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.
Combine Mesh – using Merge Actors Tool
Bake Materials – From the actor inspector window
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.