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Unreal

Export Overview

In this guide, we will be going over how to export an asset from Unreal to VNTANA. Here is an overview of our process which will ensure the materials are exported correctly.

  1. Combine Mesh – using Merge Actors Tool

  2. Bake Materials – From the actor inspector window

  3. Export glb – Using the glTF Exporter Plugin.

 

However, before we begin you first must ensure you have the glTF Exporter Plugin installed (glTF Exporter).

 

After you have installed it to your version of the engine you will need to enable the plug-in from inside your Unreal project. 

These settings can be found under:
Edit Plugins.

 

This will open the Plugins window and you can search for “Exporter” within the search field. The glTF exporter should appear and ensure it is enabled. If it is not enabled already, once enabled Unreal will require you to restart the project.

1. Combine Mesh

In order to export our mesh we must first ensure that we have merged all of our mesh components. If your mesh is already merged into a single component you can skip this step.

If your mesh is comprised of multiple components or you are using a blueprint actor with multiple mesh components we must merge our components into a single component with multiple Materials using the Merge Actors tool.

This tool can be found under:
Window → Developer Tools → Merge Actors.

 

Clicking this will open up the Merge Actors window.

 

This tool uses your scene selection. With this window open select the components you wish to merge. After selecting your asset in the scene view you will see these objects populate the “Mesh Components to be incorporated in the merge:” field.

 

Under the Mesh Components field we have our Merge settings.
We have found these settings to produce a mesh that will be ideal for VTANA Optimization. The following settings will produce a single mesh component while keeping material assignments intact.

Settings:

  • Pivot Point at Zero: True

  • Merge physics Data: True

  • Bake vertex Data to Mesh: True

  • Include Imposters: False

  • Allow Distance Field: True

  • Merge Equivalent Materials: False

 

After selecting Merge Actors a dialog window will appear asking you to pick a location for your new mesh. This is project based and we recommend saving the new mesh with the mesh components used to create it, which will make it easier to find.

2. Baking Materials

After you have created a single mesh you can navigate to where you saved it in our Content Browser. Double-click the asset to open it in the Inspector Window.

 

After clicking the Bake Materials button the Material Baking Options dialog box (pictured below) will appear. Be sure to add the channels you intend to bake within this window.

Channels:

  • Diffuse

  • Roughness

  • Metallic

  • Normal

  • Ambient Occlusion

 

This process will ensure that any edits done to the material will be translated on export. After clicking confirm Unreal will create new materials based on your bake settings. This can take a few minutes depending on material count and user hardware (about 10-15 minutes).

Note: Dynamic Nodes in the material graph will not bake out. These would be any node that uses scene information (i.e. camera position, depth processing, texture animations, etc.).

After you have baked out your materials you will need to ensure the material overrides are set for each material. This will ensure we export with the correct alpha settings. To do this click on the magnifying glass next to our first material this will select it in our Content Browser.

 

After you have selected the material in the Content Browser double click it to open the Material Inspector.

In the details panel you need to find the General section and change the Opacity Mask and Blend Mode.

  • Opacity Mask: 1

  • Blend Mode: Opaque

After you have made your edits click the save icon and you can close this window.

3. Exporting

After you have merged the components and baked out the materials you are ready to export!
You need to find your asset in the Content Browser, right-click on it, then toggle to:
Asset Actions → Export.

 

Selecting this will open up a dialog box asking you to pick a file location and type.
Select a destination for your export and change the file type to .glb.

 

After you click save, the .glb export options will open. We recommend the following settings:

GLB Export Settings:

General:

  • Export Uniform Scale: 0.01

  • Export Preview Mesh: True

  • Strict Compliance: True

  • Skip Near default values: False

  • Include Generator Version: True

Materials:

  • Export Proxy materials: True

  • Export unlit materials: True

  • Export Clear Coat Materials: True

  • Export Extra Blend Modes : True

  • Bake Material Inputs: Use Mesh Data

  • Default Material bake size: 4096×4096

  • Default Material Bake Filter: Tri-Linear

  • Default Material Bake Tiling: Wrap

Animation:

  • Export Level Sequences: False

  • Export Animation Sequences: False

  • Export Playback Settings: False

 

Click Export, now you are ready to upload to VNTANA.

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