The Blender to Unreal Engine Workflow

Рет қаралды 558,716

Күн бұрын

som.bz/42Sk3EN - Unreal isn’t a Blender replacement, it’s a Blender enhancement. These two free-to-use tools are powerful on their own, but when they work together it’s truly magical.‍ After spending a few years switching over to Blender (from C4D) and getting comfortable, I started to become concerned that I’d need to drop all of that knowledge and fully switch over to Unreal. The good news is your Blender knowledge is still every bit as useful, don’t worry. Here’s how to use the two together.
IN THIS TUTOIAL
Todd Blankenship's Channel @AmIAFilmmaker
Blender Bake Textures - • Blender Bake Textures ...
Capturing Lofoten in Unreal Engine 5 - • Capturing Lofoten in U...
Make Nightmare Men in Blender - Lazy Tutorials - • Make Nightmare Men in ...
Get Blender - www.blender.org/
Get Unreal Engine - www.unrealengine.com/en-US
SCHOOL OF MOTION COURSES
All Courses - som.bz/3SUg5Yb
Unreal Engine for 3D Artists - som.bz/3N9aU5L
3D Courses - som.bz/3ArdpZu
Guided Courses - som.bz/3LYmJef
Instant Access Courses - som.bz/3AWv63C
CHAPTERS:
00:00 - Introduction
01:00 - Exporting from Blender to UE
03:49 - Modeling
04:15 - Scene Layout
04:56 - Materials
06:45 - Foliage
07:32 - Outro

Пікірлер: 277

@frostydelusions3066 Жыл бұрын

Error at 2:55 is caused by your static mesh and texture having the same name, use the recommended UE naming conventions in Blender or else you will regret it later. "SM_Skeleton_01" for the Static Mesh and "M_Skeleton_01" for the Material, your maps need proper names too like "T_Skeleton_01_N" for the Normal Map. Also when importing a Normal Map created in Blender make sure you flip the Green Channel in UE.

@DodaGarcia Жыл бұрын

I wonder if that's the reason why a fully rigged character that I imported for Blender became a fucking Skulltula the second I pressed play in Unreal. It was traumatic.

@ooffs_artflows Жыл бұрын

W comment thanks

@JonMurray 11 ай бұрын

@@DodaGarciahahaha!

@sortakalpuyu 10 ай бұрын

hey where are you learning all of these

@amosdotl6892 2 ай бұрын

Blender comment added.

@alestoryboards Жыл бұрын

basically model your stuff in blender and then do the rest in unreal ?

@Bulborb1 Жыл бұрын

Model, sculpt, bake, unwrap low poly/retopo etc in blender. You can even texture procedurally then iterate inn unreal engine.

@hellerart Жыл бұрын

If you have an experimental workflow like me, where modelling and animation is not devided moving to unteal is next to impossible - probably I will use unreal for 10% - I would love to build some scenes specially around fluid ninjas features in unreal. And of course heavy nanite stuff.

@christiankurschat5292 Жыл бұрын

@@Hemlok69 and u6⁷

@carlosdorantes9792 Жыл бұрын

Yup

@swancoffeehouse5983 11 ай бұрын

@@Bulborb1I just skip the whole sculp mumbo jumbo. Everything is box modelled. No retopo needed.

@ThadeousM Жыл бұрын

[4:37] If you do want to bring all objects over in 1 FBX file whilst retaining their individual origns: 1. Parent all objects to an empty in blender 2. Select empty last - Export fbx (selection only) 3. Import to UE as a "FBX scene" This will result in a "master" origin point represented by the empty, whilst each individual section retains its own vector data.

@AlfeYT 11 ай бұрын

This is the GOAT tip

@alkatheri-pk4hc 10 ай бұрын

"Allah! There is no god but He - the Living, The Self-subsisting, Eternal. No slumber can seize Him Nor Sleep. His are all things In the heavens and on earth. Who is there can intercede In His presence except As he permitteth? He knoweth What (appeareth to His creatures As) Before or After or Behind them. Nor shall they encompass Aught of his knowledge Except as He willeth. His throne doth extend Over the heavens And on earth, and He feeleth No fatigue in guarding And preserving them, For He is the Most High. The Supreme (in glory)." [Surah al-Baqarah 2: 255]

@TanHanWei 9 ай бұрын

Thanks a lot for this!!

