Blender + Epic Games colaboration in making fully automated pipeline for UE and Blender.EG are developing a groundbrakin addon.
Its here! You can get the addon!!!!!! I think there is no need to make any colab now.. :). @michalex19 posted an info in the coments!
Proposal: Some Blender and Epic Games colaboration in making one automated pipeline for Unreal and Blender.
Guys at Epic Games are trying to build a groundbreaking addon for Blender and Unreal Engine.
At the moment: youtu.be/c3_xUMQ6hhs "Pipeline " send to Unreal "" addon exports object and animation data from the blend file to Unreal with one shortcut and vice versa. After export, the changes made over the objects in Blender are updated on the Unreal stage almost in real time.
Although it looks promising, Epic Games developers have several problems to solve. Maybe someday they will make this addon, however, some look on this topic from the Blender Devs could maybe solve many things and further improve the making of a fully automated pipeline between Blender and Unreal, perhaps some day not as an addon, but something integrated permanently in Blender.
Discused topics at UE forum: forums.unrealengine.com/unreal-engine/feedback-for-epic/1718116-upcoming-send-to-unreal-add-on-for-blender-feedback
16 Comments
"Send to Unreal" is released and it's awesome!!!
Getting it all set up takes a bit of this and that, especially if you don't already have a Github account, I made a short tutorial for my friends, and I'll share it here if it's useful for others. Thanks to the team that made this addon happen and I'm excited to see where it goes from here. I haven't really been able to battle test it, but happy to dig deeper if it's helpful.
youtu.be/MYfHZkPICxQ
If you're proposing something permanently integrated into Blender it'll never happen. Keep in mind that MANY different industries use Blender, to have a third party integration built directly into Blender would just cause unecessary bloat and complexity to the codebase. That's exactly what addons are for.
* @testure * As for making something as a part of Blender i wrote "maybe" but this is not the case and not the point of the proposal. The proposal is a colaborating with Epic Games in making an automated pipeline. :)
* @jeremiasznm * why is a collaboration necessary? Blender is completely open source and Epic makes truckloads of cash from Fortnite that puts the Blender dev fund to shame. On top of that they employ some of the world's most experienced developers and artists. Remind me why Blender needs to lift a finger? If Epic wants to collaborate they have the resources to do whatever they want, Blender should not be spending any money or resources helping a third party get a leg up on their competition.
* @testure *
You not 100% correct. Such movement have to be both sided. If Blender will have more integration so more employs/studios will want to use Blender because today UE is popular engine. As a result - more potentials donation support Blender Foundation can get. And oposite to what you describe - EPIC's don't have to work on any integration for Blender too, because there are lot of others 3D modeling apps...
I use Blender to do my work for UE. I switched from 3D Max because found Blender much better for me. So now i'm here and I pay monthly subscription. Something like that...
So if everyone will stay on such point - nothing good will never heppend. But of course right now most of Blender developers work on features and bug fixes. Generally - export/import addons is something that was always done by some third party developers.
Here's what I think is completely off with this addon:
This tool has a far too big say in how my pipeline and file structure should be and is very limiting when working on more than one single project!
First of all let's make clear what settings should go where: Global settings that do never change go into the blender settings. Settings that are file or project based should go into the blend file and are being displayed inside the N-Panel. That's not a subject which is really open for discussion. So what's wrong with epics blender tool? All settings are inside blenders global settings when most should be file based. This also leads to preventable necessities like having to follow a given collection structure as well as wrongly named assets can lead to errors. Also settings will have to be changed everytime you change the project you're working on which is an absolute no-no.
They should be saving most of those settings into the blend file, not in the blenders global settings. This is completely incorrect behavior. Save the settings per blend file so you can actually have custom settings per project and even custom settings per object in the scene. If you show the settings in the n-panel and save the settings into the blend file instead of the global blender settings you could actually tell each object if it should be exported at all, what type of object it is (like mesh or rig or whatever -> this way you could let the people use their own collection structure), what animations to export with, if it's an LOD, Socket or whatnot (this way you wouldn't have the problem of wrongly named LODs or whatever assets because it's clear what it is). You could say for each object what parts to export, what animations to export, if vertex groups, colors, etc, etc, etc should be exported...
