Blender

Blender is a free and open source tool you can use to model, texture, and animate 3D objects.

Exporting

Blender supports several export formats, but the two most relevant to UE4 are FBX and glTF.

FBX Exporter

• Powerful and flexible, but hard to get right.
• You must choose correct export/import options for coordinate systems and units.
• Easy to mess up and get scales off by a factor of 100.

See Blender FBX Pipeline for more details.

glTF Exporter

• Standard defines coordinate system and unit scale
• Exporter handles converting to that standardized coordinate system, simplifies importer and user options.
• Models, textures, materials.
• Format can handle static models and animated characters, but UE4 side is still working on the animation part. For now, use FBX for now for animated characters.
• Does not support collision or sockets[1][2].

Animation

• Rigify - Built in Blender rigging add-on
• Mr Mannequins Tools - Create UE4 mannequin compatible animations in Blender

Plugins to support a Blender and Unreal Engine pipeline

By default Blender ships with an FBX export function which can be used to save files for use in Unreal.

There are plugins / extensions to Blender which can also be used.

As at May 2020, EPIC games has announced an upcoming EPIC supported "Send to Unreal" Blender plugin which will create a "data-link" between Blender and UE4.

The official forum post is here

No release date has been set although in three separate livestreams, EPIC developer James Baber has said it would released in 2020.

References

Further Reading

Blender Foundation

• Blender User Manual
• Blender Python API
• Blender YouTube channel
• Blender Conference
• Blender + Unreal asset pipeline foundations - Mike Erwin - Blender Conf 2019

Epic Games

• Blender to Unreal Tools Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
• Blender to Unreal Engine with Matt Workman
• Blender to UE4 (2017)

1. Unreal Engine Forums - Add collision and socket support to glTF importer
2. glTF roadmap - what would you like to see next in glTF?