@AbyssalSoda 9 ай бұрын

Haven't tried it but defs an excellent piece of advice

@GohersWay 6 ай бұрын

@Fafhrd42 Жыл бұрын

For the issue where a person has done scene layout in Blender (or another DCC), and exported the entire scene as an FBX and is importing it into Unreal, the best way to import it into Unreal is to use File->Import Into Level, instead of just dragging and dropping the FBX into the Unreal editor. This preserves instancing, origins, and transforms. (Also, somewhat counterintuitively, you'll want to tick the 'Apply Transform' box when exporting the FBX from Blender, otherwise the meshes will be imported as 1 Blender Unit = 1 Unreal Unit, and an Unreal Unit is a centimeter, so they'll be tiny) The biggest downside to this method is that it *does* make re-importing individual meshes of that scene a little more complicated. You can either make individual FBXes for each of the meshes and import them separately and then change the reference for the mesh actor in the level, or you can go through the re-import dialogue and manually select the mesh you want to re-import.

@RobertVanderStelt Жыл бұрын

The lighting you have in your office is soooooo nice.

@musashidanmcgrath Жыл бұрын

A tip for the pivot offset when you import a full scene: you can hold Alt+MMB to move the pivot independently of the mesh. This is a one-time effect(good for a single translation) You can set the new pivot location permanently by right clicking the static mesh in the viewport>pivots>use one of the options.

@nativelyornate Жыл бұрын

Foliage in Unreal continues to blow my mind!! Really good idea to use the best parts of each software, will keep that in mind :)

@NPC_YouTube 8 ай бұрын

i've been a 3d artist for 3 years now... I now just realized and learned to use boleans as a geometry clean up tool from now! thank you!

@blwho8881 2 ай бұрын

Seems a bit tedious just select the faces and delete them

@ahsanulhasanturzo8015 Жыл бұрын

Very nice video. It feels so nice to see people getting up-to-date by learning blender.

@RealSpacial 11 ай бұрын

thank you for this, i was debating on which platform to start with and this video gave me a really good POV

@PythonArms 2 ай бұрын

really cool! Thanks for making this video!

@TonyTheYouTuba 11 ай бұрын

Great overview, these higher level view workflow videos are very useful, thanks.

@coltish Жыл бұрын

How did you know this is the content I needed right now?

@PrawnKing89 Жыл бұрын

Dude this is scary. I was literally looking for this EXACT topic and your video posted WITHIN THE HOUR. Awesome content. You have a new follower

@shivendrapawar9618 Жыл бұрын

Same here!

@asr59 Жыл бұрын

4:28 that's not the only problem. Another problem is that will import the same mesh several times, instead of importing it once and instance it on the level.

@AeleksDesigns Жыл бұрын

If you want to keep the origins of multiple meshes within a single exported .fbx file intact, make sure you select ".fbx scene" when in the "select asset to import"-window (unreal), not just .fbx ... it not a bug, its a feature (seemingly nobody knows about) ;)

@FizzleStudiosLtd 4 ай бұрын

4:33 IF you are importing entire scenes / sets of meshes from blender you can quite easily change the pivot point for each object as needed. After importing, in the unreal editor modeling mode select your object, select the pivot option in the menu and select center. This will modify the pivot points for all instances of this mesh. Great tutorial, cheers!

@josephdungan3566 Жыл бұрын

Thanks for sorting that all out on video. I'm trying to teach high school film students both programs so they can get more creative with what they create. This video is something I can definitely share with them.

@armondtanz 10 ай бұрын

Ypu should look at reallusion. Im not very good a some things and that program helps me beyond all. CC4 & IC8 is a lifesaver ;) Theres a ic8 to unreal plug in that makes all the complex materials connect automatically (saving valuable time). Animation is sweet. Mocap clean up. Character Creator for creating humans and monsters.

