How do I create an asset pack .zip file with several uassets in it?

Greg.Corson · September 25, 2022, 9:55pm

I’m doing a tutorial showing building a Virtual Production set from scratch. I need to provide people with a few pre-built assets that create an Aruco tag object. This includes a blueprint, 3 static meshes and 3 materials.

I know about using migrate to move assets between projects, but in this case the users won’t have a project to migrate from. They are following a tutorial to create a project from scratch, so I want to give them just a small zip with these 7 assets they can import.

I can’t find any information on how to do this. If I just give them the uasset files zipped up, the blueprint loses references to the materials and static meshes and the user has to manually re-set them.

So how can I put these 7 uassets into a zip that users can easily import. The marketplace does this with it’s “add to project” button that drops purchased assets into a folder, how can I do this with my 7 assets?

L1z4rD89 · September 26, 2022, 4:12am

Hey @Greg.Corson ,
you have 2 options: Create a zip file from your migrated assets or create a ContentPack

Option A:

Create a new folder called “Content” in your explorer (not in Unreal)
Open your project in Unreal, select your assets, right-click and choose AssetActions=>Migrate
Select all your asset and their shown references and/or folders (default: all related assets are selected)
Click OK and select your newly created “Content” folder
ZIP this “Content” folder and send it to your viewers/customers. They can then just extract it into their new and fresh project.

Option B:

Create a new folder called “ContentPack” in your explorer (not in Unreal)
Inside this folder create a folder called “FeaturePacks”, a folder called “Samples”, a folder called “ContentSettings” and a text file called “ContentToPack.txt”
Inside your “Samples” folder create a folder called “MyContentPack” and inside your “MyContentPack” create a folder “Content”
Migrate your assets to this newly created “Content” folder as described above
Inside your “ContentSettings” folder create a folder called “Config”, a folder called “Media” and a *.json file called “manifest.json”
Inside your “Config” folder create a *.ini file called “config.ini” with the following content:

[AdditionalFilesToAdd]
+Files=Samples/MyContentPack/Content/*.*

Place 2 pictures (if you want) inside your “Media” folder like “MyContentpack.png” with a resolution of 64x64 pixel and “MyContentpack_Preview.png” with a resolution of 400x200 pixel
Place this inside your “manifest.json” file:

{
	"Version": 1,
	"Name":
	[
		{
			"Language": "en",
			"Text": "MyContentPack"
		}
	],
	"Description":
	[
		{
			"Language": "en",
			"Text": "Content for Tutorial"

		}
	],
	"AssetTypes": [],
	"SearchTags":
	[
		{
			"Language": "en",
			"Text": "Content for Tutorial"
		}
	],
	"ClassTypes": "",
	"Category": "Content",
	"Thumbnail": "MyContentpack.png",
	"Screenshots":
	[
		"MyContentpack_Preview.png"
	]
}

Your folder “ContentPack” should look like this (I already migrated my M_Test.uasset with its parent directory from content browser):

|   ContentToPack.txt 
+---ContentSettings
|   |   manifest.json
|   |   
|   +---Config
|   |       config.ini
|   |       
|   \---Media
|           MyContentpack.png
|           MyContentpack_Preview.png
|           
+---FeaturePacks
\---Samples
    \---MyContentPack
        \---Content
            \---MyContentPack
                    M_Test.uasset

Open your “ContentToPack.txt” file and add these lines with " ". You will have to modify “YOURPATH” like “C:” or “D:\MyUnreal” etc.:

"YOURPATH\ContentPack\ContentSettings\Config\"
"YOURPATH\ContentPack\ContentSettings\Media\"
"YOURPATH\ContentPack\ContentSettings\manifest.json"

Create a file called “MyContentPack.upack” from CMD with the follwing command. You will have to modify"YOURPATH" like “C:” or “D:\MyUnreal” etc.:

"YOURPATH\UE_5.0\Engine\Binaries\Win64\UnrealPak.exe" -Create="YOURPATH\ContentPack\ContentToPack.txt" "YOURPATH\ContentPack\FeaturePacks\MyContentPack.upack"

Now you can create a ZIP file from your “FeaturePacks” folder and your “Samples” folder from within your “Contentpack” folder
Send this ZIP file to your viewers/customers who will then have to copy these folders to "THEIRPATH\UE_5.0"
They are now able to use your ContentPack from inside the editor via Add=>AddFeatureOrContentPack

Which will look like this:

