Hello UE4 community,
using the foliage tool, when importing trees, gravel, grass, maybe also dirt, garbage etc.
I find it frustrating to click through all the list to select certain types I want to change. Also, I would love to work with grass LOD0 in the foreground, and LOD2 or LOD3 in the background and thus imported different files of the same type.
Is there a way to create folders in the Foliage Type window, so to organize many assets better?
Thank you, greetings Frederick
Folders have been suggested/requested since 2014…still nothing.
Hi,
I’m using a folder structure in the Content Browser to organise foliage. Then I pull into the foliage tool what I need for my project. I would be careful with having stuff in the foliage tool. Unreal loves to reference things and then load them even if they are not used in the scene. It adds extra memory and loading time to your project. - I never checked this but it can be a real pain to get rid of references assets you don’t want in memory.
The foliage tool supports LODs. It uses whatever you set up for the static mesh. You can change the LOD distances at any time. It won’t break the foliage tool asset. There is also an additional cull distance in the foliage tool that streams out the mesh completely. Useful for grass or small meshes.
My suggestion is that you have a library project which you use to produce your project. The library contains pretty much every asset you have. Then when you’re done with adding assets and about to deliver the project migrate the levels into a new empty project and cook, deliver and back up this new project. This way you can leave the project at the engine version you have used to create it while the library will always be updated. Avoids breaking things in the future and bad surprises if the client wants to change things in 12 months and the new engine version breaks the old project.
If you handle foliage type files like any assets in your folders you will have it organized.
In your zone folder, create a foliage folder. Move all foliage used for specific zone to that folder and name them with a prefix with zone name. When you work with foliage in the tool, type the zone name in search filter and you will only see foliage for that specific zone you working with. The default location UE4 gives you when create new foliage types is not good, select your zone folder instead. All zones will have different foliage types for same mesh, in this way it is easy to have different settings for each zone and you don’t mess up other zones when changing specific foliage. If you have general foliage that will affect all zones, sure then you can keep foliage type location at the same location as the mesh but that will make it harder to handle when there are allot of them.