the long bar is in the middle. It might look wrong in blender but the in-game material should fix it.
Wrong like that?
Yup
Wait no
You forgot to break the edges. So you moved other parts
Only move the face in the top right.
Breaking the edges is what creates the "seams" you referred to, right?
Seams like that?
On those edges
Yeah. You can literally define UVseams on a per edge basis and they get a red highlight
It stays attached :thonk:
Probably because of how you're selecting things in the UV editor.
Turn off selection sync the two diagonal arrows in the top left of the uv panel
Yeah only select that face in the 3D view
Aaah ok
OR disable adjacent vertex movement which is the little clustered dots at the end of the vert, edge, face selector in that picture.
Right so in game, the line should go to the edge?
Ah I didn't line it up properly ðŸ˜
I've even managed to do the side bit like on half foundations
And it fits perfectly
Thanks for the help!
I personally think the side bit is wrong, at least it looks like a mistake to me on concrete foundations
Still, this looks great!
Ah you think it's not intended?
Thanks!
I just think it looks really bad 😄
I agree but I think I'm still gonna stick with this good because I want to to match vanilla
I want things to be consistent between my mod and vanilla
1 mesh down, a billion left ðŸ«
Oh god, my OCD wants to fix that but I can't be bothered 🤣
You'll find a lot of these tiny inconsistencies the harder you look.
Yeah I know that's so hard to fix sadly
Very tedious
🪄 ✨ World-aligned UVs ✨
(and a material that's uniform)
Btw is it important for me to make LODs versions of my meshes?
Or can I skip that?
It's important but you can just make Unreal do it
they wont be as good but, they'll do what needs to be done
How would I do both options? And is doing it myself fast or does it require some work? I don't wanna spend a lot of time doing the LODs but I don't mind doing it myself if it's easy enough
it's tedious and requires skills you haven't developed yet, to basically remove triangles while not upsetting the silhouette or UVs too much. Most of the game doesn't have manual LODs. Look for some unreal tutorials on generating LODS you will just set the parameters on the mesh
Oh ok thanks, I'll take a look at it
If I understood correctly I just have to set the LOD group for my mesh right? Which one would be the most suitable one? And how many LODs should I put?
Yeah that's what I have
Yup that'll do. I either lazily pick something that sounds right of hand make the LODs and hand tune the distances. so I don't have agood suggesiton other than "does it sound right"
Alright, thanks!
"LevelArchitecture" sounds right :wonke:
(I have no idea what it means)
Yeah xD And by default it's 4 LODs, is that fine or does it not really matter that much?
Try doing 1 LOD
IIRC that's what foundations have
1 is just the default mesh though right?
Oh, I mean 1 extra LOD in addition to the "full resolution" mesh
Aaah
That's the distance where it switches to LOD 1 x)
Seems a bit far away 🤣
I have no idea myself
Idk what's the best distance
when you just barely notice the swap
, or, what you need to do for performance reasons. but you usually do that version after doing the first one
?
?
but you usually do that version after doing the first oneI don't understand that either You mean the distance should be the minimum distance that you cannot see the change anymore right?
I can't parse this at all, sorry
option A:
change just as you barely notice it, but still noticable
option B:
change when performance monitoring says to
Nobody picks option B first, they usually start at option A
Ah so it should still be noticable?
What's the performance monitoring?
Profiling, basically
I mean in unreal, like where is it, what does it look like, how can I see it telling me to change LOD?
If you have to ask it's not your problem
Hmmm ok, I'll do option A then x) thanks
Hum, because of the seam in the UV mapping for the ficsit set, it creates a weird line in the grip metal material
Maybe I have to make a custom mesh for grip metal to fix this?
What does grip metal look like without the UV seam?
Didn't try it but the line should not appear on quarter foundations since on regular foundations the line cuts the foundation into 4 parts in the middle
I'd try that
I'm going to bed though, I'm really tired
Same, unfortunately work gets in the way ðŸ«
Set the textures in blender to be mirrored instead of repeat
But there is no eay to see the texture in the uv preview do the mirroring too, only repeat :sadcat:
As in
Ah ok thanks I'll take a look at it tonight
To at least have the repeating texture in the uv preview, just click n and in the view tab enable "Repeat Image" There must be an image attached for it to be visible
For a quarter foundation, you should be able to get everything inside the UV preview
That too, but it's easier to just take the current uvs and just scale them down around the edges or whatnot.
At least that's what I did for the half/short/half short foundation ramp/stair variants
I said this because Spokloo happens to be working on quarter foundations 😄
Did end up with some broken uvs and normals, but that's just blender being a bit funny sometimes
Well this one is on the same size, I just split along the vertical split and then just scaled the uvs for the faces, tbf I do have most of them done by selecting the midline and then shift+s and cursor to selected, and then scale by x by -1 for the other side, then select the right edge and shift+s and cursor to selected and scale the midline by 0.5 or 0.25 and whatnot.
I just didn't for this one xD
I.e. like this one xD
It worked btw thanks
They look really great!
I also fixed this by making another mesh for the grip metal variant and removing the seam and removing the offset
The LOD version of the concrete mesh is really rough, is there a way to fix this?
Or is this even necessary? Since the concrete mesh has really few triangles
40 triangles on highest LOD so maybe it doesn't need any LODs?
I think that's what I saw on the base game meshes, if you don't see them it doesn't matter
Ah ok, thanks
They're done! :wonke:
Missing the icons and I'll release version 0.1.0 of my mod I think. Since it's the very first complete feature I think that's fair
Can't wait!
Same hehe
I like to have some bevels and such and then pull them off. Hence the two LODs, one being the 12 poly cube and the other being the like 80 with trims and stuff
12 poly cube, 2 tris per face?
Yup. At a distance it's often enough
I think the concrete one already has 12 (at least in blender)
Have you managed to make icons for these? If so how did you do? I tried to use Beaver's tool but I can't figure it out
Currently in the process of making an ingame icon generator
xD
Just have a few more things to finish with the UI and then I should be able to do something very soon, once I've made sure it works perfectly I'll probably go ahead and upload the mod
Oh ok that's nice!
How does yours work?
It'll hopefully just be a load into a creative world or something, and then click some handy little button somewhere which then throws you into a completely separate level which is where you'll have access to every item and buildable descriptor in the game to select from, you then add them to a list of models to generate icons for. And then it's going to functionally work the way the ue outliner and inspector works, as in select multiple entries and edit them simultaneously, or select one and edit that separately.
It will also show you what the icon for the first selected descriptor would look like.
And then a simple "Generate" button or something which then goes through every descriptor you added one by one, and it will capture both the final image and depth image, because I WILL forcefully disable anti aliasing
And depth of field
So it will just capture a relatively high res image and then do super sampled downscaling (I.e. averaging the colors of the smaller pixels in the larger pixels)
Damn, seems really nice
I'll be away for the weekend so I won't be able to upload my mod yet sadly 😦
Meanwhile I've been rather busy with university deadlines so fun.
I only have one project to finish before the 28th of november, which I hope to complete by next week, I will try to continue doing some work when I have time.
Hopefully I can do some work when I get home from university tomorrow and get one of the most important parts (The descriptor selection lists, which require that I make some slight modifications to the base ue5 slate list because it has a very bad multi selection mode) and then I can continue to integrate the scene settings and then I just need to get the scene capturing and I should be done. Maybe in the future I'll make it possible to get additional point lights or for example the fog wall thingy for connections and whatnot, but for a first version I will skip those things and only do the meshes and materials with 3 lights...
It's alright take your time :happyko: