Importing a new 3D model

In this section, you will learn how to import a 3D model into Unreal Engine 5. You can import different types of 3D assets, the most common being .fbx and .obj files.

3D assets need to have three prerequisites to be correctly imported into Unreal Engine and ensure the best visual quality and usability. These are as follows:

• UV map: Your model needs to have clear and non-overlapping UV maps to avoid textures and lighting issues. We can’t go through UV mapping techniques in this book, but you can read about creating UVs inside Blender at the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7M-B6xnaEM. UV mapping is generally a 3D modeler’s task. Today, most of the 3D models you can download from an online library have good UVs. All the assets coming from Unreal Engine Marketplace have no UV issues, and it is the same for the Megascans Library (we will talk about that in Chapter 8).
• Smoothing groups: You need to assign smoothing groups...