Datasmith and cleaning the project from unnecessary Mesh

[Swolf74]

I am currently working with a large complex and have encountered this problem.
I have imported Revit->3dsMax(datasmith)->UE5. A lot of unique meshes have been loaded. For example, StaticMesh1, StaticMesh2 and StaticMesh3 are identical models and StaticMeshActor1, StaticMeshActor2 and StaticMeshActor3 have been created respectively. I have replaced the Static Mesh with a new one, but when I try to delete StaticMesh1 from the project, I am warned that this Mesh is used in the project. I really want to clean the project. Project Cleaner and Migrate do not help. The number of Meshes to delete from the project is more than 10,000. This cannot be done manually
Have you encountered this problem? How can this be solved?

[BRGEzeHulton]

Hello Swolf74. Yeah, this is a really common (and frustrating) issue when importing large scenes via Revit → 3ds Max → Datasmith. It creates tons of unique static meshes even if they’re visually identical.

Unfortunately, Unreal sees them as completely separate assets, so deleting or replacing them globally becomes tricky.

Here are some things that might help — though I admit, it’s still a lot of work:

Try to identify duplicated geometry and replace them in the level manually or via Blueprint tools (like using Get All Actors of Class to swap them with a single master mesh).
You can mark identical meshes and try using “Replace References” in the Content Browser — but with 10k+ meshes, this won’t scale easily.
Some users export a cleaned-up version from 3ds Max (merging identical meshes beforehand), then reimport over the same Datasmith file — but I know that’s a big step if your level is already populated.

Even tools like Project Cleaner won’t help until all references are removed manually or with scripts.

So yeah… it’s not a one-click fix (yet), but small automation steps + good asset naming/tagging can go a long way.

I found something in the forum that can help you.

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Is there any way to find assets not linked to a scene actor, in order to delete them from the library? After updating a source file, and re-importing through Datasmith, assets with updated meshes — possibly split into parts, or re-created, still retain the original mesh item in the library. On large imports this leads to large amounts of duplicate and unnecessary geometry residing in the library folder.

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I have a datasmith file in my project that I need removed. My process has been to select the actors in the scene and delete them, then delete the folder in the Content Browser. This is currently taking over an hour during which UE4 locks up completely as it goes through the various steps. Is this just part of working with Unreal, or is there a better way I’m not aware of? For reference, this is a 3 story building created in Revit. And oddly enough, only takes about 12 minutes to light bake …

[malik_217]

You can try this way to remove your unused assets, but first i would recommend copying your entire Project and try this in that copied project so even if you delete anything which you didn’t want to, then you could recover it from the original file.

Go to the filters tab in the Content Browser and the scroll down to other filter in there you can find 2 options, one is not used in any level and other is not used in any assets.

If you want to just clear everything that is not used in your project i would go for the option of not used in any level, after that just select all the assets that are shown and simply delete, do remember that some assets might be influencing some other assets, like any material or mesh in some blueprint that is used in the level. It’s not Perfect but I use it quite often whenever there is too much trash in my Projects. You can also go from folder to folder as well while enabling this filter so it would be more convenient as to what to delete and what not to.

[thhm]

Thanks, I too struggle with cleaning up my project, and the “Not used..” filters were very helpful. However I noticed that it’s quite conservative, sometimes doesnt detect accurately which geometries are not used?
I tried this:

1. Create 2 unique meshes in 3ds max -(lets say sphere and box) > export via Datasmith → import into UE5.5
   -the 2 meshes get listed in the geometries folder inside unreal

2. Do an edit, for example delete the sphere mesh in max_> reexport (box only) via Datasmith, overwriting the old datasmith export → UE5 right click “reimport” datasmith scene actor

• the datasmith actor in scene gets updated (sphere disappears), but the sphere geo is still in the geometries folder.

3. Enable “Not Used in any level” Filter in geometries folder
   -the sphere is not shown, meaning it is still considered USED IN LEVEL even though it’s not being referenced by anything in the scene(!)

is there any way to detect unused geometry in the Datasmith folder so we can delete them and regain space/ speed up git uploads etc?

[malik_217]

I don’t think there is any feature or workaround for that, just yesterday i was re-exporting some assets from 3dsmax some new ones and some old ones and the exact thing that you mention in point 2 happens that the mesh in Viewport disappears but are present in Outliner.

1. Now what you can do is delete the Datasmith actors from your scene and drag and drop manually
   your datasmith scene and just reset the transfrom and rotation to get the same position as you would in your 3dsmax file.

2. After this you can go to delete assets not in level an delete them

Note :- I did not try the second point which is delete assets from level as i didn’t need to but i think this might solve your problem.

[thhm]

Hi Malik,

Thanks for the reply! I tried this (deleting the Datasmith actor and children in the scene then manually placing the same datasmith actor) but unfortunately the filter still doesnt detect the sphere mesh in my content library as “unused”.

For now my only way to make sure I dont have duplicates or unused geo is to just delete the Datasmith folder entirely and reimport a fresh one. Which means i have to reapply materials (sad).. but throughout the course of the project, if i know theres a lot of trash there it’s worth it.

BTW this also applies to the ACTUAL Datasmith folder in windows itself; that is every reexport of Datasmith only keeps adding files, conservatively it never deletes old ones. ie If youre like me and you keep overwriting the old datasmith files whenever you update, then there might be lots old files there that are not used, still taking space in your harddrive.

Cheers.

[Swolf74]

This garbage is easy to remove, but Datasmith is not searched. There should be more than 10000 Static Mesh here

[Swolf74]

From the root actor (which will be similar to the name of the imported file name.udatasmith), move everything to a folder or another actor. I’m talking about Outliner. After that, “Not used in any level” works

[Swolf74]

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From the root actor (which will be similar to the name of the imported file name.udatasmith), move everything to a folder or another actor. I’m talking about Outliner. After that, “Not used in any level” works