>> Datasmith for Unreal Engine empowers creators, designers,
and visualizers from a variety of industries.
Users working with non-game data-
that is data sets using file formats from industries
outside the game development space
know that traditional workflows of bringing complex data
into a real-time environment can be an arduous process.
Before Datasmith, bringing intricate CAD data
into real-time environments was complicated,
often involving substantial investment in time
and various software applications.
As of Unreal Engine version 4.24, Datasmith
and all of its companion tools and components
have been added for all users to access and create with.
With Datasmith, architects, engineers, and designers
are able to rapidly bring their models into Unreal Engine
and experience an unlimited array of creative development.
From real-time interactive visualizations
to standalone applications, immersive realities,
compelling video presentations,
and stunning high resolution imagery.
The possibilities are limitless.
Datasmith streamlines the complexity of this process
and takes care of all the translation work
while preserving crucial and important parameters.
So what exactly does Datasmith do?
Datasmith provides a couple of different ways
to bring data into Unreal Engine.
First, Datasmith works as a UI interface within Unreal Engine
that allows users to bring in data
directly from dozens of products.
The top CAD packages are supported
and there are many file formats to choose from.
Second, Datasmith also works
as an application specific exporter plugin for applications
such as Revit, 3DS Max, and SketchUp Pro.
Assets are imported as fully assembled scenes
with geometry, lights, cameras, materials, and textures
already applied and in their proper locations.
Once this data is loaded into Unreal Engine,
the data created by the importer is ultimately the same
and all assets become standard Unreal Engine assets.
Datasmith automatically takes care
of adjusting the scale of your scene
so that your geometry appears
at exactly the same real world size in Unreal Engine.
And at the right locations in 3D space.
No need to change anything
about the way you work in your source application.
Datasmith detects and reuses naming information for assets
in the source application. In the World Outlier,
we can see a hierarchy that represents the order
and naming conventions of our data.
In order to take advantage of the scene
performance efficiencies of baked lighting
and to ensure that all your Static Meshes
are ready to receive static lighting,
Datasmith automatically invokes the Unreal Editor's automatic
UV unwrapping system for each Static Mesh it imports.
Datasmith supports existing information
stored within objects in the form of metadata.
This data may provide information such as descriptions
and part codes, technical and structural information,
and reference notations.
Metadata can be accessed and worked with interactively
in a number of ways through visual
scripting with Unreal Blueprints and with Python scripts.
Other features built as complimentary workflow
and toolkits with Datasmith,
previously only available under the Unreal Studio beta
are now fully accessible in Unreal Engine.
These include the Variant Manager,
which helps you setup different versions of your scene
and switch between them dynamically.
Static Mesh editing and De-featuring tools
to eliminate the need to leave Unreal
to address common geometry issues.
Jacketing tools for culling fully occluded Actors
and mesh geometry from the level.
The Collaborative Viewer Template:
this is by far the easiest way
to set up a multi-user design review experience
across desktop, virtual reality, and mobile platforms.
Furthermore, extending the capabilities of Datasmith
is a new powerful Unreal Engine editor,
Visual Dataprep.
Visual Dataprep allows for procedural control
over the Datasmith import process and greatly
reduces the manual work it takes to prepare your 3D scenes
for real-time visualization in Unreal Engine.
With the Visual Dataprep system,
you can build up a complex sequence out of simple steps
using a Blueprint-like graph editor
tailored to data preparation tasks.
With visual, node-based procedural control,
the data processes are truly unlimited
and allow actions such as merging geometry together,
removing or substituting unnecessary Actors,
replacing materials, and controlling tessellation,
Datasmith is the easiest way to get entire pre-assembled scenes
into your Unreal project
from a wide variety of third party
design applications such as Revit, SketchUp Pro, SolidWorks,
and 3D Max to name a few. Preserving high fidelity details
and working with complex CAD data
as it should be from the source application.
Regardless of the industry, Datasmith equips
Unreal Engine to handle the most complex data situations
to enable designers, developers, and artists
to create endless interactive and compelling experiences.