UE Viewer
(c) Konstantin Nosov (Gildor), 2007-2022
Please support the development by making a donation here:
https://www.gildor.org/en/donate
License
~~~~~~~
UE Viewer is licensed under the MIT License.
System requirements
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Windows or Linux operating system
x86-compatible CPU with SSE2 support
OpenGL 1.1 videocard (OpenGL 2.0 is recommended)
SDL 2.0 (for Linux only, windows distribution has SDL2.dll included)
List of supported games
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Supported all Unreal engine versions (1-4). The list of supported games consists of
more than 300 game titles, it is not reasonable to include it here. Some game titles
has limited support or not supported at all. Detailed information can be found here:
https://www.gildor.org/projects/umodel/compat
Web resources
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
UE Viewer home page and forum:
https://www.gildor.org/en/projects/umodel
or Russian page:
https://www.gildor.org/projects/umodel
UE Viewer FAQ:
https://www.gildor.org/projects/umodel/faq
Some tutorials available here:
https://www.gildor.org/projects/umodel/tutorials
Youtube page with tutorials and news:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJROJrENPVvK-V8PCTR9qBmY0Q7v4wCym
Other documentation:
https://www.gildor.org/smf/index.php/board,9.0.html
Name of the project
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've started the project in 2007 as some quick test for own skeletal animation system.
It didn't get a name first. Later I made it more "mature", it becate "UT2004 model viewer".
Later more games were added, and it became "Unreal model viewer" - short form is "umodel".
Later Epic Games requested me to remove their trademark "Unreal" from the name, so it became
"UE Viewer", with the same "shortcut" name which is now used only for executable file name
and when it's preferred to use shorter (unofficial) name.
Quick start
~~~~~~~~~~~
WARNING: it's highly recommended to read the FAQ and to watch video tutorials (see the
links above) before starting the umodel for the first time.
UModel primarily is a console application, with rich command line capabilities. Easiest
run is 'umodel <package_file>', it will start umodel in a viewer mode. To see the full
list of available command line options run 'umodel -help'.
You could also drag a package file (.upk, .xxx, .ukx etc) to umodel's icon to launch
the application. However default settings will be used in this case, so if game requires
some compatibility options, this will not work.
You may also use response file to provide command line arguments. More info is in Wiki page:
https://github.com/gildor2/UModel/wiki/Response-file
GUI
~~~
Some time ago simple GUI has been added for Windows version of UModel. It appears when
you start UModel without arguments (for example, clicking on UModel icon from Windows
Explorer). Please note that all command line option still works even in GUI mode.
A startup window appears only when you have neither game path nor package name specified.
It will allow you to choose where UModel will look for files ('-path' option) as well as
compatibility options. If you will set '-path' from the command line, startup GUI will
not appear. In a case you want to specify path and show startup GUI, add option '-gui'
to the command line.
Viewer window has user menu on the top of the window. Please review and try options
provided there. Most of them could be duplicated with keystrokes, and these key shortcuts
are listed in menu.
Viewer mode
~~~~~~~~~~~
The application is controlled with keyboard and mouse. You may see the full list of
keyboard shortcuts by pressing 'H' (Help) key. Here's the list of some shortcuts:
PgUp/PgDn browse through loaded objects
Ctrl+S take a screenshot into the file Screenshots/ObjectName.tga
Alt+S take screenshot with transparent background
Ctrl+X export all objects from the current scene
Ctrl+PgUp/PgDn scroll onscreen texts
Shift+Up/Down change scene FOV
Ctrl+L switch lighting modes
Ctrl+Q toggle visualization of debug information (text, 3D axis etc)
Ctrl+G toggle between OpenGL 2.0 (using shaders) and OpenGL 1.1 (no shaders)
Esc exit from the umodel
You may attach the AnimSet to the SkeletalMesh object using Ctrl+A key. Animation
sequences are listed by '[' and ']' keys, playback is started with a Space key.
Psk/psa export
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To load psk or psa into the 3ds Max you'll need ActorX Importer script created by me:
https://www.gildor.org/projects/unactorx
It has own announcements thread here:
https://www.gildor.org/smf/index.php/topic,228.0.html
Some meshes contains information which cannot fit into psk standard. For this reason I've
extended the format to hold advanced information. Files in this format has extension pskx
and cannot be loaded into UnrealEd or any other application with ActorX support. There's
only one tool with pskx support at the moment - ActorX Importer mentioned above.
Md5mesh/md5anim export
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Umodel has possibility to export skeletal meshes and animations in idSoftware md5 format.
To use this exporter you should use command line option "-md5". MeshAnimation and AnimSet
objects are exported as multiple md5anim files (one file for each animation track). "bounds"
section in md5anim is filled with dummy data. "hierarchy" section also does not contain real
skeleton hierarchy because Unreal engine uses hierarchy from the mesh, not from the
animation. Some md5 viewers/importers does require md5anim hierarchy, some - does not.
There is a 3ds Max md5mesh/md5anim importer script available on umodel forum:
https://www.gildor.org/smf/index.php?topic=87.0
or here
https://www.gildor.org/downloads
This script was originally created by der_ton, but was updated by me.
Please note that psk/psa format is more powerful, and ActorX Importer script has much more
capabilities than md5 Importer.
StaticMesh export
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
StaticMesh export is performed into psk format. This format was originally designed to hold
SkeletalMesh, but umodel uses it for StaticMesh too. Exported mesh will not have a skeleton
and vertex influences. Resulting psk files cannot be imported directly into the UnrealEd,
so I've decided to save ot with pskx extension to avoid silly user errors. Such mesh could
be imported into 3ds Max using ActorX Importer plugin as well as ordinary psk file.
Material export
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Materials are exported in a custom format. File extension is ".mat". At the current moment,
this format is supported by ActorX Importer plugin only. Unreal engine materials are very
complex, so it's very hard to separate a few channels (diffuse, specular, bump etc) from it.
Umodel tries to accomplish this with use of some heuristics - sometimes with good results,
sometimes with bad. Umodel will never export full materials (GLSL script etc). Do not expect
too much from this feature.
Audio export
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Audio assets can't be previewed in UModel, it doesn't have any sound library built-in. However
you can export sounds. By default, sound loading is disabled in options, so if you'll try to
export any audio object you'll get nothing. To enable audio loading, you should either pass
option "-sounds", or check "sounds" option in UModel startup options window. Please note that
despite you may think that package contains audio, there are many objects in UE3 and UE4 which
are related to sound rendering, but they do not contain sounds themselves. For UE3, sound
objects are SoundNodeWave, and SoundWave in UE4. In older versions of UE they have name Sound.
Used third-party libraries
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
SDL - Simple DirectMedia Layer
(c) Sam Lantinga
http://www.libsdl.org/
zlib data compression library
(c) Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler
http