We are exploring an artist-friendly workflow for managing instance meshes in Unreal Engine. I noticed that in UE5.0, the “Lightweight Instances” feature was introduced, allowing users to edit individual instances within an Instanced Static Mesh (ISM).
However, in UE5.5, the system doesn’t seem to function as expected—I’m unable to edit instance transforms in the Level Editor, nor can I convert simple Static Mesh Actors to Lightweight Instances.
After reviewing discussions on UDN, it appears this feature may no longer be actively maintained. Could you clarify:
- Is it advisable to continue using Lightweight Instances in its current state? or is there another feature has replaced it?
- What is the recommended approach for utilizing this feature effectively?
Any insights or alternative solutions would be greatly appreciated.
Hi,
As you mentioned, documentation on this feature is almost non existent past the tutorial introduced in 5.0.
As it is a beta feature I’d have to push it up to Epic to see if they’d be able to provide insight into plans concerning this topic.
That being said, in it’s current state with looking into community discussion, I’d advise against using it and use something like Instanced Static Mesh Components and Modeling tools:
https://dev.epicgames.com/documentation/en-us/unreal-engine/instanced-static-mesh-component-in-unreal-engine#modelingmodetools
Please let me know if that helps / if you would like me to escalate to Epic for more information on Lightweight instances.
Thank you!
Hi Yatco,
Thanks for your prompt response. The document regarding ISM and modeling tools was extremely helpful. We believe the ISM Editor will suffice for our current needs.
Best regards.
I’m glad to be of assistance! I’m closing this case, but feel free to respond here if you have follow-up questions.