Just wanted to pass along some info to all of you. I just signed up for a webinar to look at the new Unreal Engine Studio, which is aimed at Architects and Product Designers. They specially mention Rhino on their website (in the data smith section of the Studio page), apparently Unreal Studio can import .3dm files now.
This could be great for VR, AR, and just plain animations for Rhino Projects. If it works well, it could be a huge time saver for larger scenes. Also, the new Vray3.6 has a beta version that will send out all Vray Materials, Lights, etc into Unreal.
Anyway, here’s are some links to the info on Unreal, I thought it was exciting and wanted to share, and I’m looking forward to the webinar, hopefully it will be very informational.
Unfortunatly Unreal Engine 4.19.1 still can not import .3dm via import command. Only .fbx and .obj are formats I can use without any major issues. It would be great to use .3dm format, so if you could provide any help how to do that, it would be cool.
Unreal Engine cannot import .3dm, however the Unreal Studio that is in BETA is working on that through a new feature called Datasmith. My understanding is that Unreal Studio is a different product than Unreal Engine and is aimed at architects and designers rather than gamers. Unreal Studio is Unreal Engine with new features to make importing and use easier.
The webinar that I’m joining today is going to discuss Unreal Studio, so I hope to learn more about the new product then. You can still Join in on the webinar by clicking the link in my first post above if you want to.
Also, I’m not sure what render engine you are using, however Vray currently has a project in BETA to export scene data into Unreal Engine. See this link: https://www.chaosgroup.com/vray/unreal
That is attractive as well because you could do still shots in full quality for clients, then export the same scene, materials, lights, etc into Unreal Engine to create animations. Once in Unreal Engine, not only would animation creation be much faster, but you could add animated foliage and people (from Anima).
I very briefly tested Datasmith and it imported the Rhino files I tried perfectly. I haven’t had a chance to learn to use Unreal properly, but it seems to have a ton of potential.
Thanks for the feedback CountryGolden, that is great to know. I report back on this forum after the webinar this afternoon and let you all know what I find out. I’m hoping the workflow is easy and solid. Learning Unreal seams like quite a task, I’ve only just played with it a bit. I’m willing to take the time to learn it however if the Studio version creates a more seamless workflow. Creating architectural animation frames quickly is attractive enough . . . however, having animated foliage and people is a huge bonus. Unreal’s quality seems to have greatly improved over the past couple of years too . . .
Unreal Studio comes with 3DM importer that works fine. In my experience it however doesn’t bring anything useful compared to standard FBX export / import. The coolest thing about Unreal Studio is the plugin for 3ds Max and future plugin for SketchUp. That fluently transfers geometry including V-Ray materials, lights and whole bunch of settings. Until we get this for Rhino, you can happily stay with vanilla Unreal Engine for free.
Good to know Jonish, thank you! They made it sound like they were planning on developing DataSmith to be on par for all the plugins . . . hopefully that will happen.
Also, has anyone tested the Vray BETA for Unreal? The idea here is that any of the plugins can export the entire scene (materials, lights, etc.) into Unreal. That may be a better solution that Unreal Studio’s DataSmith . . . and free since you can just use Unreal.
Applying materials inside Unreal is easy, what I was looking at is porting over directly materials used inside Rhino (which is the car sample) There is however some issue with textures. This import worked (rhino 5 file) Rhino 6 shows a different result. Problem has been reported to Unreal
I’m personally trying to stay away from the Studio. Basic FBX import/export from Rhino 5 also works, keeping mapping, materials assigned and diffuse textures. However I’m having troubles quickly generating proper UV for lightmaps, especially from messy models.
Thanks for letting us know about this Jvdsteen. Was this import done through Studio’s .3dm import or was this done through the Vray Unreal Beta Export?
Jonish – this is an interesting conversation. At this point in time if FBX offers more import advantages over the .3dm then, there’s no point in studio. I’m wondering, however if once the Vray Unreal Beta is complete if us Rhino users will have a more complete solution. I guess time will tell.
I haven’t had a chance to really play with Unreal in the last couple of months and very little overall. I’m hoping if the import issues can be worked out in a less time consuming way that Unreal will offer new solutions for creating animations. Although Bongo is what I use most of the time, it still doesn’t have Alembic export so I can’t export anything Bongo related to Unreal which is a bummer – and i’m not entirely clear on what Unreal’s animation capabilities are with just using Unreal as I know a lot of users create animations in other programs and export the animation data into Unreal . . . anyway . . .
“When you see the quality of the cinematic, it’s remarkable to note that no baking or lightmaps were required. There is no precomputed lighting—it’s all fully dynamic for both objects and light.”
