I need some help and I have many questions. I want to work with interior and exterior (in other words architecture) designs in Unreal Engine. I currently do my architecture projects in Archicad (You can check it out if you want to).

However I want to reach a higher level in presenting my projects (take for exmaple

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• Or should I learn 3DSMax?

I prefer to learn new things by reading a book, which has practice exercises (or just exercises). I can't learn with YouTube Videos. I have tried, but It didn't work for me (I used the UE4 Tutorial playlist by Unreal Engine in YT).

Right now i have two books:

1. Justin Plowman - 3D Game Design with Unreal Engine 4 and Blender

2. Gordon Fisher - Blender 3D Basics: Second Edition 2nd Revised ed. Edition

• Are this books OK to learn the basics? (I noticed that they also have some exercises)

• Do you think you know a better book to learn Blender and Unreal Engine? (Also I don't want to learn C++ progamming. I want to focus in Blueprint programming. It's more fun and easy to learn and undersrand(in my opinion))

• Which should i learn first: Blender or UE4?

I would be really greatful if you would help me guys :)) and i am sorry if my English is garbage.

Really thank you

1 hour ago, TheToxicDream said:

I also have to learn Blender to create 3D Models for my presentation.

Why? Archicad produces 3D models doesn't it?

It's true that Archicad doesn't have a game friendly format but export as .dxf. Import that into Blender and export as .fbx.

Import your .fbx into Unreal, apply Unreal materials to the model; you need the unreal materials for a more realistic look.

 

The only problem you would have with Archicad models is if you try to make a game with it. Archicad models like most 3D architecture software doesn't produce game ready 3D models. If you wanted to use them in a game you would need to clean them but if all your going to do is have a camera floating around it won't matter.

You will have some performance problems but as there is no "game" using processing and such it shouldn't be a pain.

Edit:

You only need to learn how to import models to Unreal. How to make basic Unreal materials.

I recommend learning Blender it's a fantastic 3D software and can do much more than Archicad.

28 minutes ago, Scouting Ninja said:

Import your .fbx into Unreal, apply Unreal materials to the model; you need the unreal materials for a more realistic look

I tried this and it was a disaster. It had MILLIONS of Vertices and it generated errors for UV Lighting, something like that about collisions, and it was terrible. I made a post about this in Unreal Forums but idk why I can't find it. I'll attach a screenshot later, and REALLY REALLY REALLY THANK YOU FOR ANSWERING SRZ :)))))))

 

Light Build is Production

 

1 hour ago, TheToxicDream said:

Light Build is Production

This is happening because you have UV maps that cross each other. When baking lights you need a clean UV.

In Unreal go into the mesh editor on your right side there should be a panel. Click the "Generate Lightmap UV" this will add a second UV map to the mesh. Then Bake your lighting again. You can also skip this and use Dynamic light.

https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/24957/auto-generate-uv-lightmap-second-channel.html

You can also use Blender to create a second UV map. Then using the "Lightmap pack" to make a light map manually.

1 hour ago, TheToxicDream said:

It had MILLIONS of Vertices

This is why I warned you that it wouldn't be game ready. These architecture software crate meshes over meshes all the time, so you will have millions of vertices and lots of over draw.

Every UV map takes it's own vertices and these software create a UV for each quad so every quad in your model is at least 8 vertices.

 

You can try to clean the mesh in Blender using the remove doubles function in edit mode. This could destroy your UV maps, causing problems with the textures. If that happens you will need to fix it by hand.

2 hours ago, TheToxicDream said:

something like that about collisions

Yes this will happen because the mesh is to wild to be used in a game, so it can't auto calculate collisions.

There is three ways to fix this. Go into the Unreal mesh editor and manually setup the collisions. Setup the collisions in Blender and import it using Unreal's collision tags. Or remove collision from the object and use other invisible objects for the collision.

 

The quickest way to get your mesh working is to ignore that it is a million vertices. Use only dynamic light. Fake collisions using invisible objects. You will still get a lot of other errors from the engine about the mesh, ignore it.

