Creating a Visualisation Tool (1/2)
Utilizing VR tools to visualize designs at a 1:1 scale can prove to be extremely useful when altering dimensions and observing how the structure relates to its surrounding context. Ensuring the context is to scale and of a high quality makes it easy to insert and replace multiple design iterations.
The Context
The site and context was a combination of the official model as well as Harris’ modeling in Rhino. He gave me the file, and I exported the geometry as an fbx and imported it into 3DS Max to begin the process of getting it ready for Unreal Engine 4.
I applied materials to all the objects which allows us to edit them once they have been imported into UE4. Once the scaling and materials have been done, the next and most important step is to UVW Unwrap all the objects.
Each objects must be unwrapped twice, to put it simply, the first channel is used for the mapping of textures on the objects, and the second channel is so UE4 knows where the dark and light areas will be on an object. To do this, I used a script called SteamRoller that automates the process of clicking each object and adding two UVW Modifiers to it, saving a lot of time. However, this method is effective with simple objects that are primarily rectilinear, if this object has inaccurate reflections and shadows in UE4, it is recommended to manually unwrap the object to get the best possible quality. After all the objects had been unwrapped, I exported the entire scene as an fbx file type.
Importing into UE4
The FBX import options are crucial when setting up a scene with geometry that the user has imported. The default options I change are the following:
- Generate Lightmap UVs: I unchecked this since I already did that in 3DS Max by creating a second UVW Unwrap channel.
- Combine Meshes: This is also unchecked as I want to be able to edit each mesh if needed. If this is checked all the objects will be combined into one mesh and won’t be easily editable.
- Import Materials/Textures: I unchecked both of these options as I will be importing/creating my own custom textures and materials in UE4.
Materials in UE4
I consider this to be the most important task (after lighting) in creating a close to photo-realistic scene. Having complex materials is a huge part of creating any immersive and effective VR experience. The following are the tools used for creating these materials:
- Photoshop: This will be used to get accurate colours as well as add the tiling to the main walkway material.
- Substance Bitmap2Material: This makes it easy to add details to materials using different maps e.g. roughness, metallic, ambient occlusion
- sketchuptextureclub.com : Great resource library for seamless textures that are free and relatively high resolution.
- Material Blueprint editor in UE4: This has to be used to adjust the scale of the material, combing different maps and create a usable material.
- Unreal Engine Forums: This is where I got the grass foliage mesh to create photo-realistic grass. The foliage tool allows you to paint the grass on a mesh.