@RinaldoPalazuelos 8 ай бұрын

1:55

@RinaldoPalazuelos 8 ай бұрын

🎉 2:25

@sd.creative 3 ай бұрын

Glad to hear that I’m not the only one that doesn’t know which program to use and for what.

@trunks2713 Жыл бұрын

Welp, I needed this video. thank you!

@FlopiDisk0 14 күн бұрын

Well, I'm starting to develop how I'm going to do the idea I have. Blender to Unreal seems to be the way to go! Thanks for sharing.

@bazebaze2657 Жыл бұрын

there is also a blender to unreal plugin that is really useful when correctly setup

@timothycook Жыл бұрын

Yeah, Unreal's official "Send to Unreal" add-on is pretty powerful.

@Covidcola Жыл бұрын

I believe you can change the origin of the mesh in Unreal through the Modeling Mode, however it is best to do it as you mentioned.

@saemranian Жыл бұрын

It was so helpful and thanks for your sharing.

@TheHassoun9 Жыл бұрын

for the 4:35 you can separate by loose part in blender, and do origin to geometry, now every object have its own parent bone and rotate around itself

@krystoferbelknap806 9 ай бұрын

Bro this video really just confirmed all my hopes for adapting to UE5 with a blender/c4d brain. Thank you...

@intr4 Жыл бұрын

im confused why u used booleans to clean up the photoscan mesh

@codes4046 Жыл бұрын

been needing a video like this! This clears up a lot of confusion about blender to UEFN (The Unreal Fortnite Editor) as well!

@done.6191 Жыл бұрын

WONDERFUL. Thanks!

@framex_media 9 ай бұрын

Excelent, thanks for the insights!

@Yeye10000 4 ай бұрын

I’m barely getting in to blender don’t know anything at all but still seeing this video as if I understood anything you go over haha

@cristhianferreyra610 9 ай бұрын

Buenísimo!!!🎉🎉🎉muchas gracias!!

@ellyounasty 3 ай бұрын

This was awesome thank you

@FruitZeus Жыл бұрын

What about character animation? I am not that interested in performance capture. I still like the idea of using traditional keyframing and crafting out character animations. That being said, I AM interested in unreal's renderer. A huge reason why I love staying inside of blender is that you can stay pretty non destructive if you choose to. The minute I start exporting to .fbx files and having different versions of things that way. I am concerned that my process becomes destructive in some way. Any tips on that workflow? I'd love to hear the best way of tackling this process

@THOWESankofa Жыл бұрын

I definitely have faced the same issue. Something I once tried was exporting my character to character creator 4 then sending it to iclone 8,applying all my animations and sending it to Unreal using live link. The process is painful 😅.

@alkatheri-pk4hc 10 ай бұрын

@wallacesousuke1433 9 ай бұрын

@@alkatheri-pk4hc 💩🤡💣💣💣💣💥

@MMALAB 6 ай бұрын

Great information here.

@Gordoxgrey Жыл бұрын

5:26 If you want any interactable cloth Simulation (Like cloaks or hair) it's best to do the cloth simulation in Unreal Engine and not have things in the sequencer

@alkatheri-pk4hc 10 ай бұрын

@zerefdragneel661 6 ай бұрын

@@alkatheri-pk4hck

@billymidnite Жыл бұрын

Anyone have advice on animations/rigging? Should I rig and animate in Blender and bring that exported animation to Unreal? Or instead, should I create the mesh in Blender, bring it to Unreal, and rig/animate/pose within Unreal?

@Thesupperals 3 ай бұрын

Hey, just a helper here! Try to export with the USD file extension. It'll save you a lot of time. Also, lastly- you need to set each individual game object with individual origins. This is why you have the issue found in 4:55.

@ToddSiechen-ud3et Ай бұрын

"And some fun foliage over there"... this is exactly my thought process when Im walking through the forest, "Oh look, some fun foliage over there.... and right here is some fun foliage, and FF EVERYWHERE!!"

