What's happening ladies and gentlemen, this is Minh from Architecture Inspirations.
Today I'm going to show you how to use Megascans in Twinmotion for Free!
Let's get started.
Before we start,
I want to mention that a "Bridge to Megascans"
is a feature under consideration on Twinmotion's public roadmap.
You can follow the link here to visit the roadmap and vote for your favorite features.
Now let's get into the video.
First, you need to sign the Unreal Engine End Users License Agreement (EULA)
so let's go to the Unreal Engine website.
Then click on the Get Started Now button
Here you can choose whichever license that works for you.
Then you will see the End Users License Agreement.
Just check this box and then click Accept.
Once you signed the Agreement,
you'll be asked to download the Launcher,
but you should have already installed Twinmotion so you won't need this.
Now go to the Quixel website
and sign in with your Epic Games account.
Click on Allow
Here you can Sign in with your Quixel Account
and click here to link it with your Epic Games account.
Now click on Subscribe,
and scroll down to the Unlimited Access for Unreal Engine 4 section,
Click on Get Started.
And check this box, then click "Get Unlimited Access"
And now you have unlimited access to Megascans
Let's download some Megascans assets and test them in Twinmotion!
There are thousands of assets that you can choose from.
As an example, I will choose this asset here
If you click here, you can customize the download settings
such as Resolution for the maps,
usually 2K or 4K is good enough for me
because larger resolution maps will slow down the model.
For the Mesh Format, I use FBX
For the Material Preset I choose Custom,
then on the right side, I will uncheck unnecessary maps
and download only the Albedo, Normal, and Roughness maps
Since Twinmotion can't import different LODs,
we can just download the LOD0
Now we can download the asset with this button,
or you can also download the Bridge app too.
Once it's done downloading,
we can extract the files,
and we are now ready to import our asset into Twinmotion!
In the Import menu, click the Plus button to import an asset.
Now choose the FBX file
For the Options, just keep it as the default
After it's imported, it will be placed at the origin of the scene.
You can see that the texture is not imported.
So click here or press T for the Material Picker and click on the asset.
Now we need to load in our maps.
First it's the Albedo map.
In the Color control,
we can click on the “More” button then import the Albedo map.
Next is the roughness map
Click on the “More” button under the “Reflection” section
and click here to load our Roughness map.
Now we can adjust the intensity,
from my experience, a value 50% seems to work best for me.
It might not look like it's working
but if you override the color map with a black color,
you can see the real effect of the Reflection Map.
It's very subtle but it's still important.
Now let's reset the color override.
Next is the Normal map.
Click on the “More” button under the “Bump” section
and click here to load our Normal map
Then I will increase the Bump slider to 100%.
For some assets, the Normal map make a big difference.
Whenever you import an asset, you will see it in the asset editor on the right side.
It is usually nested inside a folder which is not needed so you can delete that.
And I often rename the asset appropriately,
as well as the material of the asset.
Then I can add this to my user library by right clicking - Add to User Library
I can also create a new folder for Megascans and drag my new asset in there like so.
Just repeat this process to build up your Megascans Library!
Some assets have the AO or Ambient Occlusion map.
To use this, you need to open up the Albedo map in Photoshop,
then import the Ambient Occlusion map, and set it to Multiply.
Now you can save it
and then you can load it in the color map slot.
Here's a comparison between one with and without Ambient Occlusion map.
You can see that it's very subtle so it is your choice whether to use it or not.
Now let's add some 3D Plants.
3D Plants are a bit different,
sometimes they don't let you customize which the maps to download,
but that's okay because we need the Opacity map for it to work
To use it, first open the Albedo Map in Photoshop.
Then import the Opacity Map.
Now press Ctrl A to Select All, then Ctrl C to Copy.
Then I will hide the Opacity Map
and add a Layer Mask for the Albedo Map.
Next, hold down Alt + Left Click the Layer Mask to open it.
Then press Ctrl V to Paste the Opacity map here.
There we go, now we can save this as a PNG
and I will name it as Albedo Masked
This asset also has an AO map that I can use if I want.
If I'm adding this map on top of the Opacity map,
then I need to hold Alt + Drag the mask to copy it to the Ambient Occlusion map as well.
And then again we can save this as a PNG
and I will name it as Albedo Masked AO.
Then we can go to Twinmotion, and import the map.
I will use the as our Color map instead of the default Albedo Map.
You can see that the plant is looking a bit odd.
To fix it, you need to turn on Two Sided mode.
Now that looks better.
And also go to the Color control and Turn on the Opacity Mask.
Note that sometimes the asset looks darker than in the preview,
if that's the case, then you can use the color override to make it look brighter.
That looks good!
Now we can import the other maps like the Roughness map
and Normal map
When importing assets that have multiple variations,
you can choose to use the existing material in the scene,
this way the asset will come in with the material already applied correctly.
Just repeat this process if you want to add all variations of the asset.
Again, I like to keep my assets organized
by renaming the assets appropriately
and deleting the unnecessary folders.
In the Twinmotion Library,
there are some some potted plants that you can use.
Just delete the existing plants and keep the pot.
Then you can use the Megascans 3D plants in their place.
This is a great way to create more assets for your library.
Once you're happy with it,
you can put the asset inside the folder and add it to your user library.
Another tip is that you can select all the existing plants,
right click, Replace object.
And add your custom objects here,
then click Start Replace.
There we go, pretty cool huh?
Besides 3d plants and 3d objects,
there are also Decals that you can use.
Decals also need the Opacity Map to work.
I recommend you watch this video for some tips and tricks for using Decals in Twinmotion.
Megascans also has lots of materials that you can use.
The process of using the maps is basically the same as I showed earlier.
For the metallic materials,
there's also the "Metalness" map that you can import into the Metallicness section,
this works best with the slider adjusted to 100%.
I also have a video for learning more Materials tips and tricks in Twinmotion.
So check it out if you haven't yet.
There we go, just follow these workflows and create more 3d objects, 3d plants, materials and decals
for your library and add them to your scene.
And those are the tips for using Megascans in Twinmotion,
now I will show you a montage of some of the best scenes from our community users.
Enjoy!
So what did you think?
Comment below and let me know which one was your favorite scene?
Leave a like if you enjoyed the video.
Stay inspired guys, and I will see you.
Next time ;)