Has anyone ever used Unreal Engine within CityEngine or ArcGIS Online?

[RPGIS]

Hi,

I have a quick and very simply question. Has anyone every used Unreal Engine and imported the Unreal Engine scene into CityEngine/ArcGIS Pro. I am just curious because I think this would definitely enhance the overall aesthetics of the scenes if it can be done, but if it can't then I will see if there is a way or post this as an idea.

Thanks,

Robert

[StefanArisona]

Hi Robert, if it comes to CityEngine, the typical workflow is to create a CityEngine scene and then use the Unreal Engine / datasmith exporter to export the models to Unreal Engine. However, if I understand correctly you want to go Unreal Engine to CityEngine (or ArcGIS)? This is not a workflow that we explored, since scenes Unreal Engine are not usually to be exported in general (you can export FBX, but you'll loose most of the visual / aesthetic features you have in UE with the export).

Here's a link to the CityEngine to Unreal Engine workflow: https://community.esri.com/docs/DOC-13169

Best, 

Stefan

[RPGIS]

Thanks Stefan. What I was thinking is if I could render the visuals in such a way that I could apply the textures like a symbology and bring it back into CityEngine or ArcPro. I know I can apply symbologies in such a way that the aesthetics would still be kept but I wasn't sure to what degree. So I was just wondering if this was possible or not. I figured I couldn't import from Unreal Engine directly but I thought I could import the textured layer as a symbology. I will keep researching to see if this is possible.

Thanks,

Robert

[Anonymous User]

Hi Robert,

Unreal 4.19 supports a glTF importer, and I would imagine they plan to support exporting soon.  Right now, you could push from Unreal to DAE and then into Blender.  Blender 2.8 (opensource software) supports import/export of glTF and ArcGIS Pro can import glTF files.  So if your creating the aesthetics of your symbology in Unreal, I think this workflow would work.

Thanks, Steve

[RPGIS]

Thanks Stephen,

I wasn't sure about the whole Unreal/City Engine/ ArcPro direction, but I had a hunch that there may be a way. I have yet to try and test your idea since I haven't installed Blender or Unreal Engine but I am hoping to sometime soon. I just wanted to see if anyone has done this yet or figured out if it was possible, but it does seem to be.

Thanks again for your help Stephen,

Robert