Managing Your Assets

One of the most important challenges you will encounter while working in Unreal Engine is efficiently managing your Assets, which is more critical than in traditional offline rendering. This is primarily attributed to various factors, such as the substantial size of Unreal Editor files, which can escalate to several gigabytes if not meticulously organized and maintained. Additionally, the inherent structure of Unreal Editor files, when disorganized or cluttered, can consume unnecessary disk space and hinder workflow efficiency. In Unreal Engine, scenes consist of instanced copies derived from the Content Browser. This means that not just assets but also levels function as instances. While this design choice results in relatively lightweight scenes—given that they reference objects rather than duplicating them—it also introduces challenges. Specifically, it becomes easier to create confusion with file references. Accidentally moving, deleting, or duplicating...

Technical requirements

The project files for the chapter can be found at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Architectural-Visualization-in-Unreal-Engine-5

Using the Content Browser

The Content Browser is a central tool in Unreal Engine that allows users to manage and organize their project Assets, including 3D models, Textures, Materials, sounds, animations, and other resources. It works like a file browser that is specifically designed for game development, and it provides a hierarchical view of all the Assets in the project, along with their properties and metadata. It is also important because it streamlines the Asset management process, making it easy for users to find, import, and organize Assets within their projects. In other words, think of the Content Browser as a library or repository that contains everything you need to build your scene. Every mesh, Material, Actor, and animation that you use in your project is an instance of the original Asset stored in the Content Browser.

However, it is important to be cautious when moving or deleting resources within the Content Browser, as this can break the associations between Assets...

Importing content

It has been established that the Content Browser functions as a library, but how can content be added to it? In addition to importing content created by the user, there are three primary methods for adding Unreal Engine content: manually copying the files, importing from the official Unreal Marketplace, or migrating content from other Unreal Editor files. Content can also be added from the Unreal starter library or third-party plugins such as Quixel Bridge, which is integrated into UE5, or Substance 3D.

Copy and pasting .uAsset

While this first method of manually copying files may seem unorthodox, it can often be effective. Sometimes, some content may only be available in .uAsset format (the format applied to any Asset from Unreal Engine) without an Editor file to migrate from. In this case, the Asset must be manually copied and pasted into a subfolder within the Content Browser folder using Windows File Explorer. Additional folders can also be created within...

Exporting content

If you want to export something from your Unreal Engine scene to other scenes, or even other programs, there are two options:

• Migrating content: Migrating is useful when you want to copy Assets, along with their references and dependencies, to be used inside Unreal Engine projects
• Exporting content: Exporting allows you to save your content as a generic file that can be used in other programs, to be used as a reference for modeling or simulations

Migrating content

To migrate Assets, follow these steps:

1. Open the scene you want to migrate Assets from and select the Assets you want to migrate in the Content Browser. You can select multiple Assets or even entire folders.
2. Right-click on the selected Assets, then select Asset Actions | Migrate… from the context menu.

Figure 4.14: How to migrate a generic Asset

3. The Asset Report window will show all the Assets that will be copied during the migration...

Managing content

While it may not be as exciting as creating stunning shaders, managing your content is just as crucial as producing high-quality renders. In the world of architectural visualization, time is of the essence, and being efficient with your time is closely tied to managing your scenes effectively. Therefore, it’s essential to explore the different operations that can be performed within the Content Browser.

Nanite

One feature to consider is Nanite, which can offer significant benefits, but it may not always be compatible with certain features. You can quickly enable or disable Nanite by right-clicking on the selected Assets in the Content Browser and selecting the checkbox for Disable/Enable Nanite for multiple selections. Alternatively, you can open the Assets, locate Nanite in the Details panel, and enable it from there.

Batch editing and the Property Matrix

Sometimes, you may need to perform certain actions, such as reducing the size of Textures,...

Project – importing Assets from the Marketplace

Our project is now ready to be furnished, which means we will be adding furniture and decorations from other scenes and Marketplace products. Typically, the next step after importing the model would be to apply lighting and shading before decorating and furnishing. However, to maintain continuity with what we have learned so far, I will first import some Assets before discussing lighting.

Inserting an Asset from the Marketplace

I have found a nice modular kitchen in an interior scene on the Marketplace. Instead of adding the entire scene and then deleting most of it, I will only add the element I need. To do this, I usually add all potentially useful content from the Marketplace to a different scene than the one containing my Project. From this scene, I will select only the elements I need and migrate them to my actual scene. The project I want to take the Assets from is called Loft Office (see Figure 4.22):

...

Summary

We’ve learned a lot of new things; let’s take a moment to review what we’ve covered. Firstly, we’ve seen the importance of the Content Browser and how to effectively organize resources within it. We’ve learned how to move Assets within its folders, group them inside collections, or filter them, and we’ve also covered how to properly clean it up by removing unnecessary items. Additionally, we’ve learned how to import content to the Content Browser from the Marketplace and other Unreal files. Finally, we’ve also learned how to export content from the Content Browser to third-party applications. Overall, we’ve gained a comprehensive understanding of how to manage and work with resources in Unreal Engine 5.

It has been a long road, but we have finally completed this chapter, marking the end of the first part of this book. With the knowledge we have gained, we are now ready to start working on our project in earnest...