From an asset and memory standpoint, it’s always good to be re-using meshes and assets. Let’s say I have a wall asset and I make a 4 walled room out of it in Unreal. Is there a way to then group and save those 4 walls in that configuration so I can drag and drop it into my scene whenever I want a basic 4 walled room?
What’s the proper way to think about this?
Hi Hyperloop -
UE4 does have the ability to group assets in the level editor, simply click the static meshes and CTRL-G (Group). You can then duplicate the group in the level as necessary.
Hope that helps -
Eric Ketchum
Eric, awesome, thank you for the reply. Is it possible to save that group into the asset browser? Or possibly even use it in a construction script?
One way to think about it is how to make things modular using a single element that can be instanced, modified, and combined as part of the whole.
Lets say we want a wooden window frame. Thinking about it the frame is made up of 4 elements that at its root is a single 2x4 so by copy instancing the frames footprint is and will always be equal to the single 2x4 no matter how many you make.
Instance copying is a rather import part of maintaining an efficient environment in UE so your original premise of re-using mesh and assets, including materials, is the right direction.
Thanks for confirming that! It looks like groups and grouping is pretty instrumental for organizing all that. Do you happen to know if there’s a method of saving groups in the asset browser?
Hey Hyperloop -
OK so a better way to do this grouping is to build your room in the level and then make sure all of the pieces of the room are selected then in the Details panel (while they are ALL selected) scroll down under Blueprint and click on Replace with Composite Blueprint, this will save the arrangement of actors into a blueprint which is savable in the content browser.
Welllllll at the moment asset management, source control, and cross project sharing is not as good as it should or can be but I think this lack of key features was an intentional decision on the part of Epic to figure out how it should be done once UE4 was release to the general public.
In my opinion source control and asset management is a huge requirement be it a small or large project and having a source control that does not take into consideration Internet based projects would turn into a huge disaster rather quickly so it’s somewhat of a chicken versus the egg problem at the moment.
As for saving content in the asset browser once it’s in it’s in so I’m assuming you are referring to migration of a fixed asset from one project to another which for now you can use the “Migrate” feature under file.
Hi FrankieV,
I guess I don’t quite follow your comment about asset management. The approach that Eric posted will work fine with source control: create a Blueprint with the placed meshes and check that BP in, then anyone else on the team can use it as well.
Cheers,
Michael Noland
Understandable as the problems we are having are related more towards our unique needs as to asset sharing that I’m a bit uncomfortable about going into to much detail over, NDA and all that stuff wink wink, but as an Internet based development team with members all around the world adhoc sharing can become a serious problem.
Do not bother with saving as one asset, instead make construction script and randomize each element as instanced static mesh.
Watch hourences movies about him making that new survival game, lots of great ideas, they literally save hundreds of work hours in developing game.
Hi, one question related to grouping meshes. I read this post from Housenses (Hourences.com – Tutorials – Mesh Rendering ) and have a question. If i have fifteen bottles, and i group it, they are saving memory/cpu grouped ? or i need make one single mesh and import it to save performance. Thanks for the answer, sorry my english
I think I understand the scenario, what you want to do is:
I have a similar question. I have a mesh, chair, comprised of multiple parts for moveable animations, e.g levers, tilt, etc.
the idea is to also be able to swap out material type, e.g. cloth, vinyl, mesh via blueprint variables.
Will I be able to do this?
hi, i have just found this post. can you tell me where i can find those videos? thanks