Export LODs from Blender to UE5

How to export LOD for static meshes from blender to unreal engine.

[@pault4web]

Thanks for posting this! Absolute life saver compared to importing LODs one-by-one. In case anyone else has technical issues like I did: - Under "Include" in Blender's FBX options, at least on my machine, clicking one item deselects the rest unless I'm holding Shift. (On my first try I clicked Empty, then clicked Mesh, and I didn't notice that grayed-out Empty again. Without the Empty, my FBX came in as multiple assets instead of a single one with LODs.) - When importing the FBX, I initially didn't see “Import Mesh LODs” because "Advanced" was collapsed. With that sorted, everything worked fine. Great tutorial, and thanks again!

[@TJ-tu5xc]

Hi thanks for this video. How do I do this when my Blender model has a rig and animations? When I add the empty and import to Unreal, it will import the LOD's but it will not create a skeleton. Any other way I tried to import creates a skeleton, but no LOD's. I also tried to import the mesh and rig/animations separately but when I choose to apply the mesh to the previously imported skeleton, it tells me they couldn't be merged.

[@Youshisu]

Thanks, quick and essential, bye, I hope when I am gonna need next tutorial I also will find one of yours :D

[@Wahooney]

Fantastic, thanks! Adding this to my automation tools.

[@userINTICE]

Thanks! This would be useful when making enterable buildings because they have a lot of plain geometry that can not be decimated but some complex details too. That's why buildings are "a bit" long and difficult assets to create

[@skyseed3005]

Thank you so much!

[@surajprakash3181]

Thankyou for short and concise tutorial!

[@sergeyfilin5204]

Brilliant! Thank you!

[@mrxcs]

This tutorial is absolutely awesome.

[@60secondss_]

Thank you. U are my hero

[@intrepidneon]

How do you determine the order the LODs import in? My Asset_LOD0 keeps importing as LOD1 and the Asset_LOD1 imports as LOD0.

[@GullyverToad]

It imports them in order depending on the creation time of the mesh with the oldest being LOD0. You can duplicate your meshes in order from most complex to least, then parent them to the empty and export the new meshes.

[@intrepidneon]

@@GullyverToad Thank you!

[@jakewoods2935]

@@GullyverToad Thats so weird that it works that way!

[@oostenmusic]

@@GullyverToad Thank you so much for this. I thought I was going insane. Used to work great until I had them out of chronological order 🤐

[@halo1of1the1sun]

I have armature, and it said it doesnt find a skeletal mesh when i try this.

[@halo1of1the1sun]

So i placed the armature outside the empty and it worked, but the LODs are swizzled. Not even flipped. They are all over the place

[@cgkrab]

Hello - you can auto-generate skeletal mesh LODs inside of UE, it is not so straight forward to export them for blender (what is described here is for static meshes only).

[@halo1of1the1sun]

@@cgkrab Eh, tbh i didnt really need to do it, but have terrible OCD and couldnt let it go xD. LODs are so frustrating and make me so angry. But yeah, i will just nanite it lmao

[@fleewortep6288]

my LODs are imported with the opposite order

[@tragnemalm]

Thank you so much. Very straight forward and clear tutorial. I'll keep your channel in mind for future experiments in unreal

[@cgkrab]

Cheers!

[@MikolajF]

Coool!! sad it does't work

[@cgkrab]

It does ;)

[@d.sanchez7687]

It doesn't work for me too. But the tutorial is so good

[@d.sanchez7687]

I restarted the computer, the programs, I deleted and tried again from 0 and now it works. I don't understand what was wrong, I've done it the same way, but try doing the same @MikolajF

[@cgkrab]

@@d.sanchez7687 haha well...it is working on my end still, so unsure what the issue is. It is a bit finnicky to set up, so probably you are missing a step or a setting has changed in Blender 4.0

[@cgkrab]

@@d.sanchez7687 very strange, but at least it's working.

[@jhonyfernandez2703]

Thank you so much! It's the same for Skeletal Meshes LOD's?

[@cgkrab]

Cheers! Unsure about SKM LODs. Try it and see what happens maybe. If you export an asset from UE as a .FBX and import to Blender, you will see the hierarchy of LOD meshes and how they are structued this way. I suspect for SKMs this will be different though, because they must be parented to the skeleton (rather than an empty with custom data as described here for SMs).

[@coolboygfx]

Thank you !

[@BigChiken44]

In 99.99% cases you don't need to do it. UE5 can generate LODs or you can use Nanite. Making LODs in 3d software makes sense may be only with some complex characters... But even for characters UE5 does pretty good job

[@cgkrab]

Sure....the information is here for those who need it in cases where LODs would be desired.

[@mrxcs]

Well, I think all characters need Loads since Nanite don't work with deformation.

[@fuglong]

Also if you want to have full control over the verts, like with grass. I'm not gonna leave my grass optimization up to nanite, that would be stupid. Instead I can know my low LOD grass blades are only using 3 verts