@Jalens-sketchbook Жыл бұрын

I’ve been thinking about this pipeline for a bit, what would you say the best option would be for animation? i’ve had this idea where i’d make my animation in blender and send it over to UE for rendering and such but i’m not quite sure how it would all end up after sending it over

@katbmwh1101 10 ай бұрын

Amazing stuff

@currenluna Жыл бұрын

THANK YOU!

@bigtoebennie Жыл бұрын

Awesome thanks!

@zaks7 Жыл бұрын

4:48 I work with FBX imports to blender sometimes at work, and from what I've found, that's a limitation of the filetype. I don't know if its different in other software like 3ds max, but every time I import something as an FBX into blender, I have to deal with a whole host of messed up origins and relationship lines all leading to one random point. At least in blender you can just right click and set origin to geometry in all of them. It's slightly better when going from blender to unity because of the native .blend support. Maybe that's what a future update may bring us.

@janvollgod7221 Жыл бұрын

yes, FBX is a pain in Blender. They improved it over the years, but its still not user-friendly. For concepts, i always use OBJ instead. Especially when exporting object with boolean and cutting on it. FBX mess, for no reason, randomly points up.

@keeleycarrigan 5 ай бұрын

Wanna hear more about what is best for each program. Keep it up

@VorpalForceField Ай бұрын

Great info .. Thank You for sharing .. Cheers :)

@christiandebney1989 5 ай бұрын

datasmith for 3dsmax is great as you can select all your objects and it brings them in exactly where they were so you can alter and swap out.

@vikentijslauruts2153 5 ай бұрын

hey man thanks, this helped me :)))

@JonathanWinbush Жыл бұрын

Very informative 👊🏾

@AmIAFilmmaker Жыл бұрын

👊 Thanks! I've been learning from the best 😉

@JonathanWinbush Жыл бұрын

@@AmIAFilmmaker Appreciate it buddy, we should collab on a tutorial as I get a lot of questions about Blender but I barely know it

@studiodevis Жыл бұрын

@@JonathanWinbush Todd & Jonathan, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship ...

@AmIAFilmmaker Жыл бұрын

Oh man I'd be all about that! Down to collab any time.

@sysghost 11 ай бұрын

Interesting to see how two different branches of the entertainment industry start to merge. Meet in the middle. Game engines are capable enough to be a viable option in the movie industry, and software from the movie industry can be used for games.

@dailysmoker4339 4 ай бұрын

thx bro

@SamBenPro 11 ай бұрын

Hey great video thanks, how about you make scene comparisons? Render times, quality, path tracing etc..

@junito1957 6 ай бұрын

very very true , best with the best

@rezainjust Жыл бұрын

Great Video

@BazekBlu 8 ай бұрын

exzzzzellent video

@jasoncourrau 11 ай бұрын

If you want to make complex materials in blender and import them to unreal, just bake the different PBR "slots" before hand. You can do it in blender, and there are nice plug-ins for it

@ribthiefz8283 11 ай бұрын

Which one do you recommend?

@scrunkus 5 ай бұрын

@@ribthiefz8283 Principled Baker is what I use, great quality bakes that are easy and fast to do. It's also free

@NikGamer1793 11 ай бұрын

Can we change ue5 mouse navigation controls like that in blender? As switching from blender to ue5 is really confusing when we navigate with mouse.

@santiagocamino9324 Жыл бұрын

you can change temporaly the origin with Alt+middle click

@6Four6666 3 ай бұрын

I started mixing the blender with the unreal engine month ago and I thought I was the only one doing this!!!

@IndianCitizen04 Жыл бұрын

What is the best way to export Rigify animation data from Blender into Unreal 5.2 ? Auto Rig Pro has dedicated preset for their rig system export to Unreal but for Rigify I have no luck.

@MuslimComputerTuts 7 ай бұрын

In the video you mentioned a tutorial for baking but after looking through the links in the description, I don't see the link to the video. Can you share it with us, please? Thanks, man 👍

@massivetree7937 Жыл бұрын

You can move the origin point in Unreal.

