Importing Unreal Engine Meshes to Blender

This guide explains how to import glTF/GLB files exported from Unreal Engine into Blender.

Prerequisites

• Blender 2.80 or later (glTF support is built-in)
• Exported .gltf or .glb files from the Unreal to Blender Exporter

Enable the glTF Add-on

The glTF 2.0 importer is included with Blender but may need to be enabled:

1. Open Blender
2. Go to Edit > Preferences
3. Select the Add-ons tab
4. Search for "gltf"
5. Enable Import-Export: glTF 2.0 format

TIP

In recent versions of Blender (3.0+), the glTF add-on is enabled by default.

Importing Your Files

1. In Blender, go to File > Import > glTF 2.0 (.glb/.gltf)

2. Navigate to your exported file
3. Select the .glb or .gltf file
4. Click Import glTF 2.0

Import Settings

The glTF importer provides several options:

Transform

• Scale: Adjust import scale (default 1.0)
• Apply Transform: Apply transformations during import

Mesh

• Import Normals: Use the normals from the file
• Import Vertex Colors: Import vertex color data if present

Animation

• Import Animations: Include animation data
• Animation Offset: Frame offset for imported animations

Materials

• Import Materials: Import material definitions
• Guess Original Bind Pose: Attempt to restore T-pose for skeletal meshes

Recommended Settings

For most Unreal Engine exports, use these settings:

Setting	Value	Reason
Scale	0.01	UE uses centimeters, Blender uses meters
Import Normals	Enabled	Preserve UE normal data
Import Materials	Enabled	Keep material assignments

Scale Difference

Unreal Engine uses centimeters as the default unit, while Blender uses meters. You may need to scale your import by 0.01 or adjust your scene scale.

Troubleshooting

Model Appears Too Large/Small

Unreal Engine and Blender use different unit scales:

• Set import Scale to 0.01 to convert from UE centimeters to Blender meters
• Or scale the imported object in Blender after import

Textures Not Loading (glTF format)

If you exported as .gltf (not .glb), ensure:

• The texture files are in the same folder as the .gltf file
• The .bin file is also present
• File paths haven't changed since export

Materials Look Different

glTF uses a physically-based rendering (PBR) material model. Some UE material features may not translate directly:

• Complex material graphs are baked to textures
• Custom shaders become standard PBR materials
• Some effects may need manual recreation in Blender

Missing Animations

Ensure you:

• Exported a Skeletal Mesh with animations, or
• Exported a Level Sequence with the mesh
• Enabled "Import Animations" in Blender's import settings

Working with Imported Meshes

After import, you can:

1. Edit Geometry: Tab into Edit Mode
2. Adjust Materials: Open the Shader Editor
3. Modify Armatures: Select the skeleton and edit in Pose Mode
4. Re-export: Use Blender's glTF exporter for round-trip workflows

See Also

• Getting Started - Export from Unreal Engine
• Export Options - Configure export settings
• Blender Manual: glTF Import - Official Blender documentation