Automated raw assets import into Unreal Engine

Development Pipeline & Plugins
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Hi,

We would like to ask about the recommended workflow for automated raw asset importing into Unreal Engine in a Horde-based environment.

Currently, we use P4 DAM for storing raw assets, with the source files living in a separate Perforce stream from the main game and engine repository. Our goal is to keep raw assets outside of the primary Unreal project repository whenever possible.

We are exploring a workflow where Horde Agents would execute automated import jobs using a headless Unreal Editor instance. The idea would be for the agent to:

  • sync raw assets from the P4 DAM stream,
  • perform automated imports into the Unreal project,
  • apply project-specific import rules and processing,
  • save generated .uasset files,
  • and submit the resulting asset changes back into the main game/engine repository.

We would like to understand what the currently recommended “golden path” is for building scalable automated asset ingestion pipelines in Unreal Engine.

Would Interchange Framework with custom pipelines be the recommended direction for this type of workflow? From the documentation, it appears that Interchange provides a flexible and customizable import pipeline system that could potentially handle most automation scenarios through C++, Python, or Blueprint customization.

Would you consider Interchange production-ready enough today for large-scale automated imports running through Horde Agents and headless editor automation? In particular, we are interested in understanding whether Interchange is currently intended to replace most custom importer workflows for FBX, textures, and other source assets in production environments.

Best regards

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2

Hi Daniel,

There are multiple way to implement the automation your are describing but it seems like a simple way of doing it would be to use a mix of External Content Plugins and Interchange Custom Pipelines.

Content Plugins : Creating A Content Only Plugin In Unreal Engine | Tutorial

External Content Plugins : Creating A Content Only Plugin In Unreal Engine | Tutorial!

Interchange Customization : Import Customization with Interchange | Tutorial

The setup would look like this:

  • Create a dedicated uproject for your Agent.
  • Setup that project to use an external content plugin
  • Setup that project to use a custom Interchange pipeline and configure it so imported assets are created inside the external content plugin above.
  • Depending on the kind of validation and processing you want to do, you might should be able to use the Interchange post-import callbacks
  • Make sure to save all assets once the import is done since Interchange does not save imported assets.

The advantage of external content plugin is that the assets lives in a folder outside any project. You can add that content plugin to as many projects without duplicating the assets themselves and they will all share the same assets.

Hope this helps!

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