For that kind of ambitious (way to go!
🙂 ) project, I would suggest a few common practices:
- First, make a rough, a mock up prototype IN Unreal editor, to both set the overal size and proportions of the biggest buildings/features that you envision. You can do it with Unreal BSP if you want, or basic static meshes, your call. The later would have the advantage of being easily exportable to Maya (well you can also convert and export BSP, technically, but I'm digressing).
- Two: In Maya, set the grid scale to an equivalent of the one you just used in Unreal (there's a couple of easy to find youtube tutorial to sync' Maya and Unreal's grid).
- Three: import your Unreal "draft level" in Maya. And start remodeling things properly. My adice: do NOT do ONE huge single model platform, but instead work in a modular way. ie: split it in regularly size chunks, of relatively similar dimensions, that you can assemble and (most importantly) SNAP together without seam. That means modeling them so that their edge (or bounding boxes at the very least), fit grid lines, letting you snap them as easily in Unreal later on as in Maya. This also makes UV unwrapping a simpler affair.
- Four, speaking of UV, this brings up texturing: consider them and how you will use and scale them early on, in your modeling. For almost any kind of architectural projects, since buildings/road/landscape feature are generally very large assets, TILING Textures are almost always a given. Here too, a modular approach in your modeling will be most helpful.
Check tutorials for modular modeling, and as for exporting from maya to unreal, there are several on youtube too, or on Unreal Ed forums. If you don't have acquired this knowledge yet, check them and I'd advice making a smaller test projects, similar to yours but for self-teaching purposes, at first.
