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Seven pro tips that will improve your Unreal

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MICHA FRANCZAK | 2015-09-15 10:50 | TUTORIAL > UNREAL ENGINE > rendering Engine vol. 3.

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Tips for arch-viz artists working with Unreal Engine. 2016 Winners
Announcement!
We made seven tips to help you to max out Archinteriors for UE vol. 2 experience. You can watch videos or read The best "Secret garden"
visualizations are here!
the text - both cover the same general aspects, text version goes deeper into details.

Table of contents:

Convert w ebpages or entire w ebsites to PDF - Use PDFmyURL! Unreal 4 Arch-Viz Interior -
 Tip 1 - How to import Evermotion models to new scenes (Migrate) Unreal 4 Arch-Viz Interior -
Tip 2 - Exporting Objects Tip of the Week
Unreal Engine 4 architecture
Tip 3 - Materials
visualization scene from
Tip 4 - UV mapping Evermotion - behind the scenes.
Tip 5 - Doors interaction
Tip 6 - IES Lights Interaction
New interiors for Unreal
Tip 7 - Better rendering quality Engine: Scandinavian
homes
Buy Archinteriors for UE vol. 2 in Evermotion Shop. Archinteriors for Unreal Engine vol.
3 announced!

Tip 1 - How to import Evermotion models to new scenes (Migrate)

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Simple & fresh Bedroom 15:09:07 30-03-2017

VISUALIZATION GALLERY by Ghiath

After opening the project file we can see basic Unreal 4.9.0 workspace, divided into 5 different tabs we will be only
interested in 3 of them 3d viewport, Content Browser and World Outliner.
Apartments in Costa Brava 15:03:40 30-03-2017

Click on image to enlarge VISUALIZATION GALLERY by javier_glez

Residential Interior. Kitchen\Room 14:00:16 30-03-2017

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 VISUALIZATION GALLERY by svinoed

The Lake House 13:28:54 30-03-2017

VISUALIZATION GALLERY by adam_m_

3d viewport navigation is fairly simple we can use standard maya/3ds max navigation or use WSAD k eys
with Right Mouse Button pressed.

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 If we select any model if will be automatically selected in World Outliner and in Detail View to show it in
content browser we need to Right click and select show in Content Browser. This option is available through
3d viewport, World Outliner and as Magnifying Glass icon in Details panel.

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 In Content Browser after click ing with right mouse button we'll have few additional options we are interested
in Asset Actions Migrate.

This option not only copies the mesh but also its materials and textures that's why a good and clean folder
hierarchy is recommended.

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 You don't want to put all your assets in one folder, because it can get clumped very fast. First we will be
ask ed if we want to save the scene if the content which we migrate is saved another save is not necessary.

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 Then we get Asset Report with info what content will be migrated to the new project.

Next we need to choose where we want to migrate the models it always needs to be Content folder of another
project (otherwise the dependences will get lost).

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 Note: It's very important to choose Content because every asset in Unreal exe files is using relative paths. If
you are work ing with network paths and don't see you drive you can simply navigate in Windows Explorer and
copy&paste the path.

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 Now we just need to open our new project and the model can be found in Content Browser and drag&droped
into 3d viewport.

If your materials aren't exported correctly make sure they are added in asset editor (RMB onto asset Edit)
instead of detail view (those are only overrides for objects and don't get exported).
If you need the models in exact same place you can simply copy&paste them between project (of cousre they
need to have same hierarchy in "Content" folder).
If assets aren't shown properly just close and open again your new project

Tip 2 - How to export model or texture from Unreal Engine

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 It's important to note that migrate moves only .uasset files (every asset mesh, material, texture is converted to
this format) but if we want to modify it we need to export if first to a format acceptable for other softwares (fbx for 3d
meshes, and tga for textures).

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 The process is same as with migrate RMB click onto asset Asset Action Export

If you are using other software than 3ds Max (eg. Blender) fbx is still preferable because it allows for multiple uv
channels.
Export can also be used to copy models between projects but because it looses materials it's not
recommended.

Tip 3 - Creating and modyfing materials

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 Click on image to enlarge

In latest Archinteriors for Unreal we used slightly modified approach to materials we created few base
shaders and used material instances. This way we can have realtime interactive preview and unification in
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 shaders (it also saves a lot of time)

If you want to know more about material instances you should see official Unreal tutorials:

Almost all materials are instances of BaseMat used for surfaces which don't need opacity. The goal was to mimic
some of 3dsmax and Vray material functionality (Diffuse, Roughness = inverse of Glossiness; Specular =
Reflection) with taking into account that Unreal uses PBR materials (additional Metallic channel).

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 One of differences between V-ray and Unreal shaders is that Unreal metallic shaders use diffuse color for
tinting reflections. Each material comes with Color and Texture inputs, UV options (offset texture, 3ds max
real world scale size, uv rotate) but also basic color correction (contrast, color overlay).

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 You can achieve bumpiness with normal maps or black and white bump texture. You can also overlay b&w
texture onto normal map as a detail map (for eg. if you want to have a couch with wrink les and fabric detail
texture).