@sulivarace7138 Жыл бұрын

I can't find a tutorial on the materials, I'm trying to export my skin shader from blender to unreal or else, recreate one but I'm new to the engine and so far I haven't found anything conclusive, apparently c it's the color ramp that's missing. If you have a good link or a place where I could detail information, I'm interested as well as learning how to create these materials well on unreal.

@vicarioustube 11 ай бұрын

I have a 1.3GB fbx from SketchUp19 that does not load well in UE 5.3 :-(.. It shows in blender but I can never see the entire model and don't know how to resolve this sort of limited focus issue . When I rotate the model I see the other side but the rest is not visible again although I have 32GB of RAM. The model is 9 floors up like a game park under a dome and seven floors underground

@cyberpunkzombie9461 Жыл бұрын

how hard is it to get any scene changes made in Unreal exported back in to Blender?

@Harsh-pq7nk 4 ай бұрын

Will the geometry nodes /baking /smoke , fluids effects of blender will work on unreal engine

@siren7837 5 ай бұрын

is there a way to import a object that currently have a active addon (like Gscatter) into unreal 5???

@joshuawetzel5812 9 ай бұрын

so if I want to bring over a character I have to rig it in blender first and do the animations in unnreal?

@parchinbales9211 3 ай бұрын

Hi, could you make a tutorial, how to export cinematic quality animation to video? Because I'm getting low quality every time I bake my animation to video 😭😭

@blenderjunkyriz Жыл бұрын

I was hoping you were going to answer the one question I have about importing from Blender to Unreal. Importing a model made up of multiple objects and that has multiple textures added to it, how is that process? Importing a single object like the Skeleton seems straight forward but the other doesn't seem as cut and dry. If I have a sci fi model that has rigged components for example, like landing gear how does this translate to Unreal Engine and what is that process like? Would I simply not check the selected object option so it brings in the entire scene or is there another step that needs to be taken into account?

@basisturm8862 Жыл бұрын

U can Export the different individuell parts of your object with different materials as fbx. In unreal make sure to uncheck combine meshes. U will get Ur different parts with different materials. In unreal u can ether Group or combine the parts to move around together.

@sappireflames0009 2 сағат бұрын

if I create scenes in unreal, how do I make it believable? such as adding cracks and chips to concrete? I thought of using a boolean to some rock shape, but then the texture disappears.

@BluesBlueable 6 ай бұрын

Can't wait for the movie: The Sword In a Stump 😜🔥🔥🔥

@TheJovialBrit 6 ай бұрын

I used 3DS Max for 19 years and have been using Blender for 2 years now. My background is games design, creating assets, weapons, etc. I recently got back into Unreal and decided to do some work in UE5.. However I find it SO confusing switching between Blender and UE5 because of the controls 😂😂 I keep going to use WASD in Blender to move around lol.

@mipe7755 Жыл бұрын

Actually, you can use Datasmith to transfer pretty much the entire scene from Blender to UE, along with lights and some shader nodes, but I don't know if they ported the bridge to UE 5 yet.

@janvollgod7221 Жыл бұрын

Datasmith don't work with Blender 3.xx and UE5.x as far as i know. Correct me if i am wrong please.

@DavidBoura Жыл бұрын

@@janvollgod7221 i'd like to know too.

@Viscte 11 ай бұрын

There's an experimental version that's released for 5.2

@GohersWay 6 ай бұрын

Hmn

@LearnAsUGrow501 8 ай бұрын

Hello everyone. I am still green. I used to play around with Blender. Also used to play around with Unreal Engine 2 4 So much has changed I am sure. Looking forward to taking the next 2 years in Learning both. Namaste Dave Ross

@ez6314 2 ай бұрын

Should you rig in blender or unreal engine?

@jasonsharp8621 5 ай бұрын

I'm curious about vfx effects transferring in to UE5 from Blender.

@batmanonholiday4477 9 ай бұрын

what specs d you have on the computer that you use for these projects?

@Ahtisham 4 ай бұрын

Man this comment section is as helpful as this video was, this is so cool.