PLEASE if you need a proper export tool try the "unreal to blender" addon that is available for free on github and blendermarket. It really shows how such a tool should be set up, it's the absolute perfect blender-to-unreal-export-tool... Epics tool is ok, but really on the wrong path regarding those settings and I don't understand that at all. blendermarket.com/products/blender-for-unreal-engine
Seriously what are you going to do if you're working on two or more projects that each need different settings? You change the settings each time you start working on another project again? You cannot be serious ;) What if you work on a different project each day? :'D
Sorry, but permanentely implemented into Blender is not an option. Maybe as a bundeled Addon if it gets far enough. It's not integral to Blender as is, though. And I am saying this from the perspective of someone using Blender for realtime/game art mainly.
What I could imagine, though (some time in the future) would be a dedicated game toolset where engine specific setups can be created as presets. Otherwise this is better maintained by the respective company/developer.
* @motionblur.of.doom * I get your point and thanks for taking it seriously but please try to sort what is the main point of this proposal before you assume something that was not intended as a maim subject or even as important. ;P As for making something as a part of Blender I wrote "maybe" but this is not really the case. The proposal is collaborating with Epic Games in making a fully automated pipeline. And what could be done better and easier to get our Blender more "pipeline friendly" with UE4. Thanks :) In the future is to much, there is something that could be done right now for the nearest time and used by users untill the future comes or never :)
* @jeremiasznm * The core team is pretty busy with maintaining and Improving core features of Blender. Just take a look at these 10 planned things for 2020: code.blender.org/2020/01/2020-blender-big-projects/ The Unreal asset pipeline, albeit being a cool thing, is not a core feature in a long shot. It's a specialized toolset.The guys and girls at Epic are smart. They know how to code toolsets. I am sure that if they need help and reach out for the devs they will get help, though.
Your proposal is kind of fuzzy, though. If I understand this correctly what you are saying is: "I want Blender core devs to help on the Unreal bridge." Correct?
* @motionblur.of.doom * well kind of and your right but the main problem is also in Blender code. This how-to make easier and faster Blender to UE workflow topic has its history already, small improvements could help solve never-ending problems much faster and for good. Maybe some are a bigger than I'm aware of, for example: Getting scale in Blender to a more cooperative standard. Cause changing settings of the scene in Blender is probably not a real solution, its no a matter of some superficial tweaks but some other internal dependencies that cause problems to really get there. Looking at what developers have planned this proposal is actually a bit dreamy. But some colabpration could be profitable. You have to start with something, after all, it's one of Blender's goals - to get closer to the industry standard pipeline. If not by this way than by other
* @jeremiasznm * It sounds to me like this proposal should be more focused on examining issues that might be interfering with the pipeline, like potential issues with the internal scale system and improving the native FBX exporter. Otherwise it's just a matter of the addon developer needing to handle things on their own.
* @Chris Kohl * It's a bit sad to say but these things have been obvious for so long and the end is almost invisible. You're right, and this proposal is probably ironically "unreal". :P But I still think that cooperation opens new horizons after all some expeditions are more possible and more profitable only in the team. People began to be interested and headed towards Blender seriously, so why not go and meet them and help each other. You can see them already coming through our muddy backyard. Imagine what could result from such cooperation with E. G. The real picture seems to look like this: Blender is still not in the production pipeline tool in a full mode, they are trying to get closer to Blender so It's in our interest to see Epic, Unreal, Unity, etc needs partially as Blenders needs, but maybe even more -> the users. "It's not about a tool but the community" let's add also -> their needs and goals. Epic etc. don't need to seek cooperation, cause the pipeline is already established, its harder to change something on their side and there are other tools other than Blender they already have. For them is just a speed up but for many people outside the production pipeline to enter such a specific and closed environment is a key issue. Not everyone is able to afford to feed Autodesk corporation in the first place to enter some day. :/
This addon is not so cool actually. Mostly useless. I watched stream. This case when guy have enough knowladges and abilities to create something coplex but have no good ideas. As a result he create something that looks cool but useless...
