UE4 - About organization, workflow and performances

Benja_3d

Hi,

pretty new to the 3D world, I've quickly been confronted to environments in UE4 with a lot of meshes, bp, lights... I've learned quite alot about organizing my content folders, but what about the "World Outliner" ? I can parent stuff, create folders (and folders of folders)... but there might be some more tricks, right?

This question may seem odd if you're used to 3D workflow, I'm coming from a musical and designer background and in both field we would "bounce" or "merge" stuff quite often to gain performances and have a better organization. This is a great way to keep moving forward too because you have to "set stuff in stone" and take definitive decisions. So... does a similar thing exist in the 3D world? 

1) First of all: UE4 seems to keep "unfolding and opening" my parents and folders in the world outliner, which is pretty annoying. When you open a project, every folder is open too, even if it was closed when I quit. Any way to stop it from doing that? or even better, to make it cloth them by default?

2) Is there a way to "merge" (definitive or not) stuff? For exemple: Could I "merge" meshes together (like you would merge layers in photoshop) so they become only one mesh? I know about parenting but I'm talking about a "definitive merge".
Or Is there a way to gain performances by defining stuff as "finished and it won't ever change again"? Let's say I'm creating a house and I'm done with the bedroom. I would love to "definitely merge all of the room together" so it appears as only one object and I can then move on the the other ones.

As a noob, any tip on a good workflow, how to keep good performances while adding stuff to a scene and keeping a good organization is welcome!
Thanks a lot for your time, I've gained quite a lot of knowledge on this forum and am really thankful for it!

Obscura

1. There are multiple ways of merging meshes inside Unreal. The simplest way is to select multiple static mesh actors, right clicking one of them on the world outliner, and there is "convert to static mesh" which will create a combined version to a specified location. There is a downside of this method, it won't merge identical materials so its kinda useless... The second (and best) way is to select multiple actors, click "window"->developer tools->merge actors. This will pop up a window where you can set some settings including an option regarding merging materials and even textures.

2. I believe unfortunately its like that. Even worsre, it enabled the visivility checkboxes (little eye next to the entity) back after quitting.

Benja_3d

Obscura said:

1. There are multiple ways of merging meshes inside Unreal. The simplest way is to select multiple static mesh actors, right clicking one of them on the world outliner, and there is "convert to static mesh" which will create a combined version to a specified location. There is a downside of this method, it won't merge identical materials so its kinda useless... The second (and best) way is to select multiple actors, click "window"->developer tools->merge actors. This will pop up a window where you can set some settings including an option regarding merging materials and even textures.

2. I believe unfortunately its like that. Even worsre, it enabled the visivility checkboxes (little eye next to the entity) back after quitting.

Thanks a lot for your answers! The merge actors is quite what I was looking for!