Testing 4.20 with Rhino, and definitely enjoying the improvements! The reimport process has been noticeably improved, but still a few requests:
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Option to delete assets that have been removed from the original file (one option to remove from the level only, and another option to also delete from the unreal project entirely). Currently, the static mesh actors that correspond to deleted objects remain in the level, but are not attached to a layer-actor. This makes them relatively easy to spot and delete manually, but still a pain when it includes potentially hundreds or even thousands of meshes. We go through lots of iterations, and having to manually delete these makes it often not any better (and sometimes worse) than simply importing the entire file as a whole new level.
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Option to merge blocks into a single mesh on import.
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Bring back the option to import a file as a blueprint!
4.Not sure how technically feasible this is, but an option to only to reimport a selected mesh (or potentially the whole file, but only overwrite geometry that has changed). Currently, if I make one change to the texture mapping of one object, reimport still overwrites all the other meshes, and then I have to re-save all of them. Not deal breaker, but it does take significant time for very large files.
- Option for material behavior for geometry with no materials assigned to be a basic white instead of using layer color.
Thanks!
Edit: After testing with Blocks some more, the recent changes have unfortunately made them nearly worthless, at least for my workflow. The pivot point of the imported block actor is at zero, forcing the elements within the block to have non-zero relative transforms, which is pretty much the opposite of how blocks are meant to behave in my mind. The added actor within the hierarchy breaks the layer=actor pattern that helps navigate through the scene, so they hurt not just block workflow, but also breaks layer-based workflows. And most importantly, the usefulness of a block is that if I change one, that change is seen in all of them. When they came in a single static mesh, I could at least easily replace that one mesh with my own custom mesh. Now I have to write a custom editor script that searches by name, digs down the hierarchy to the components to get the appropriate world pivot, spawns my custom actor at that spot, and deletes the imported actors. I think importing them as blueprints by default would come closest to mimicking how they work in Rhino. If anyone finds them more useful this way, I’d enjoy hearing about it. Maybe I am thinking about them all wrong!