This addon requires to make UE process always active. No one want this in real work and real life and real UE large project with full of stuff levels. It may looks cool only with empty test scene.
To change auto reimport directory it need to go to preferences - probably most stupid addon design ever... Typically my work is to import export lot of different things to different directories.
It want to hold mesh to import in collection called Mesh - ha ha ha... so I just have to broke all the structure of my scene to get this autoreimport. Sounds like a joke...
It work with some opened UE editor, but lot of time I have seweral different UE projects opend (at least two editors - project scene and asset library scene) . So how it have to f***g work?
Etc. ....
The fact that it so automated funny, but not more than that... Probably biggest my disapointment from EPIC. I wait that they will ask some pro users what they need and will create really usefull tool. Not that shit.
* @IIIFGIII * :) Listen Bro, I get what you mean but let me let me straighten what you wrote as a backyard buddy :) AT FIRST: You maybe dind't heard exactly - UE doesn't have to be refreshed "active" all the time to make this addon work - this is an option and a personal preference that "presentation guy" made for "smoothens" and his own likeness. Take a look 6:16, youtu.be/c3_xUMQ6hhs So "This addon requires to make UE process always active" is not accurate info and there is no problem with it. It can work with "frequent refresh awareness" disabled and one thing you would had to do is click somewhere on the UE4 window to make it work the same way. SECOND thing is that you don't mention alternatives in propper and fast importing animations and meshes is such way so in no way is it constructive. You probably know that complaining for complaining adds nothing. As you probably know this is not as simple and fast process as this addon makes it possible. You can try some tricks and spend hours that add up in many small tasks and sometimes not even finish cause something is not doable at the present time. SO if something is "useless" for you and wouldn't add anything in your work it doesn't mean its significant fro the case. The same applies to "working in many open windows" at once. This is your workflow and it is difficult to put a unique case of working method above general solutions. If an addon (or something elese that wpuld make Blender+UE more workable) was created in a cooperative then you can suggest improvements for such cases. If it's not usable for you - you probably don't loose anything by just letting other people benefit from it. Nothing changes in your life so you should have no problem with it. I would rather have a sh...ty car that takes me somewhere than have to go by foot and have no time to live. Maybe such addon is not a preaty lambo but its better than not having anything to speed up at all. Please try to see this from another perspective: I and many users would rather spend more time with family or other CG tasks than solving export pipeline process problems or posting proposals or critics in blender forums. LASTLY, "how it would work" - It is not my job to find solutions and better patents for this addon, and what things can result from it, but to people who would sit down in collaboration cause this is what this proposal's about. We don't have to deal with it - how will it work in many cases, unless you feel competent enough to speak for developers, that such collaboration is useless. you have to start somewhere. Best regards Bro :)
* @jeremiasznm * Animation - yes. Sometimes animation pipelines are very complicated. Don't get me wrong buddy, but cmon... Most of stuff for UE and similar engines is not animations. It lot and lot of different static meshes. Houses, propses, foliages, grounds and ets. endless list of stuff. They announced stream and call it like they done something really breath taking.... NOPE! It seems, they done this stream to show us this... Not bunch of good tools stuff .
* @IIIFGIII * Okay, I get you. :) NOPE cause you have your own personal preferences for the addon, all despite the fact that you wouldn't use it anyway. :P Epic Games have their own agenda but in the end, I'm not buying what anything of those people or whole universe show about themselves and their personal preferences but the software - that could help to do the job, this is the center of my interest. It's nice what you write about cooperation. In the end, it would be more than useful. Only for now it is better for Blender to bend more than the others cause Blender is still not a full pipeline production tool. There are other tools, and neither Epic nor anyone else needs to have such motivations as Blender himself. They're coming so it would be wise to go and meet their needs as a part of Blender's interest and even more - its users in the community. Take care :)