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 For glass surfaces we created BaseTranslucent material with Fresnel angle based opacity and refraction.

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 For fur / short grass we used displacement shader. If displacement is too big and intersects other geometry it
can lead to flick ering during animation or walk trough.

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 All plants in Archinteriors for UE vol. 2 use 2-sided foliage and are animation ready (with basic controls, lik e
for eg. speed and intensity of wind).

Note: for proper animation trees require vertex paint (our models are vertex painted of course!).

Tip 4 - UV mapping

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 Another new thing that we put in Archinteriors for UE vol. 2 are multiple uv channels and 3ds max real world scale
(this way one 3ds max unit equals 1cm of texture). We can easily exchange materials between scenes and models
without worrying about wrong scale.

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Example:
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 Example: wooden floor material look s just as good on a wall as on other objects.

Note: the only disadvantage of this technique is that Unreal material preview (ball) doesn't show textures in a right
scale. There is a workaround you can use custom object or just check your materials in viewport.

Click on image to enlarge

UV channel 1 is reserved for lightmaps in all our models (we unwrapped most of our objects with dedicated
plugin Flatiron. To ensure of good quality we also unwrapped some of objects with Blender carefully by hand.

Note: if needed we also added additional uv channel (in range between 0 and 1) for custom details or normal maps
that are shared between many objects.

Tip 5 - doors interaction

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 Note: if you want to know more about blueprints please visit this link:

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 Click on image to enlarge

In Archinteriors for UE vol. 2 we added simple interactivity doors can be opened or closed with RMB click .

Of course the blueprint is highly customizable. It's made of three elements:

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 1. Box Trigger object it's used for interaction, if player steps into box volume, k eyboard is unlock ed and
mouse icon is shown

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 StaticMesh it's the place where we choose our door mesh (it's important that it has its pivot placed at
hinges)

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 MaterialBillboard1 here we add and configure the icon (sprite) which will indicate player what k ind of
interaction is allowed.

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 Each of these elements has its associated nodes in Event Graph. This part of graph is responsible for
collision with trigger object if the player walk s into Box trigger volume (OnComponentBeginOverlap)
k eyboard and mouse are unlock ed (Enable Input) and our icon becomes visible (Set Visiblity). After leaving
the Box volume k eyboard is lock ed again and icon becomes invisible.

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 The part of graph below is responsible for handling the door. Event Begin Play this node will be always
executed when you will start game/walk trough. Here we set rest position for doors (they are closed and player
needs to open them to pass to other room). Then, when player walk s into Box and after click ing Right Mouse
Button we can execute an event. It is based on FlipFlop node. First Right Click executes Play (opens the
door), right click ing again reverses animation and closes the door.

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 This animation graph (a simple Float track ) is used to set interpolation between k eyframes. It's linear in this
case which means that the speed of animation is constant. Our animation is one second long. You can set
duration of the animation in the Length box above the graph.

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 Timeline uses "Update" output to execute each frame "Set Relative Rotation" node by amount specified in
Lerp (Rotator) this simply says the door to open/close.

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 The last part is used to move our icon to the other side of door - so when we walk into room, we can still see
it.

Values for Lerps are relative to actual blueprint position/rotation

We could use Matinee animation instead of these nodes but this way it's a bit easier to exchange nodes and
build upon more complicated blueprints.

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 Last thing worth mentioning is Construction Script which is executed always when we create or move our Door
Blueprint it's just sets the door in open position (other way we would get black borders after light bak e).

Tip 6 IES lights interaction

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 Click on image to enlarge

Another example of interactive blueprint is the use of IES lights they are a bit more complicated than
interactive doors because we want one trigger to turn on/off many specific lights and have ability to move each
light separately.

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 Note: it is recommended to first see this videos about blueprint communication:

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 These interactive lights are split as two blueprints first one is the trigger and the second are the lights. Light
Trigger is made almost the same way the doors were instead of having geometry inside, it communicates with
other blueprints.

Click on image to enlarge

Example: After pressing Left Mouse Button we tell the blueprint to find all Lights associated with this trigger
(Get All Actors Of Class - every blueprint is a custom class). Then for every one of them (ForEachLoop) we
execute IES Visibility event. IES Visibilty is a custom event made in another blueprint (in this case in
Livingroom_IES_00).

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 Click on image to enlarge

Lights associated with the trigger are very simple when the Event BeginPlay is executed (for eg. by pressing
play) the light is hidden and we need to execute IES_Visibility event to turn it on/off. Advantage - if we add
another lights (duplicates of specific IES Light blueprint), they are automatically tak en into account.

Note: if duplicated blueprints (Trigger and IES_Light) are not working correctly (you get error while compiling) make
sure IES_Light is saved and compiled . Then manually add again 3 last nodes: Get All Actors Of Class;
ForEachLoop and IES Visibility to the trigger.

