Sorry if seems a stupid question, I have gone through the first 60 training videos and was beginning to start building some simple projects but was concerned about keeping my workflow and assets organized.
I saw the videos regarding the content browser and how to create, delete and rename files as well as importing and migrating assets but I’m still confused about what seems must be a simple process.
I’m struggling to understand how (if at all) I could create a library of all my assets across all projects. At the moment i’m using whatever free assets come with the UE4 demo scenes but i’d like to have all the demo assets (and any future assets) all stored in one location so they can be easily imported into any project without migrating from the original demo each time.
I understand that I will want to keep my projects small and so don’t want to import every asset every time, but i’d love to have a central place to keep everything.
For example when i’m looking to place some trees in a scene i’d like to be able to see every tree i have used in every project in one place.
I was thinking of creating an empty project called “Master_Library” and migrating everything to that one project, but that seems an untidy solution.
How are you all accessing your assets? Can a single library be easily created, updated and managed? If you came from an earlier of different game engine, how do you use all your old assets without importing each into a project one at a time?
It would be great to be able to search my library from within unreal and then only import those selected elements into y current project. Is possible?
Sorry again for the noobie question, i’m sure its very straight forward and i’ve just missed something.
Just move your content to the UnrealEngine-4.7-Samples-StarterContent folder. Now before you create a project you can enable “use starter content” in the project launcher and then you have all those assets in your content browser
Epic has also mentioned they will be adding in support for creating content packs that can be added to any project, similar to how the starter content works. Not sure if will be a 4.7 or 4.8, but it is coming soon.
I tried copying everything to the samples folder but no joy. When adding starter content, the new assets are not added to the new project although they are in the local folders in the correct build version. As a result, I now have an even bigger unorganized pile that UE4 wont even read
Even if method did work, it doesn’t seem a good idea to add every asset ever to your project before you begin. Then you get the pleasure of deleting every unused asset at the end before compiling your final game.
Seems like organizing large amounts of assets like should be UE4 101 page 1.
Again, unless i’m missing something I have no idea how anyone maintains an organized workflow when you can’t simply have all your assets stored, organized and managed in a single location or " Vault" of assets.
What if you created a tree 7 months ago for another project and you wanted to use it again? Do you have to load up the old UE project (assuming you can remember the name and build version) and then migrate the specific tree to your new project? seems a huge waste of time compared to simply searching your vault for trees.
It’s really disappointing that a software that is capable of some stunning visuals, is incapable of some very basic project management.
I’m really hoping that someone can shed some light and give me a “of course!” moment on , surely isn’t what UE4 considers an effective way to work.
When you always use the same folder structure, you can also just move the content -> without migrating
That’s really strange that it doesnt work, I will check it when I’m at home
UE4 version 4.7 preview 5 was just released a few minutes ago, and I noticed in the release notes:
So it looks like will be in 4.7, and you can try it out in the preview. I have been looking forward to for a while, great to see it finally implemented!
I am also looking for a way to organize assets in a package and make it available for import into new projects. The ability to add a content pack through the Content Browser, as suggests, is really useful for downloaded packs, but how do I create my own asset pack that would show up along side the downloaded content in the Vault? Thanks in advance for your help!
Still waiting on a solution to . I wish UE5 had the option to reference assets from one library location instead of having to copy them into each project. I guess that’s why they have Twinmotion for Arch. Viz. Does anyone here know how the assets with Twinmotion work and to manipulate UE5 to be similar?
I suppose I could just use one UE5 project and have different levels contain the different projects so I’m not copying +50 GB of assets for each project on my server.
Found out how to do this from another post. You can use Symbolic Links.
Seems like the free plugin shown in the link below is easiest or can create a batch file to add the master library to each project or perhaps add the symbolic links once and save it in a Unreal Engine template https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WHzizodItlQ&ab_channel=TroubleChute
Personally i don’t think one HD is capable of holding all my content so i have to separate it across many HD including external drives. Currently I’m moving all my usable content out of one editor into UE via conversion so the process is slow. Prefer to keep stuff in different projects for loading onto different HD’s, I may have one character with all equipment pieces in one project that takes up 200 gb that i move ready to use content from into game projects. I have to break up the content for a few reasons, mainly caching & space, since i use high poly textures & materials they tend to be very heavy so keeping the bulk of it under the editor would probably slow it all down some.
If your converting from other editors they tend to keep cache files for those files converted that if deleted will force you wait longer next time you load the project because it needs to replace the cache file again & reload shaders into UE.
The way you describe you would have to load all content directly into the Unreal Engine which may effect it’s source code with changes made by the content added so its better to keep it separate.
