moving / renaming still completey broken in 4.8

[pointcache]

You need to stop using these redirectors and learn from unity how to handle all (ALL) files using .meta, which has not failed me ONCE in 4 years i work with it.
As soon as i switch to UE4 to have some fun, just for myself to use better gfx, first thing i ran into that enrages me is this outdated useless concept of
redirectors that is beyond recovery broken.

[VidemusOKC]

Moving and renaming assets is Epic'ly confusing, if not broken. My projects shouldn't break, require me to close the editor to get them to appear when migrated, etc, when moving assets. I also can't figure out why when I move assets from one folder to another, many times it will show up in the new folder in the Editor but when I look at the file structure they're still sitting in the old folder on disk, the folder I needed to delete. Fixing up redirectors works many times, but many times it does not.

6 out of 10 times I try and execute blueprint that has a moved asset in it, the Editor crashes.

I love UE4 but the file management seems like it needs some polish. Also, being able to have more control over migrating assets between projects would be amazing. Every time I migrate I get a mess of folders and assets, then of course when cleaning them up...you get the above mentioned issues all over again.

[teak421]

This is one of the biggest pains of using UE4... I HATE messy directory structures and I find myself spending about 30 minutes setting everything in the right place only to find that things are missing and/or are still in the actual directory. So, what I did was get a perfect project with the marketplace content I want (and also the editor settings) and use that as a template.

For me, what I found to work is to ensure that I have a blank level loaded...move things around and do the fix redirectors and then delete the actual folder in the project file. That does work, for the most part. BUT, I wish the FIX REDIRECTORS just worked...they don't all the time.

teak

[NegInfinity]

You need to stop using these redirectors and learn from unity how to handle all (ALL) files using .meta, which has not failed me ONCE in 4 years i work with it.
As soon as i switch to UE4 to have some fun, just for myself to use better gfx, first thing i ran into that enrages me is this outdated useless concept of
redirectors that is beyond recovery broken.

In case anyone is interested, under the hood unity assigns unique GUID to every file, and apparently stores references to files using those guids. So, when you move file elsewhere, guid doesn't change and references don't break.

That might or might not be applicable to UE4.

[TheJamsh]

Personally I move/delete all my files in Editor first - then go into Explorer and delete the redirectors manually (the little 1kb files). I then re-open the editor and fix any references by plugging in the newly moved assets and it was as if the redirector was never there. This isn't hard to do if you maintain readable and well organized content folders.

[NegInfinity]

Personally I move/delete all my files in Editor first - then go into Explorer and delete the redirectors manually (the little 1kb files). I then re-open the editor and fix any references by plugging in the newly moved assets and it was as if the redirector was never there. This isn't hard to do if you maintain readable and well organized content folders.

Look, in unity you can just move the file in explorer (well, you'll need to grab *.meta file too). Just like that.

The multi-step process you described here just means that this thing still needs fixing in UE4. Having to do all that every time you decided to move something is not a good idea.

[teak421]

Look, in unity you can just move the file in explorer (well, you'll need to grab *.meta file too). Just like that.

The multi-step process you described here just means that this thing still needs fixing in UE4. Having to do all that every time you decided to move something is not a good idea.

Agreed! It can be done through way too many steps, but when I MOVE a folder I would like it MOVED. Not kinda moved... or still there even after fixing re-directors.

[TheJamsh]

Redirectors exist for a reason. If you're working with a team larger than a few people and want to just move files around willy-nilly in explorer, then you're causing your source control all sorts of headaches. Not only are you going to end up with a bloated repository because you've created copies of assets everytime you move them, but you also can't change the references in a file if somebody else has it checked out. You submit your modified version and everybody elses project breaks.

This is where people start breaking projects or losing work and it's a waste of time having to sort that out. In a large studio, it's unacceptable - so redirectors exist so people can move files around without other files breaking. Since UE4 is aimed at large studios and Unity isn't, it's more fitting for it to have the redirector system even if it makes the lone-developers life slightly more difficult.

Generally speaking, it's good practice to just NOT move files around anyway and put them where they should be their entire life of the project - especially if you're using source control (which again, you should be).

[NegInfinity]

Redirectors exist for a reason. If you're working with a team larger than a few people and want to just move files around willy-nilly in explorer, then you're causing your source control all sorts of headaches. Not only are you going to end up with a bloated repository because you've created copies of assets everytime you move them, but you also can't change the references in a file if somebody else has it checked out. You submit your modified version and everybody elses project breaks.

Err... o_O what the heck.

Have you read what I wrote about unity's way of handling files? File gets guid, guid doesn't change, moving file does not affect guids, and last time I checked doesn't break the references. Updating file doesn't change guid either. References are done by guid.

Bloated repo means a problem with version control system. Git does not duplicate files, for example. One version - one blob in the repo. Move it around as long as you want, it'll still reference the same original blob.

Also, UE4 is aimed at everybody at the moment, since it is marketed as free to start with.

put them where they should be their entire life of the project

That kind of approach is unrealistic, because most likely you'll want to move something at one point, pretty much inevitably.
Software development is not an architecture and things change a lot, gets rebuilt, modified and rewritten.

