Generating/deriving/baking assets for use in game from other source assets

Julian
Fri, 20 Dec 2024 17:48:14 +0000
Programming & Scripting

Hi folks, I have a question about best practices for managing generated/derived assets in UE. I have some cases in a project where I want to generate a runtime asset for use in-game, based on a source asset that’s configured in editor.

As a simplified example let’s say I have a data asset that is simple for a designer to configure, but I want to use that asset to generate an asset that’s optimized for use by game code. The source asset is needed by this build process but isn’t used by the game itself and therefore doesn’t need to ship (so no hard references etc.).

Is there a standard practice for handling this kind of situation, like custom build or cook steps? I could make an editor utility that builds the derived assets but what I really want is a process that runs automatically when playing in PIE or building standalone.

Thanks in advance.

3 posts - 1 participant