Software:
Unreal Engine 4.25 | Photoshop 2020
Quick UE normal map tip:
If you load a normal map into a UE material and the result appears inverted, i.e. holes instead of bumps or the other way:
Inverted normal map:
Fixed normal map:
Related:
UE4 Bump map
Software:
Unreal Engine 4.25
This post is a summary of the tips given by Epic Games technical-artist Min Oh in his GDC 2017 lecture about improving photo-realism in product visualization, more specifically, how to render high quality surfaces.
I recommend watching the full lecture:
Set the material Shading Model to Clear Coat and use a ClearCoatBottomNormal input node to add a normal map for the underlying layer:
Related:
Software:
Unreal Engine 4.25
Steps for activating DXR Ray-tracing in a UE4 project:
No DXR Reflections:
DXR Reflections on a GTX 1070 GPU:
Related posts:
Software:
Unreal Engine 4.25
The Static Lighting calculation in UE4 is performed by the Lightmass module (UE4’s integrated GI* engine), and the result of this calculation is stored in each object’s Lightmap, an extra texture map used for storing static light and shadow information.
This post provides a list of useful tips and techniques for improving your UE4 scene setup for an efficient light calculation.
Notes:
Scene Setup:
Lightmap Resolution:
Lighmass Settings:
The Lightmass setting are found in:
World Settings > Lightmass
* GI – “Global Illumination” is a term referring to indirect light simulation, namely a calculation of how light reflects and bounces between surfaces.
Related posts:
Software:
Unreal Engine 4.25
The UE4 First Person template is a good way to start an Architectural virtual tour project, but we first need to “clean” it up, namely, get rid of all the unnecessary objects and settings.
Start with the obvious:
Delete all the cubes and blocks. (Simply select them and press delete)
The quickest way to select all these objects is through the World Outliner window.
Select all the unneeded objects (see image below) and delete them.
Note:
I’m intentionally keeping the 4 surrounding wall objects because I want them to serve as invisible barrier objects that will stop the player from wondering of the platform.
So now our level looks like this, with weird static shadows left by the “BigWall” objects that were deleted.
It’s not really critical to fix this at this stage, but if you want to get rid of the weird left-over shadows, simply press the Build button to re-build the lighting, and they will be gone.
Making the walls invisible:
Select the 4 wall objects, and in the Details window, in the Lighting Settings uncheck Cast Shadow,
And under Rendering uncheck Visible.
The level is now clear, and when we press play, we can free roam on the empty stage until we hit the invisible walls.
* You can re-build the lighting to get rid of the walls static shadow.
Time to get dirty!
We now have to get rid if the FPS rifle and shooting setup….
Select the FirstPersonCharacter actor, and in the World Outliner window click Edit FirstPersonCharacter to open the actors Blueprint:
In the FirstPersonCharacter Blueprint, navigate to the Viewport tab so you’l be able to see the mesh components clearly,
And in the actor Components Window on the left, select all the unneeded components, delete them and press the Compile button.
* make sure you don’t select the FirstPersonCamera or any of the inherited components
A list of reported errors will now be displayed in the Compile Results window, because we deleted objects that are referenced by the Blueprint, we will fix this in the next step:
Navigate to the Construction Script tab, Select the AttachComponentToComponent node (currently displaying an error) and delete it.
Navigate to the Event Graph tab, locate the first Event Graph at the top of the Blueprint, this is the Event BeginPlay graph.
Select the 2 Set Hidden in Game nodes (currently displaying an errors) and delete them:
Locate the Spawn projectile node graph at the bottom of the Event Graph,
Select this whole section, delete it and press Compile.
The Event Graph should now look like this, and compilation should be without errors because we deleted all the Blueprint parts that were referencing the deleted actor components:
Almost there..
It’s time to remove the small red targeting cross-hair icon displayed on the screen when playing.
The cross-hair icon is defined in the level’s HUD (Heads Up Display) Blueprint class.
The easiest way to remove it is to simply remove the HUD class from the level.
Note:
The FirstPersonHUD class can be useful to an Archviz project for displaying branding and architectural data on screen so it’s good to keep it in the project. it can later be modified to suit our needs used again (doing that is beyond the scope of this article).
If you wish to edit the HUD Blueprint instead of disconnecting it from the level, you’ll find it in Content > FirstPersonBP > Blueprints > FirstPersonHUD:
To remove the HUD from the level, navigate to the World Settings window,
If it isn’t displayed open it from Settings > World Settings:
In the World Settings window, under Game Mode > Selected GameMode, open the HUD Class drop-down and instead of FirstPersonHUD, choose None.
This will remove the HUD from the level but wont delete it from the project:
Were done!
You can now decide whether to keep the default daylight setup or maybe delete its actors and create an HDRI lighting instead,
And you can now import your Archviz scene via the Datasmith plugin.
Hope you found this article useful! 🙂
Related posts:
Software:
Unreal Engine 4.25
Creating HDRI environment backgruond and lighting* in UE4:
Note:
Lighting using a panoramic HDRI background is also referred to as IBL – Image Based Lighting.
* The example HDRIs in this post are from www.hdrihaven.com
Related:
Software:
3ds max 2020 | V-Ray Next | Unreal Engine 4.25
This post details basic steps and tips for exporting models from 3ds max & V-Ray to Unreal Engine using the Datasmith plugin.
The Datasmith plugin from Epic Games is revolutionary in the relatively painless workflow it enables for exporting 3ds max & V-Ray architectural scenes into Unreal Engine.
Bear in mind however, that Datasmith‘s streamlined workflow can’t always free us from the need to meticulously prepare models as game assets by the book (UV unwrapping, texture baking, mesh and material unifying etc.) (especially if we need very high game performance).
That being said, the Datasmith plugin has definitely revolutionized the process of importing assets into Unreal, making it mush more convenient and accessible.
Preparation:
Download and Install the Datasmith exporter plugin compatible with your modeling software and Unreal Engine version:
https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/datasmith/plugins
In 3ds max & V-Ray:
In Unreal Editor:
Related:
Software:
Unreal Engine 4.24
The TeoSidedSign node let’s the shader “know” if a rendered polygon is facing the camera or not by outputting a value of 1 for facing polys and -1 for back-facing polys.
This is useful for creating materials that have different properties when seen front-facing or back-facing.
Example 1:
Blending two different colors based on face direction:
Note:
You can use this method to blend any other material attribute based on polygon facing direction.
Example 2:
Create an “inwards facing” flipped normal material:
Related:
Software:
Unreal Engine 4.24
An example of a simple fog effect created using a Post Process material:
The fog material Blueprint:
The method for creating the fog effect is to take distance of the objects from the camera, map it to a value range suitable for color blending 0 – 1, and use that for blending the object’s color with the fog color, so the further away the object, the more it will be colored by the fog.
Start by creating a new material, and follow the details below to create the Blueprint:
Applying the Post Process material to the level:
Related:
Software:
Unreal Engine 4.24
To Change the size of the UI and fonts in the Unreal Editor:
