Feature request: One file per actor, include actor name in external actor file names

Hi friends. Currently when using any source control provider apart from Perforce, you don’t know what actors have changed. The path looks like

...\Content\__ExternalActors__\...\Levels\Whitebox\LeveName\5O\6J\KCBX0GWLTFQT9RJ8M1LY8.uasset

It would greatly improve accessibility to have the actor name from the world outliner included in that, for example:

PointLight_KCBX0GWLTFQT9RJ8M1LY8.uasset
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100% agree, I was really excited to see file per actor implemented but disappointed at the naming.

The current naming makes it difficult to use for any team I’ve been on, and probably many others not using the Perforce or the editor SCM extensions.

OP’s naming suggestion would make it a lot more usable!

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Definitely. It’s currently impossible to know what is what… It’s absurd.

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I’m going to bump this up because this is sorely needed for all of us not using Perforce version control (we’re on Subversion and OFPA naming is killing us).

3 Likes

Sorry to steer the question in another direction, I’m actually wondering how you handle those world partitionning file in perforce ? As far as i can see, they have to be read/write for unreal to save correctly, but doing so p4 doesnt see them as modified.

How do you keep the file read/write while checking them out in perforce? Other than checkouting the whole folder ? have you written a script of some kind ? I’ve tried different typemap without sucess.

best regards

JP

Try adding this string to your Typemap:

    binary+l //....uasset

That is a lockable designation. It means it’s read/write but also will be locked when modified in editor (when Source Control is connected) or when checked-out manually in P4V.

Since External Actors are just uassets, they can (and should) be treated by P4 the same as any other uasset you’re working with in your project.

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Massive bump. I’m going insane trying to understand what happens in the level changes. Are there any programs or plugins e.g. for tortoise git that decipher these IDs into readable actor names??

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If you rename a file in the outliner the OFPA name remains the same and the file is marked as “modified” in source control, that’s probably why they are not including it in the file name…
The file name is preserved even if you use the replace function and change the actor class completely, so you can’t even use the class default name as a name:


A workaround I personally use is copying the “nonsense file name” from my source control software and paste it in the outliner searchbar:

It works, it’s not very handy but at least it allows me to understand what the hell has been modified in a very slow way.

Remember that when we only had levels we were only able to see that the entire .umap file was modified and not which actor :sweat_smile:.


Also, if you enable “Revision control” in the outliner tabs, you should be able to easily identify which files have been modified (marked in green or yellow):

HI
do you know if those Package Short Name codes can generate duplicate names on two different PCs?
I’m using Unity Version Control (Plastic SCM) as my source control, and when we merged, we had a bunch of duplicate folder names. when we resolved the conflicts by adding _dst to the end, the actors still showed up in the level, but i’m worried that the names might duplicate, and we won’t be able to rename them to merge.

or should we give up on OFPA and using the sub-levels in a persistent level?

I’m sorry but I have no idea about how those parent folders work, I find them very confusing too! (Actors seems to appear anyway if you move them into different folders of the same level, so I really don’t know what they are named after)

I think that there should be a “uniqueness check” when an actor is created (and even if there wasn’t, the string is so long that it’s pretty hard to get the same value with a random generation)

Thanks for the reply.
i think we’re going to move to sub levels instead of worrying about the chances of it breaking. we’re a small team anyway but just thought that OFPA and world patrician would of been good to use.