So, most likely you'll want to move something at one point, inevitably. And currently doing that may screw up half of your level.

Current way of handling file references is a big limitation of UE4, there's no point in going on defensive, trying to sugarcoat the issue or make excuses. Also, I don't see a reason behind defending 5-step complicated process, when references should be handled automatically without any chance of them breaking in the first place.

Software should make people's live easier. If a user needs to do 5 things in order every time he/she decides to move a file (and restart editor in the process), it means the software should be improved.

In any case, alternative system could be made optional, for example, or work in parallel with current reference system.

[pointcache]

Redirectors exist for a reason. If you're working with a team larger than a few people and want to just move files around willy-nilly in explorer, then you're causing your source control all sorts of headaches. Not only are you going to end up with a bloated repository because you've created copies of assets everytime you move them, but you also can't change the references in a file if somebody else has it checked out. You submit your modified version and everybody elses project breaks.

This is where people start breaking projects or losing work and it's a waste of time having to sort that out. In a large studio, it's unacceptable - so redirectors exist so people can move files around without other files breaking. Since UE4 is aimed at large studios and Unity isn't, it's more fitting for it to have the redirector system even if it makes the lone-developers life slightly more difficult.

Generally speaking, it's good practice to just NOT move files around anyway and put them where they should be their entire life of the project - especially if you're using source control (which again, you should be).

Im afraid you never worked on big projects with other engines. You can move everything as much as you want with unity nothing will ever get broken.
And because unity engine shows that there are actually no obstacles to making efficient file tracking, your point is invalid and just protects old ue architecture that you are used to.
Sorry but its true, i work 4 years with unity, and its absolutely painless and straightforward.

[teak421]

Generally speaking, it's good practice to just NOT move files around anyway and put them where they should be their entire life of the project - especially if you're using source control (which again, you should be).

Why then does Unreal have a MOVE function? I like my directory structure a certain way and when I import items from the martketplace I want to put them into a directory called MARKETPLACE. But, when I move them, and use the redirectors, it doesn't always work. Either the move function works or not. If it "sometimes" works, then just ditch it...

I would never use Unity, but I must admit, that's a cool feature.... having a MOVE and COPY function that actually works.

teak

[EoinOBroin]

Yeah this is the one single area of UE4 that can be troublesome- often folders that I had moved and fixed up and deleted, come back as empty folders on restart, and sometimes manually deleting or moving them within the project folder messes up the directory. It is very dependant on what you are moving, and seems to "sometimes" work correctly, as mentioned above. I've found the only method of keeping a clean directory is deciding on a hierarchy when starting a project, and stick to it, but sometimes if you have placeholder content, or you want to use some marketplace assets but not have them in the main directory, it's a pain to try and correctly move them. Also I have found that batch importing textures only saved about 50% of the textures properly even after multiple saves, and on restart, the remaining textures were missing, so manually importing a few at a time and saving was the only method that reliably worked. The main problem seems to be using folders- I can usually move single assets around without a problem, but as soon as I'm moving a folder of assets (especially if that folder has more than a few assets inside or subfolders), things get slow, complicated, and rarely move cleanly. In comparison to everything else in UE4, where things just work without the user having to get too involved, this definitely seems like an area that could be simplified.

[StrangerGwenn]

This is where people start breaking projects or losing work and it's a waste of time having to sort that out. In a large studio, it's unacceptable - so redirectors exist so people can move files around without other files breaking. Since UE4 is aimed at large studios and Unity isn't, it's more fitting for it to have the redirector system even if it makes the lone-developers life slightly more difficult.

Well from what people said here, Unity's version is way more resilient by design, because it ignores the very concepts of file name or path.

UE's concept of redirector is not only confusing, but also forces the user to use the content browser for all filesystem operations. Merging branches, for example, will always be an incredible pain because of the redirector system.

[TheJamsh]

Also, I don't see a reason behind defending 5-step complicated process, when references should be handled automatically without any chance of them breaking in the first place.

Like I said, in order for those references to be updated the files have to be checked out and checked back in, which you can't always do. Even if you can, you just end up resubmitting a changed file that only has a reference change. If you do it too often, you end up just filling up your source control repro with endless copies/revisions of assets that don't have any real changes - nightmare if you ever need to revert for whatever reason.

Perhaps I've not experienced the same issues as you guys, but all I'm saying is I've worked across multiple UE4 projects in varying team sizes and not had too many issues with redirectors. I'm not saying they're ideal, but I can see why they're needed. If Epic come up with a nicer system then I'm all for it (though, I'd rather not have twice as many files in each folder purely to get around this) - but for the meantime my suggestion is to maintain a well organized folder structure and if you really have to move something, follow the process I listed.

EDIT: Oh, also:
https://docs.unrealengine.com/latest...ors/index.html - This page pretty much mirrors what I said. If the "dangling redirector" issue is what effects you and Fixing them up doesn't solve it, then it's probably a bug.

[StrangerGwenn]

Like I said, in order for those references to be updated the files have to be checked out and checked back in, which you can't always do.

But again, having to update the files that referenced the moved asset is a UE-specific hassle that Unity doesn't seem to have.

Referencing assets by path is what's wrong to begin with.