UE4-Unity scene transfer tool ?

Hi. Firstly, I want to mention that this is not an engine war thread. I wish to know if there are tools that bring an entire scene from Unity to Unreal and from Unreal to Unity. It would be nice to be able to build your game in the two engines in the same time...or start a project in one and finish in other.

As for things that could be transfered, beside fbx files:

Metadata conversion
Objects location, rotation and scale
Shader data conversion
Lights
...

If there is such a thing, it would be nice.

 

Sorry, I don't believe so.. Best thing you can do is export any scenes as FBX then import them into Unity (re-size in a 3D modeller), snapshot your materials and use something like shaderforge to re-create them.

 

There is no tool to do so, you will have to do it manually (both ways).

 

I am not sure about UE4, but if you open Unity scene using text editor it will contain data about objects, what's their transform properties, what components do they have and what settings they have.
That might get you started.

 

I have found a docs page that makes a comparration between terms used in Unity and terms used in UE4.

https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest/INT/GettingStarted/FromUnity/

I guess a scene converter could be possible. Still, if some of the comminity creates such a converter, would Unity Technologies allow it ? As I remember, on UE4 forum, someone asked Epic if they could create themselves such a converter, and they responded that for legal reasons they can't do that, but the community can.

 

I don't think there's really demand for it unless you happen to have a commercial game and no choice... Think of it it like this, transferring a project to and from UE4/Unity is actually a great way to learn about both engines, and more about gamedev in general.

 

It would definitely be a niche market. Most developers prefer to switch engines between projects, rather then mid project.

However there are probably a few dollars to be made.

 

Seems like a nightmare to me, to keep up to date.

 

I wouldn't put it past someone somewhere to keep making subtle changes to the format of the scene file to break a tool like this. I could be wrong, but it seems like something someone might do if a tool like this started to make it easy for users to leave.

Switching your logic over would also be a nightmare.

 

Paranoid much though? I mean who would bother, since the tool works both ways doesn't it?

 

Yeah, but chances are it would be used one way more then the other. Not speculating on which way.

But changing engines is far more then just loading a scene from one into another.

 

You would have made a killing in the market a year ago, when all the shiniez fanboyz switched from Unity 4 to Unreal, then back from Unreal to Unity 5.

Unfortunately the shiniez bubble has collapsed and now people will have only valid reasons left to switch between engines.

 

Hi, i dont usually post on Unity forums,
but there is a tool that i use to make prefabs to .dae ->blender to .fbx -> [other tool], in my case UE4
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/4031

I dont know how it works with entire scenes but in the description it says:
"you can take assets or your entire scene from Unity to any COLLADA (.dae format) "
You could make any question to the publisher.

Alex.-

 

It's possible but it;s a heck lot of work. If you can do it, I'm a customer.

 

You could write a script for each engine's editor that is designed to batch export/import objects in the scenes along with their transforms. This way you're not having to keep up with file formats but rather simply dealing with minor API changes.

 

That's clever. A common format that could then be parsed by plugins for both editors. Do that properly and you could actually set up a work flow where half of your team works in each engine.

Don't ask why anyone would want to do this. Best answer would be because we can.

 

I found a unity to unreal tool I'm trying to get them to do a unreal to unity plugin tool to

I will keep updates in this forum
Kory

 

Wow ... thx for the link, Kory-therapy.
Is that Converter really true ? Can´t believe it ! And is it just a optical-illusion, or does it seems that the city-scene imported into UE4 looks on the fly much better ? Anyways, really interesting ! Can also be useful for many things.

 

I have seen some assets I like on UE store, so I have just for fun looked into the possibility. You could create a editor script in UE4 that outputs the scene in some data format (prefibly in a naming convention style so its easy to find the assets later in unity). Make sure you import all assets used (This is were the work will be converting all materials etc). Then in an empty unity use the tool to again to create and position all the assets

 

It does cause there is a lot of post processing effects enabled and there is a skybox contributing to the ambient lighting and reflections.