@nontimehistory5679 4 ай бұрын

I want to create a plan of my town in medieval times. I’m struggling to find any tutorials for this. I’ve used blendergis but it’s not good for finer details like little rivers and hills. Should I just recreate the town plan using a canvas in unreal as my guide, or is there a way of sculpting the blendergis export. Thank you.

@alexanderwoodcock7549 Жыл бұрын

And what about vdbs, lighting and camera movement?

@jasonderuger5452 3 ай бұрын

When you go from blender to UE5, does your weight paint forfeit during that process? Rigs as concerned.

@eric24g Жыл бұрын

Crazy bc I was looking at unreal videos and said to myself. Im going to start modeling everything in blender and render in unreal engine. I downloaded unreal and haven't used it yet. Then this video showed up on my feed. I gotta get going now. Lol

@skeletonking4119 Жыл бұрын

THIS!! IS! POWERRRRR!!

@wenstelowarm3036 10 ай бұрын

great

@williamheckman4597 7 ай бұрын

What software are you using to capture point cloud data ?

@joseruano539 Жыл бұрын

Please SOM make a blender course and i'm 100% sure I'm gonna buy it, I need it so bad!

@aCrimsonMonarch 10 ай бұрын

to be honest, you dont need to thank us for watching, me myself watching you because i need to know and some advise for which one is better between unreal and blender, turnout combining them is the best choice, thank you for the vid sir

@PolyCharmStudios 11 ай бұрын

Even more powerful with high poly generator 😎

@Samkruso 6 ай бұрын

Tomorrow my new system will arrive. Can i use UE5 with a rtx4060ti 16gb and a intel i9-11900KF and 32gb RAM? It also got a 1tb sdd which i want to upgrade with another one later. I used unity for my recent projects but i want to switch to unreal engine. greetings from germany edit: unity worked with my old pc well, but the gtx970+athlon x4 880K quadcore cant run ue4 properly.. so im kinda curious

@mergimdemkuanimationstudio4671 Жыл бұрын

one Word "DATASMITH", it is not perfect but works very good. I use it in Unreal 5.1 and i get all materials and textures into Unreal. As you said we need to prevent over work for nothing. The only Nodes that can be imported actually are the texture (image) nodes. Thats why i try to keep my uvs clean and for large areas i use cube map projection. For me Datasmith is actually better than using fbx for unreal imports. I hope it gets better :D

@Viscte 11 ай бұрын

Thank you. Not enough people seem to be aware of datasmith

@emilemassie Жыл бұрын

Please take a look at USD (Universal scene description)

@user-lq6bd9ql2k 6 ай бұрын

please tell me why I can't transfer Alembic format to unreal? the message comes out -"Unknown file format: not a valid Alembic."

@AarronChittock Жыл бұрын

What scanning app are you using at the moment?

@AmIAFilmmaker Жыл бұрын

Polycam for quick and dirty stuff, and realitycapture for anything that I really want great detail from.

@hawtbutter Жыл бұрын

What kind of scanner do you use?

@joespadaford8736 Жыл бұрын

My biggest issue with unreal is that it is always crashing on me and I have a decent cpu. I hired a guy to do a set for some development and it just crashed all the time. He constantly had to optimize to add more foliage on his cpu because he was always running out of space. Also the files project file sizes were huge. I love the way unreal looks and I want it to be what I use but I can’t work on something that crashes all the time. A friend has a show that is all unreal. They had to hire a coder to make software to make it usable. I love that it’s working for you. I just don’t get how you get it to not crash all the time.

@Native_Creation Жыл бұрын

You need a decent GPU as well.

@user-nu8gb1ly5v 4 ай бұрын

Your computer is prob at fault unreal is GPU dependent

@kaletziiii6668 9 ай бұрын

Can in unreal make animations? Or is it easier make in blender?

@miyabi2603 Жыл бұрын

Where can I buy this course?

@2009heyhow Ай бұрын

5:50 Would be great if we could use some live link plug in boft software packages. And that Blender or Unreal has a texture node system that works with the other software. This way you can texture your objects in Blender and see the real time result in Unreal. This already excists with Substance Painter but i left this texture package since Adobe took it over...