Trials and Tribulations: LightWave to Unity

[BigHache]

I'm going to post thoughts and processes as I figure out a workflow.

UV Mapping
Currently I'm using 3D Coat for UV Mapping just because it's incredibly fast. A few challenges though:

LWO3 (2018) is not compatible with 3DC 4.8.10
FBX201600 is not compatible with 3DC 4.8.10​

This leaves me with two options:

Export my file as LWO2
Export FBX201400​

Basically this means don't do smoothing via Vertex Normals until UVs are done. FBX201400 doesn't support Vertex Normals and I don't think 3DC does either.
Once UVs are done, back to LW to Vertex Normal smooth to my heart's content and prepare the file for Substance Painter.

I have not tried PLG UV in 2018 and am not currently seeking that as a solution.

 

[gar26lw]

i’ll add to that. fbx is up to 2018. lw in any form doesn’t read it. unity does as does max and maya.
causes a problem in multi app workflows.

 

[BigHache]

Yeah that's less than desirable, and probably more due to licensing rather than technical abilities. I'd rather focus on what we can do than what we can't, however.

 

[BigHache]

Ran into a nice little "gotcha" tonight.

I made a model last night. Brought it into 3D Coat for a quick UV and back to LW for exporting out for Substance. No problems.
I decided to add more geometry to increase detail a bit. When I brought the updated file into 3D Coat, everything but the new geometry loaded.
Did a test, made a file with JUST the new geo and that loaded into 3D Coat. Hmm, OK.

Figured out that the new geometry didn't have UV coordinates and was mixed with the old geo that did. 3D Coat in this instance will ONLY load geo that has UV coords.

So anyone using a similar workflow, either ALL your geo has to have UV coords or NONE, you cannot mix.
In the NONE case 3D Coat will generate a UV map which you can then edit. But in the MIXED case it will ignore all non UV'd geo.