Unreal Engine for SketchUp

Unreal Engine is considered to be the worlds most advanced and open real-time 3D creation tool. It is a complete suite of tools for anyone who is working with real-time technology. It provides creators all across the globe the control and freedom to deliver avant-garde entertainment and mind-blowing visualizations and to create immersive and open virtual worlds by their own imagination.

The unreal engine was developed by Epic Games and is used in many different genres of 3D games and other architectural work. The Engine is ideal for creating easy and superfast renders that can be navigated in real-time.

Unreal Engine in SketchUp

Datasmith is a set of tools and plugins that enable you to bring pre-built assets from industry-standard design applications into Unreal Engine.

The Unreal Datasmith Plugin for the SketchUp program also gives us the ability to enable seamless exports from SketchUp To Unreal Engine.

Unreal Datasmith Plugin for SketchUp can be used by both professionals and beginners alike. The Plug-in is great for fast and real-time rendering of projects.

The Plug-in has wide system compatibility and supports both Windows and Mac. Unreal Datasmith Plugin is a free-to-use plugin and, therefore, could be used by anyone.

How to get started with SketchUp content in the Unreal Engine?

Before getting started with the SketchUp content in Unreal Engine, We need to install the Unreal DataSmith Exporter Plugin for SketchUp firstly.

Installing the Datasmith Exporter Plugin for SketchUp

To install the Datasmith Exporter plugin for any version of SketchUp on our computer, we need to follow the following steps.

1. If you have any SketchUp instances running on your machine, you must close them. If they are still running, the installation will fail.
2. The older version of the Datasmith Exporter plugin should be uninstalled before installing the newer version.
3. Then we need to download the Explorer plugin installer from the Removing the Datasmith Exporter for Sketchup page.
4. Once the download gets completed, run the installer.
5. To continue, accept the license agreement as shown on the screen.
6. The Installer automatically detects the version of SketchUp Pro installed on your system. Click Install after you check the box for each version you want to be able to export via Datasmith.

Enabling the Datasmith Exporter Plugin for SketchUp

If you have trouble using the Datasmith Exporter plugin, follow these steps to enable it in SketchUp.

1. Open SketchUp, and from the main menu, go to Window > Extension Manager.
2. Check the Extension Manager window for the Unreal Datasmith plugin. If it is not enabled, check the Enable | Disable column, and then click Apply Changes.

To learn more, watch the following video tutorial.

Video Source: VR Division

Removing the Datasmith Exporter from SketchUp

We can remove Datasmith Exporter From SketchUp with the same process that we use to uninstall any other application from Windows.

You can uninstall the Datasmith exporter plugin using the Apps & features control panel on Windows 10. Click the entry for the plugin in the list, and then click Uninstall.

You can also use the Uninstall or change a program from the control panel; then, choose Uninstall from the context menu when you right-click the entry for your Datasmith exporter plugin.