Asset Pipeline
Everything you build a game from, meshes, textures, materials, prefabs, levels, is an asset. This section covers how assets are stored, how you bring content in, how assets point at each other, and how they are packaged for a shipped game.
What an asset is
Section titled “What an asset is”An asset is a piece of saved content. On disk, each one is a single .lasset
file under your project’s content folder. You never edit .lasset files by hand,
you create and edit assets through the editor.
Content paths
Section titled “Content paths”Assets are addressed by content path, not by where they sit on your drive. The first segment of a path is a mount:
| Mount | Points at |
|---|---|
/Game | Your project’s Game/Content/ folder. |
/Engine | The engine’s built-in content. |
/Config | Your project’s config. |
So /Game/Meshes/Cube is the file Game/Content/Meshes/Cube.lasset in your
project. Plugins mount their own content as well. Because everything is addressed
by mount, paths keep working no matter where the project lives on disk.
Asset types
Section titled “Asset types”The asset types you will work with:
| Asset | What it is |
|---|---|
| Static Mesh | A non-animated mesh, with material slots. |
| Skeletal Mesh / Skeleton | A rigged mesh and its bone hierarchy. |
| Animation | A skeletal animation clip. |
| Animation Graph | A graph that drives a character’s pose. |
| Texture | A 2D image, see Textures. |
| Material / Material Instance / Material Function | Surface shading. |
| Physics Material | Friction, restitution, and density. |
| Particle System | A particle effect. |
| Geometry Collection | Pre-fractured pieces for destruction. |
| Prefab | A saved entity hierarchy. |
| Data Asset / Schema | Custom data and the shape that defines it. |
| Entity Component Type | A data-authored component. |
| Blackboard | Typed keys for AI and animation. |
| Font | A typeface. |
| World | A level. |
You create most of these from the Content Browser (right-click), and import meshes, textures, and fonts from source files.
Deleting assets
Section titled “Deleting assets”Select an asset in the Content Browser and press Delete (or right-click, Delete). Deletion is immediate and cannot be undone.
When you delete an asset:
- It is removed from disk and from memory right away.
- Every reference to it is cleared. Components, other assets, and open worlds that pointed at it are set back to nothing, so you get an empty slot rather than a dangling reference to a deleted asset.
- If it is a prefab, its placed instances are removed from every open level. Detached copies survive. See Prefabs.
- It does not show up in the unsaved-changes prompt when you close the editor.
Two things you cannot delete:
- A World that is currently open. Close it first.
- Anything while the game is playing or simulating. Stop play first.
In this section
Section titled “In this section”- Importing, bringing in models, textures, and fonts.
- Textures, color space and compression.
- Referencing Assets, pointing at assets from components and scripts.
- Cooking & Packaging, building a shipped game.