Tip 7 - Rendering achieving better quality

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 Most of default unreal settings are well suited for games, but if we want to make high quality archviz renders, we
need to change a few things:

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 Lighmass quality lighmass is Unreal way of dealing with global illumination (it's similar to Vray
lightcache/irradiance map). It first computes bounces of light and then bak es them to lightmaps (that's why
there can't be any uv overlaps or mirroring). Most of Lightmass quality settings can be found in World tab.

Four options are most important:

Static Lighting Level Scale the smaller scale the more samples are emitted. Too small values can produce
lighting artifacts, or give visible patterns
Num Indirect Lighting Bounces this setting controls how many times light will bounce
Indirect Lighting Quality it is the most important slider. It's locked at 4. If you want to achieve higher quality,
you need to click on the number and manually enter 10 value. Increasing Indirect Lighting Quality value has the
big impact on Lightmass bake time.
Indirect Lighting Smoothness here you can control how much smoothing is added to all shadows (smaller
values give crisp looking shadows but also can introduce artifacts).

If you still don't get satysfying results, you need to increase lightmap size of the models, the best way is to override
default values.

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 Click on image to enlarge

Lightmap resolution value has a big impact on bak ing time, so it's better to have lower resolution in Static
Mesh settings (most of our models in Archinteriors for UE vol. 2 have Lightmap resolution between 128 and
256 to get the quick est preview lighting bak ing times). If you want to achieve even better quality, just override
it in Details panel. If there are too many big light maps in the scene there can be errors during pack aging a
project to exe file. Remember that lightmaps are only textures that are streamed by engine to fixed buffer
size. If buffer is full, engine loads mipmapped (scaled) much lower resolution textures. So if you have too
many big maps, buffer will fill much quick er and you will get lower quality maps during streaming. You can
also turn off streaming completely, but you will need a powerful machine to play the animation.

Note: if you need even higher quality you can edit BaseLightmass.ini (in C:\Program Files\Epic
Games\4.9\Engine\Config), but it's beyond the scope of this tutorial.

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 Screen Space Reflections Quality. Unreal has two ways of dealing with reflections using Refection Capture
spheres and postproces Screen Space Reflection. The latter has much higher quality (Reflection Capture
spheres are constrained by dx11, they can be max 128px in size).

Note: if you need higher quality you need to edit ScreenSpaceReflections.usf (in \Unreal
Engine\4.x\Engine\Shaders\ See example)

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 To get higher quality antialiasing we can add Execute Console Command node in level blueprint with
r.PostProcessAAQuality 6

If you want more particles and from some reason you can't switch to gpu particles, execute another console
command: "FX.MaxCPUParticlesPerEmitter" (default value is 1000, you may need to increase it).

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 It's a good practice to render final output in at least 2 times bigger resolution than intended. Although you will
get much slower playback , the quality boost is worth it. You can find this option in Global PostProcess (Misc
Screen Percentage)

Author: Micha Franczak | Editor: Micha Franczak

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TAGS: ARCHINTERIORS ENGINE UNREAL ARCHINTERIORS UE UE

Making of Archinteriors vol. 29 Making of Archinteriors vol. 31

scene scene
Hi! My name is Piotr Mroz and I w ork in Marcin Bialecki from Evermotion show s
Evermotion. I w ould like to show You how I the process of making interior visualization.
made one of our interior visualizations.

Making
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to PDF - Use 32 Making of Nasir al-Mulk Mosque
 Making of Archinteriors vol. 32 Making of Nasir al-Mulk Mosque
scene Barbara Witkow ska show s modeling
Andrew from Evermotion show s how he process of Archinteriors vol. 31 scene 02 -
made Archinteriors vol. 32 scene using Nasir al-Mulk Mosque.
Blender for modeling and 3ds Max and...

Epic Games Releases Unreal Making of Archinteriors vol. 27

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...and introduces new subscription model. Making of living room w ith open kitchen
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Making of summer villa from Making of Big Loft Office

Archexteriors vol. 21 Breakdow n of scene 8 from Archinteriors
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COMMENTS OLDEST FIRST

+421media 01:32:23 | 16-09-2015

i think there is an error, the tip 1 and tip 2 videos seem to be the same...

Report post

dr_After 10:41:31 | 16-09-2015

421media - yes, thanks, fixed :)

Report post

poisxpto 19:09:01 | 20-09-2015

very good tutorial
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 Report post

Aaron Smithey 21:29:40 | 28-01-2016

I do not understand w hat the BP_IES and IES2 blueprints a for. What is the difference betw een them? Thanks, Aaron

Report post

martta 09:44:47 | 08-02-2016

Aaron Smithey: BP_IES and IES2 blueprints w ere base for all the other bluepints - the diffreneces is ies profile used.
They are not required for other blueprints to w ork, but w e left them if anybody w ould like to see w here other blueprints
came from (if you w ant to use them remember to connetct nodes in construcion script).

Report post

Tedesco 01:50:07 | 12-02-2017

Is there a w ay to override all materials to a single material so w e can test lights? This is a common feature on renderers
like Vray to speed up the lighting process.

Report post

saeeddaliri 13:51:26 | 03-03-2017

The Material Editor in the Tutorial is not the same as in my Unreal Engine. Is it a Plugin ???

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