Exporting with mesh with textures to TwinMotion, Blender or others

Rendering
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I have this landscape in Rhino that I have imported from an FBX file. Everything looks good and I have done a little editing.

When I export this mesh to TwinMotion through the Datasmith format it looks like the UVs have broken completely. Other formats looks bad as well. I also tried to export to Blender through FBX and then it looks even worse in Blender.

I was reading through this thread, but as the entire landscape consist of many smaller blocks it would take a long time to unwrap every singe one. It also seems like when I do it will rotate the UW anyway.
Twin Motion Texture Mapping: Is it really this bad? - Plug Ins - McNeel Forum

Anyone know a way around this without having to unwrap everything? Is the FBX, UDA, OBJ exports broken when it comes to textures?

How it looks in Rhino:

image
image1650Ă—790 330 KB

How it looks in TwinMotion:

image
image730Ă—416 115 KB

How FBX export looks in Blender:

image
image976Ă—873 123 KB

2

How big is the file? You probably can’t post it huh? Can you post part of it?

Since creating that post I’ve gotten way better at texture mapping, and texture mapping in Twinmotion was usually 95% successful (with the remaining 5% usually being fixable). This is quite a bit different than what I was dealing with.

Is it a single mesh? You mention it’s made up of many smaller blocks?

Recently I’ve merged a big mess of meshes using “patch” but your file might be too big for this.

1 Like
3

Landscape_Problem.3dm (5.9 MB)

Thanks for your reply.

3DM attached. Just created a different smaller area now. The issue is the same.

What I do from here is I export it to .udatasmith format and import it in TwinMotion. The images will be all rotated once imported.

It is many small meshes. It is just how Infraworks does it when I export from there.

4

Hi @mpd

I had to convert your file to V7 using the converter maybe that is my problem but when I tried to import your file it comes in with missing textures so I couldn’t help you debug it.

Are you using onedrive?
Try to save small with the textures embedded option before uploading here.

Why are you exporting to datasmith? You could also download the Twinmotion link and use the direct link in Twinmotion then link to the native Rhino file directly in Twinmotion using the import link feature. This might help.

RM

1 Like
5

Landscape_Problem.zip (7.0 MB)

Landscape_Problem_SaveSmall.3dm (5.0 MB)

Sorry, I forgot that Rhino does this.

In the ZIP is the original file with the assets folder. Seperately I also did a save as with SaveSmall and Textures enabled.

The reason I am not using the link is that the plugin has not been working for me lately. I tried installing the newest version today, but still no connection possible. It is my impression that it just makes a udatasmith file anyway for the sync, so that have been my goto in the past.

6

If this is a one-off there’s a few ways to get through it. If you have to do this frequently you’re likely going to have to figure out a faster solution than I can provide.

Here’s a quick test to at least help make progress. I’ve deleted all but one corner. I’ve surface mapped one mesh which I’ve copied over. You could load this into twin motion and see what happens. If it works it could be progress towards some sort of solution.

When I used Twinmotion I had to apply mapping to most objects opposed to leaving whatever the default mapping in Rhino is/was. This was unless the object was some smooth uniform material with similar sized objects (like metals for example). It absolutely wouldn’t work with something that needs to be aligned.

SURFACE MAPPING TEST.3dm (511.0 KB)

image
image1240Ă—637 98 KB

1 Like
7

What you’re working with is horrible to deal with because all the textures have the exact same name. I don’t know exactly what you need (and your required level of accuracy) but “if I were you” I would try to do this:

  1. Use the “Patch” command on all the meshes (someone on this forum recently taught me this it’s been a game changer for what I do - I never would have guessed that “patch” works for this).

The settings are almost the default settings (I think). You’ll have to play around but as is I’m getting let’s say within 0.2 meters (probably a bit less) for average variance from the original meshes and max deviation might be around 0.5 meters. It’s hard to check with an object this large.

image
image1009Ă—688 32.4 KB

  1. Draw a border - Manually using “pline” is probably better in this case but a single mesh you could do “dupBorder”. Flatten the curve using the gumball, then extrude the curve and delete the top surface of the extrusion

image
image523Ă—460 6.61 KB

image
image1249Ă—706 176 KB

image
image1053Ă—802 210 KB

  1. Once everything is trimmed you can join into a closed solid polysurface from which you can do lots of cool stuff with.

