A tutorial and possible solution to Unreal Engine crash problems by moving all characters to one Paragon folder.
Steps in windows 11, unreal engine 5.4 and up, basic knowledge of Unreal Editor and windows file explorer required like moving files.
1.) Create 2 third person projects (Launch “Unreal Editor” > “Games” > “Third Person”) and name them “ParagonTemp” and “Paragon” and close Unreal Editor.
2.) Open two file explorer windows to "[Your Unreal Projects Folder]\ParagonTemp\Content" and "[Your Unreal Projects Folder]\Paragon\Content" for convenience of copying content over from ParagonTemp to Paragon and cleaning up by deleting unnecessary folders afterwards.
3.) If you are using Unreal Editor 5.4: in Unreal Launcher > “Unreal Engine” > “Library” > “Fab Library” > select a Paragon characters, for example “Paragon: Aurora” > “Add To Project” > select “ParagonTemp” and “Add to Project”.
If you are using Unreal Editor 5.5 and up: in Unreal Launcher > “Unreal Engine” > “Library” > “Fab Library” > select a Paragon characters, for example “Paragon: Aurora” > “Add To Project” > checkbox on “Show all projects”, select “ParagonTemp”, “Select Version: 5.4” in dropdown and “Add to Project”. When Unreal Engine 5.5 and up support the Paragon projects, it will be the same as if you are using Unreal Editor 5.4.
4.) Open up “ParagonTemp” in Unreal Editor by double clicking in Unreal Launcher “ParagonTemp” in “MY PROJECTS”.
5.) in Unreal Editor rename “Paragon[Character]” to Paragon (select folder, press F2 and rename to Paragon).
6.) if “Failed to save Map Data”, ignore error, press continue.
7.) Special step, you have to do it only once and not again. Double click and open “MF_HitFlash”, select any node and drag it, Apply and Save and close the Material Graph.
8.) if there exists “Audio” folder for example Paragon/Audio move “Audio” folder to “/All/Game/Paragon/Characters/Heroes/[Character]”, so in the end it looks like “/All/Game/Paragon/Characters/Heroes/[Character]/Audio” (for example /All/Game/Paragon/Characters/Heroes/Aurora/Audio).
9.) if there exists “/All/Game/Paragon/FX/Particles/Abilities” folder move it to “/All/Game/Paragon/FX/Particles/[Character]”, so in the end it looks like “/All/Game/Paragon/Characters/Heroes/[Character]/Abilities” (for example /All/Game/Paragon/FX/Particles/Aurora/Abilities)
10.) Close Unreal Editor.
11.) Check in File explorer if “[Your Unreal Projects Folder]\ParagonTemp\Content\ParagonAurora\Audio” folder exists and if so delete it.
12.) Copy Paragon Folder from "[Your Unreal Projects Folder]\ParagonTemp\Content" to "[Your Unreal Projects Folder]\Paragon\Content". when you do this the second time and after that, do not overwrite but skip already existing files. If you accidentally overwrote the (shared) files, just repeat step 7 again but this time do this in project “Paragon” in stead of “ParagonTemp” and everything should be fine.
13.) Open up “Paragon” in Unreal Editor by double clicking in Unreal Launcher “Paragon” in “MY PROJECTS”
14.) Open up the Character Map in “/All/Game/Paragon/Characters/Maps” by double clicking it to check if everything is working.
15.) Close Unreal Editor.
16.) Delete from file explorer “[Your Unreal Projects Folder]\ParagonTemp\Content” the two folders “Paragon” and “Paragon[Character]” (for example “ParagonAurora”). Pay close attention to delete those from the ParagonTemp Folder, not Paragon Folder. Additionaly empty the recyble bin if you want.
Repeat steps 3 through 16 except step 7 which you only had to do once and import other characters, and all characters should work in the Paragon project and you should have a smaller project because global files are shared between the characters, no hassle with reconnecting material functions with Material Parameter Collections or anything.
I haven’t consolidated all Characters of Paragon characters in to one project yet, but pay close attention to folders Like the “Audio” and “Ability” folders in step 9 and 10 (and maybe other folders I may have overlooked) and move them to character specific folders in “ParagonTemp” project before moving them over to the main “Paragon” folder so characters don’t overlap/overwrite each others dialogs and maybe abiities or other hero specific stuff.
When you are done transfering all the characters you want to the main Paragon project you can delete ParagonTemp project.