image900×534 59.6 KB

Reece_Taylor · March 17, 2023, 3:01pm

hey there, I tried doing this but got an error at the cmd stage

LogPakFile: Display: Using command line for crypto configuration
LogPakFile: Error: No pak file name specified. Usage:
LogPakFile: Error:   UnrealPak <PakFilename> -Test
LogPakFile: Error:   UnrealPak <PakFilename> -Verify
LogPakFile: Error:   UnrealPak <PakFilename> -Info
LogPakFile: Error:   UnrealPak <PakFilename> -List [-ExcludeDeleted]
LogPakFile: Error:   UnrealPak <PakFilename> <GameUProjectName> <GameFolderName> -ExportDependencies=<OutputFileBase> -NoAssetRegistryCache -ForceDependsGathering
LogPakFile: Error:   UnrealPak <PakFilename> -Extract <ExtractDir> [-Filter=<filename>]
LogPakFile: Error:   UnrealPak <PakFilename> -Create=<ResponseFile> [Options]
LogPakFile: Error:   UnrealPak <PakFilename> -Dest=<MountPoint>
LogPakFile: Error:   UnrealPak <PakFilename> -Repack [-Output=Path] [-ExcludeDeleted] [Options]
LogPakFile: Error:   UnrealPak <PakFilename1> <PakFilename2> -diff
LogPakFile: Error:   UnrealPak <PakFolder> -AuditFiles [-OnlyDeleted] [-CSV=<filename>] [-order=<OrderingFile>] [-SortByOrdering]
LogPakFile: Error:   UnrealPak <PakFilename> -WhatsAtOffset [offset1] [offset2] [offset3] [...]
LogPakFile: Error:   UnrealPak <PakFolder> -GeneratePIXMappingFile -OutputPath=<Path>
LogPakFile: Error:   Options:
LogPakFile: Error:     -blocksize=<BlockSize>
LogPakFile: Error:     -bitwindow=<BitWindow>
LogPakFile: Error:     -compress
LogPakFile: Error:     -encrypt
LogPakFile: Error:     -order=<OrderingFile>
LogPakFile: Error:     -diff (requires 2 filenames first)
LogPakFile: Error:     -enginedir (specify engine dir for when using ini encryption configs)
LogPakFile: Error:     -projectdir (specify project dir for when using ini encryption configs)
LogPakFile: Error:     -encryptionini (specify ini base name to gather encryption settings from)
LogPakFile: Error:     -extracttomountpoint (Extract to mount point path of pak file)
LogPakFile: Error:     -encryptindex (encrypt the pak file index, making it unusable in unrealpak without supplying the key)
LogPakFile: Error:     -compressionformat[s]=<Format[,format2,...]> (set the format(s) to compress with, falling back on failures)
LogPakFile: Error:     -encryptionkeyoverrideguid (override the encryption key guid used for encrypting data in this pak file)
LogPakFile: Error:     -sign (generate a signature (.sig) file alongside the pak)
LogPakFile: Error:     -fallbackOrderForNonUassetFiles (if order is not specified for ubulk/uexp files, figure out implicit order based on the uasset order. Generally applies only to the cooker order)
LogPakFile: Display: UnrealPak executed in 0.004873 seconds```

Any help?

L1z4rD89 · March 17, 2023, 6:09pm

Hey @Reece_Taylor

did you do all the listed steps from above?

Which UE version are you using?

What does your CMD command look like?

Reece_Taylor · March 17, 2023, 10:27pm

Okay so not sure what I did wrong but I managed to get past that error

however now when I go to import I get this error

L1z4rD89 · March 18, 2023, 1:20pm

That could have multiple causes:

You are not trying to import an *.uasset file but a file like *.csv, *.jpg, …
You have a typo somewhere
You are trying to use an asset without the necessay dependencies

What files do you have? Can you share these files?
Can you show the manifest.json and the folder structure / tree?

Reece_Taylor · March 18, 2023, 4:03pm

Sure

Folder structure

D:.
|   ContentToPack.txt
|   tree.txt
|   
+---ContentSettings
|   |   manifest.json
|   |   
|   +---Config
|   |       config.ini
|   |       
|   \---Media
|           PackIcon.png
|           PackPreview.png
|           
+---FeaturePacks
|       ColourPalette.upack
|       
\---Samples
    \---ColourPalette
        \---Content
            \---Assets
                +---Data
                |   +---Data-Tables
                |   |       DT_ColourPalette.uasset
                |   |       
                |   \---Structs
                |           F_ColourPalette.uasset
                |           
                \---UI
                    |   UI.uasset
                    |   
                    \---Widgets
                            untitled.uasset
                            WBP_ColourBtn.uasset
                            WBP_ModelBtn.uasset
                            WBP_ModelTextureButton.uasset
                            WBP_TextureBtn.uasset

manifest.json

{
	"Version": 1,
	"Name":
	[
		{
			"Language": "en",
			"Text": "Colour Palette"
		}
	],
	"Description":
	[
		{
			"Language": "en",
			"Text": "Adds a colour palette to use with UI"

		}
	],
	"AssetTypes": [],
	"SearchTags":
	[
		{
			"Language": "en",
			"Text": "Adds a colour palette to use with UI"
		}
	],
	"ClassTypes": "",
	"Category": "Content",
	"Thumbnail": "PackIcon.png",
	"Screenshots":
	[
		"PackPreview.png"
	]
}

Samples.zip (108.3 KB)

L1z4rD89 · March 18, 2023, 5:17pm

Are these files on your C:\ drive / on your OS drive? That could cause problems.

One more problem: There is an error inside your files which deletes the connections inside the UI widget.

Missing dependencies.

Try this:

Fix Up Redirectors inside your UE content browser (inside the project right click a folder)
Use Migrate to extract all the files you want to an empty content folder (right click on a folder)
Use these migrated files for your content pack

ColourPalette.zip (341.9 KB)

Felnion · December 4, 2023, 11:44pm

Is option “B” the proper way to set up asset packs that are planned for sale on unreal’s marketplace? I have just completed work on a set of meshes (42 high quality meshes with two master materials and many material instances) and want to submit them very soon…

L1z4rD89 · December 5, 2023, 8:35am

Hey @Felnion

Just create a project with your assets and package this project as a ZIP.
Something like

Config
Content
  |-MyAssets
    |-Meshes
       |-SM_MyCoolAsset_1
    |-Materials
       |-M_MyCoolMaterial_1
    |-Preview
       |-PreviewMap
MyAssets.uproject

pdenton · February 27, 2024, 4:18pm

Unfortunately, option A doest not work anymore, details here: Migrate tool stoped working in 5.1 - #9 by pmlvl

You have to create a “fake” project folder, with Config, Content and *.uproject in it, and only then it will let you migrate assets.