Exporting from Unreal to 3ds Max 2022/VRay

[alan.r.stewart56]

Hi. I am having real trouble exporting some assets from Unreal to 3ds Max. These assets were purchased via CGTrader, and were created for Unreal, but I was advised that I could bring them into 3ds. I have tried exporting the assets as a .fbx file, but on importing this into 3ds, the buildings and other objects appear blocky and lacking detail. In addition, I cannot get the textures & decals to come over.

I should mention I'm not a professional, just a self-taught keen amateur. I've really tried hard to resolve this before approaching you guys, but this is beyond my skill level (either that, or I'm missing something obvious).

Thanks in advance.

Alan S.

[RobH2]

Can you show some screen shots of what it looks like in UE and then in Max?

[RobH2 · Accepted solution]

Here's a little more info. Using Datasmith you can get things "into" UE nicely, the other way around is not as fun. 

Of course, like you did, export the FBX. Then you need to Browse to the texture assets and export them to a format Max can use, like PNG, JPG or TGA. This free plugin for UE will help you do that. Then open the FBX in Max and go to the texture and assign the PNG to the material. Also grab the Normals map if the UE object has one. It may need that to generate the details. 

This can be quite tedious for a large file with a lot of objects and can take hours. 

UE PNG Exporter 

Edit: I forgot to post some images. Here are two from a camera I exported from UE to Max via FBX. In Max, it initially looked flat and detail-less. The textures were .uasset files which FBX and Max can't use. I used the exporter to export PNGs for the Normal and Diffuse maps and assigned them to the material on the camera and the result is pretty good.