Te best way to make your model game ready is to rebuild it in Blender; using the first as a kind of guide.

44 minutes ago, Scouting Ninja said:

Use only dynamic light

Doesn't static lighting produce a more realistic look?

And If my shadows seem a bit pixelated using dynamic lighting, should I follow this "guide"?

Quote

There are a number of clear differences between using baked lighting versus a fully dynamic scene. One of which is the greater control over the indirect lighting which include the number of light bounces. As the others suggest, you can modify the resolutions of your lightmaps, and use the 'stat memory' and 'stat scenerendering' console commands to debug the memory usage for each lightmap and texture.

On the other side of that, you can move to fully dynamic which is going to be more expensive, but can be optimized by using certain features like Distance Fields and Cascaded Shadow Maps.

All in all, the best way to figure out what is going to work best with your scene is to experiment a little bit. This way you can understand how your scene performs and looks with each lighting set up. For further insight, take a look at our documentation on Lighting the Environment to get a deeper understanding of light mobility types, and how they function. We also have the Lighting Troubleshooting Guide to help you troubleshoot your issues while you work on your lighting for the project.

Source: https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/378780/dynamic-vs-static-lighting.html 

5 hours ago, TheToxicDream said:

• Are this books OK to learn the basics? (I noticed that they also have some exercises)

• Do you think you know a better book to learn Blender and Unreal Engine? (Also I don't want to learn C++ programming. I want to focus in Blueprint programming. It's more fun and easy to learn and understand(in my opinion))

• Which should i learn first: Blender or UE4?

Also do you have any answer/suggestion about these questions?

I have so many questions. Srz man I'm sorry if I am bothering you with so many questions.

 

1 hour ago, TheToxicDream said:

Doesn't static lighting produce a more realistic look?

It actually depends on a lot of factors, mostly how high you set the dynamic or static qualities.

You probably did some renderings with your work and you must know how slow that is. Rendering takes around a second to days to complete. Light baking is like that, you render amazing high quality light and store it as a texture on the model.

You can get good light with dynamic lights and the dynamic lights can be set to the same quality as the bake lights. The problem is that then it's going to take a few seconds to render one frame. In games we want at least 35 frames per second, 60 is smooth.

 

The largest problem with baking lights is the models and the light settings. If your model is large but uses a small texture for the light map it will blur and look pixelated. To prevent this you can adjust the shadow map size on the model that looks pixelated. The second way to improve the shadows is to adjust the bake settings. Both of these have performance costs.

The proper way to make sure your lighting would be correct, would be to start with texel density and UV mapping. This way instead of increasing the texture size you create a more optimal shadow map.

2 hours ago, TheToxicDream said:

should I follow this "guide"?

Yes, learn what you can. The more you know the more flexible your options are and the easier it gets.

In fact go over these guides and try them before you get into the complexity of making game ready models.

2 hours ago, TheToxicDream said:

Also do you have any answer/suggestion about these questions?

The books are good starting points, especially if you plan on making some games. They cover the basics and will point you towards more advance topics.

7 hours ago, TheToxicDream said:

Do you think you know a better book to learn Blender and Unreal Engine?

A better way to learn is by practice. Try something by yourself first, then when you get stuck look for a tutorial or ask for help here; that way you know what people are talking about.

7 hours ago, TheToxicDream said:

Which should i learn first: Blender or UE4?

Ask yourself what is it you wish to do?

If you want to make amazing 3D scenes for people to look at then clearly you want to be a 3D modeler, focus on Blender a bit more then.

If you want to make games where players can interact with your ideas then you want to be a developer, focus on Unreal more.

You should spend time with both and learn to use both, with more focus on the game engine or 3d software depending on what you want to be.

2 hours ago, TheToxicDream said:

I have so many questions. Srz man I'm sorry if I am bothering you with so many questions.

Not a problem, that is what the forums are for. Besides it has been easy helping you because you already understand 3D.

Ok man really thanks for your help. Also I saw your project and it was wonderful. Good luck with your project man!