Understanding folders and how to make a project smaller

Development Platform & Builds
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Hi everyone!
I have a project that I imported from 3Ds Max using Datasmith.
Currently, the whole folder is 12,7GB. For comparison, the 3Ds max file + all textures are about 1.2GB.

Inside the main folder, I have the datasmith file + assets folder. This are 2.27GB.

On the other hand, I have the Project folder, which is 10.5GB.
Inside the project folder, I have two big folders: Content (1.67GB) and Saved (8.87GB). Finally, the two biggest folders inside the Saved folder are Autosaves (5.38GB) and Cooked (1.51GB).

Ok… that’s really confusing (at least for me) so here are a couple of questions:

  1. Are any of this folders safe to delete?
  2. In the assets folder of the Datasmith file I have a lot of very big TGA files (I think this are the auto generated textures created by Datasmith). If I shrink this files (let’s say from 4k to 1 or 2k) will the project get smaller? or are this files only read once when the Datasmith file is imported?
  3. What are some other ways to shrink the project, both the final package (which is 1.74GB for Win64) and the containing folder?

Thanks a lot, and excuse my broken English!

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Saved & Intermediate are folders you can delete, however, you will lose Autosaves and Backups and probably some cooked files (which means you need to cook them again)
There are several considerations to shrink the Package Size.
I for myself play around with Texture Sizes alot, since they can eat a lot of space if not properly compressed.
Make sure you use proper Compression and the Max Texture Size is not awfully high (1k-2k should be enough most of the time)

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Hi Ralidex, thanks for your answer.
Where do you set the max texture size and compression? is this an UE option or should I just make the textures smaller in photoshop?

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There are two ways to determine the Maximum Texture Size:
Window -> Developer Tools -> Device Profiles

Here you can set the Max Texture Size PER DEVICE. Which is really useful if you want to have different Sizes for different Devices (e.g. Mobile should be smaller than Desktop)
There is also the possibility to set the Max Texture Size PER TEXTURE. this is done in the Texture itself. just open it up in the Editor and check it’s Max Texture Size.

For the Compression, it is worth noting that Textures need to be Power of Two to make it work. Your Textures’s Width and Height should be a power of Two (128x128, 1024x1024, 1024x512 etc)

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