High Poly Meshes in Mixer Not Working
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I just saw the trailer for Unreal Engine 5, and I have decided to work with high poly models for my game now. I really want to use the mixer workflow because of how well it works with game assets, but I can't seem to get it to work with high poly meshes (with no normal maps). The main things that I'm working with are hard surface models with beveled edges.
I have heard that a curvature map is helpful when working on high poly meshes, but I cannot figure out how to produce one. I use Blender, xNormal, and Quixel, but I can use other tools in necessary.
Do any of you know how to make a curvature map to use with Quixel? I mainly want to use it for wear and tear on the edges of custom models, but I have a feeling that it might help other things too. One problem that I may see is that the edges are beveled, and that might cause them to not show up on curvature maps very well. It shouldn't be too much of a problem, because the levels on the edges should just be lower, not nonexistent.
Thank you in advance.
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Hello,
Be aware that UE5 is not yet available and UE4 and consoles do not have the same hardware and technology as in the demo you saw.
Unfortunately, it is hard to help you on your issue without the technical information.
- Which asset are you importing
- What file format
- Does it have UV, smoothing groups, correct normals
- How big it is (poly-count) etc...
Curvature is available inside Mixer as well as an experimental "generate normal map" feature.
Feel free to comment below with more information and screenshots.
Cheers
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Yeah, I know that the release date is scheduled for somewhere in 2021. I'm still learning Unreal, so I figured that I'd just wait for it to come out.
I am importing a custom fbx of a pistol that I made that has beveled edges and is all one object.
It has correct normals, and it has been unwrapped. I have used smooth shading and marked sharps in Blender to get the look that I have now.
It has 24,426 faces and it is triangulated. I have also made a Material ID map that is 8K. Might be a bit extreme, but it gets me a good quality.
The main issue that I'm having is when I try to add wear to the edges.
I tried generating normals, but it doesn't seem to be doing anything.
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You don't need an ID map that's larger than the size of the textures you're working with as input maps. 4k is sufficient for a 4k project. Generate Normals does not bake normals. It's used for refining surface scans.
Regarding curvature maps, Mixer automatically generates one for you based on the model's topology and the surface details added to the model. The issues you're seeing appear to be due to poor UVs. I would recommend redoing them so that they're all unique. Ensure also that none of them are flipped. This guide should help get you started on the right path: https://quixel.se/tutorial/uv-mapping-for-the-suite/
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I'm making it high poly because I cannot seem to get normals to bake right. I have tried, but I always seem to get artifacts in my models. Do you think that just selecting the sharp edges and marking them as seams would work? Are you really sure that it's the UV's that are the issue? Here is an example of the color ID map that I made.
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This is outside of our professional support scope so what I'm writing is my personal opinion: What software are you using to bake? I'd recommend using Toolbag 3. It's the absolute best baker I've used and should make the entire experience rather seamless and simple. UVs are a part of what you're running into, I can see several ways to optimize that just based on the flat image itself.
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I see what you're saying now. It is so hard to manually unwrap an object with lots of bevels. There are also a lot of weird issues with stretching. I might just leave the high poly stuff to environments.
So, I guess the answer to this question is to not do high poly beveled objects? Or is there any other way that I could get around UVing?
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Jonathan (Community Manager) Do you know of any other bakers? I would love Toolbag 3, but it's a lot of money, and I'd be paying for a lot of stuff that I don't need. I just tried to bake with xNormal, and stuff is constantly getting messed up.
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