Here’s the file:

NURBS OPTION.3dm (4.7 MB)

4 - The hardest part (maybe). You have to find a way to get the terrain image/texture on this thing. You may have to do that manually in photoshop by combining all the images (or getting a new image of the same area somehow?… or pay someone to - a freelancer will do it for a reasonable price but you need to find a good one. I could do a really shitty job of this in maybe 20-30 minutes. You might also have to place guides in the images so you can get it aligned somewhat close - I do this with package logos - like having a bright color on the texture that when it just barely becomes unviewable tells me that I have the texture more or less aligned. I’ve done this successfully with product packaging and also logos in architectural rendering scenes. I can’t show the later because it was actual client work but neither example is exactly what you’re doing anyways. Basically the advice I’m giving is more applicable to the stuff I’ve worked on and might not get you the precision you need. With packaging I can be out 1mm in 100mm and nobody will ever know. But for something this size you’d be off by meters by the time you get from one side to the other.

image
image1252Ă—691 129 KB

1 Like
8

Hi @mpd

Epic made a change with 2025.2 version of twin and you have to download a new link software from their site.

For me it looks like it’s working though this mapping maybe wrong in Rhino for some reason or the other. It looks off but could be due to other reasons anyways here is the side by side comparison the mapping comes in to Twinmotion as rhino shows it.

You may need to do as Keith suggested.
Or what I would do is stich this whole image into one map or do a his rez rendering from top view crop it in photoshop and then in Rhino join all the surfaces and apply the texture using planar mapping. Or much more winded apply planar mapping to each tile argh I know.

Edit: Keith makes a good point about your materials having the same name, in your file you might add a number to each material, like material1, material2, etc. because Twin uses named materials in some way and this might have an impact.
RM

LandscapeProbImage
LandscapeProbImage1920Ă—1077 144 KB

1 Like
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The problem is that the meshes all have a different material, but the materials have the same name.

I wrote a small script that ensures materials have unique names. After running that you will be able to export to FBX that imports correctly into Blender.

ensure_unique_material_names.py (735 Bytes)

# Script to rename materials if they have the same name
#
# Author: Nathan 'jesterKing' Letwory
#
# Version 1, 2025.10.26
#
# For https://discourse.mcneel.com/t/exporting-with-mesh-with-textures-to-twinmotion-blender-or-others/211451?u=nathanletwory
#! python3

import scriptcontext as sc
import Rhino

rms = list(sc.doc.RenderMaterials)

names = {rm.Name for rm in rms}
print(names)

name_count = dict()

for rm in rms:
    count = 0
    print(f"next up: {rm.Name}")
    old_name = rm.Name
    if old_name in name_count:
        count = name_count[old_name] + 1
        print(f"new count: {count} -> {old_name}{count:05}")
        rm.Name = f"{old_name}{count:05}"
    
    name_count[old_name] = count

image
image1484Ă—938 231 KB

2 Likes
10

@nathanletwory: After @3dsynergy/@keithscadservices s reply I figured it would be that. I created a GH file to fix it and I was just about to post it as you replied.

As you say this fixes the issue completely, however it has to be exported as FBX, this does not fix it with the datasmith connnection. At least not for me. However for my use this is ok as I need to make a viz of multiple sites and it is just general overview, so I can locate the actual site stuff manually in TwinMotion as seperate exports, does not need to be mm precise.

Thanks to all for the suggestions.

I attached the GH file here as well, but I think it will do the same as Nathans script.

MaterialNameChanger.gh (9.0 KB)

1 Like
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I don’t know DataSmith - in Blender the FBX exported from Rhino imports just fine.

1 Like
12

Hi @mpd

For me your file works on direct link even without renaming your materials as you can see from my posted image which looks the same as Nathan’s. Also don’t forget you need to hit the sync button before you link into twin.

And or you most likely need to reinstall the datasmith plugin from their download page and or upgrade your twinmotion to latest version.

Windows
Before you install:

  • Make sure you have the latest version of Twinmotion installed; you can check this by opening the Epic Games launcher and going to the Twinmotion tab.
  • Close Rhino if it is open.
  • Uninstall any previously installed Datasmith Exporter plugin or Twinmotion Direct Link plugin for Rhino.

Installation:

  • Once the download completes, run the installer file and follow the instructions, including reading and agreeing to the end-user license agreement (EULA).
  • You can now open Rhino and start using the plugin to bring your project to life with Twinmotion.
  • For more information, refer to the Getting started overview guide for the Datasmith Exporter plugin.

macOS
Refer to the Datasmith Exporter plugin installation guide for Rhino.