LD Assistant 2 documentation

Actor tools & Utilities:

• Linear, Grid, Around, Spline & Scatter duplication with live previews!
• Dynamic duplication with smart location and rotation (snap to the ground/terrain)
• Place and focus around a reference actor
• Apply a customizable random transform to your selection
• Add WIP notes in your level
• Advanced selection & rename features, auto-organize your outliner, swap S-M references…
• Distribute assets in 3D space, align assets on an axis, add a uniform/random rotation to your selection

Asset batch:

• Smart rename assets in your content browser, add prefixes, batch duplicate
• Remove unused assets, empty folders

One-click material creator:

• Select your textures and create a material with a single click, highly customisable
• Support channel packing

Custom engine shortcuts:

• Create your own editor shortcuts
• Open editor tabs, console commands, editor functions…

Selection lock:

• “Freeze” & “Unfreeze” actor selection with one-click in your outliner
• Support Click selection and zone/square selection

To hide/show the new outliner column, right click on the column label and check “Selection Lock”

By right-clicking on the tab you can hide the tab name or dock the tab with the UE Sidebar System

You can enable the “compact mode” for your shortcuts in the plugin settings. (click the refresh shortcuts button)

LINEAR DUPLICATION:

1. Select the actor(s) you would like to duplicate
2. Enable the preview
3. Set the offset
4. Set the quantity
5. Click on the “Duplicate” button

GRID CREATOR:

1. Select the actor(s) you would like to duplicate
2. Enable the preview
3. Set the offset
4. Set the quantity
5. Click on the “Create grid” button

DUPLICATE AROUND:

1. Select the actor you want to duplicate around, set it as the “center actor”.
2. Select the actor(s) you would like to duplicate around the center actor.
3. Enable the preview
4. Set the “first radius”.
5. Set the quantity for the first ring.
6. If you want multiple rings, set the ring quantity above 1 and the Radius offset.
7. Choose the duplication type.
   Linear: Same duplication quantity on all rings
   Exponential: Multiply the duplication quantity with the ring quantity
8. Set the starting and ending angle if necessary.
9. Define if you want your duplication to look at the “center actor” (disabled if you use smart rotation).
10. Click on the “Duplicate” button.

DUPLICATE ALONG SPLINE:

1. Select the actor(s) you would like to duplicate
2. Click on “Create spline”
3. Enable the preview
4. Customize the spline
5. Set the quantity
6. Set the update rotation boolean (the mesh will follow the spline rotation)
7. Click on the “Duplicate” button, the spline will be destroyed.

SCATTER DUPLICATE:

1. Select the actor(s) you would like to duplicate
2. Enable the preview
3. Choose the scatter shape
4. Set the scatter Size & offset
5. Set a random seed with your favorite random position
6. Click on the “Duplicate” button.

SMART LOCALISATION:
Based on a line trace above the actor LDA2 will try to follow the slope while duplicating. You can change the Z offset and the length of the line trace in the plugin settings.

SMART ROTATION:
Based on the impacts normals or the impacts locations LDA2 will try it’s best to adapt the current actor rotation with the slope angle while duplicating.

PREVIEW:
The preview button allows you to preview all your actions, the bounding box of the object is used (in the viewport, show>advanced>bounds).
If your selection contains a static mesh, LDA2 will draw a static mesh preview.The static mesh preview drawing can impact your editor performances, you can tweak this feature in the plugin settings.

DUPLICATE AS INSTANCE:
After you duplicate actors LDA2 will try to batch every static mesh as instanced static meshes.
Instanced meshes are “virtual” clone in your level,  LDA2 will batch the source actors components to use instancing as much as possible.

It Will generate an actor with instanced static mesh component(s).
HUGE performance improvement potential.

LDA2 uses the UE merge actor framework, you can tweak the settings in the plugin settings.

More information on instancing are available in the video below.

REFERENCE ACTOR:

1. Pick an actor, if multiple actors are selected, the first actor selected will be set as the reference

PLACE AROUND:

1. Select the actor(s) you want to be around the reference actor
2. Set the radius
3. Click on the “Place around [Name]” button

SET FOCUS:

1. Select the actor(s) you want to look at the reference actor
2. Set the update booleans
3. Click on the “Look at [Name]” button

RANDOMIZE TRANSFORM:

1. Select the actor(s) you want to randomize
2. Choose what you want to randomize Rotation/Scale/Offset from current position (X/Y).
3. Click on the “Randomize transform” button

SELECTION TOOL:
Select an actor and use this tool to select similar actor (same label/class/tags)

RENAME ACTORS:

1. Select the actors you want to rename
2. Fill the fields
3. Set the “Increment” boolean (a number will be added after the name)
4. Click on the “Rename” button

OUTLINER ORGANIZER: 
By clicking on the button "Organizer" all the actors of the level will be automatically arranged in folders. Open the plugin settings to customize the auto-organize feature (Actor-Outliner Organizer section).

S-M SWAPPER: 
LDA2 will find every “From SM” reference in your level and will swap it with the “To SM” reference. The default SM material will be used (default material set on the asset itself).

MEASURE:
Move your viewport camera where you want to measure and place gizmos with the Point A/B button. You can also spawn a human skeleton reference in the level or attach it to your view to check the scale of your level design relative to a human.

STATISTICS:
Based on the “Actor-Outliner Organizer” settings, LDA2 will Count the actor by category.LDA2 will also count the total triangle count in your selection.

ADD A NEW NOTE:

1. Pick an actor, if multiple actors are selected, the first actor selected will be set as the reference
2. Click on the “Add new note to this actor” button
3. A BP_Note will be created as a child of the selected actor
4. Fill the fields
5. Set the size of the note
6. Click on the “Update note” button

EDIT THE TARGET OF THE NOTE:

1. Select the note in the viewport
2. Click on the “Update target actor” button
3. Select the new target actor in the viewport
4. Click on the “Set as target actor” button

Because the note is a child of an object if you change the scale or the rotation of the target the note can have weird behavior. If so, click  on the “Refresh all notes” button.
Please do not edit a note outside of the LD Assistant plugin (in the BP detail window for example).
Delete the notes if you disable the plugin or the note actor will be corrupted!

The rotation tool allows rotating actors locally with the defined amount.The random rotation will add random rotation depending on the X, Y, Z boolean values.

The distribute tool allows distributing uniformly the actor's pivot on X, Y, Z or XYZ.The selected actors will be distributed between the first and the last selected actors.

The align tool allows aligning the actor's pivot on X, Y or Z.The location will be defined with the average location of the selected array.

PROCESS:

1. Select assets in your content browser
2. Set the values in the field
3. LDA 2 will increment the asset name if this name already exist in the project.

ADD PREFIXES:
Based on the plugin settings “Prefix Map” LDA2 will rename the selected assets. LDA2 will name the asset based on its native class.Example: A custom blueprint call MyBP is gonna be renamed BP_MyBP even if you add BU_ as prefix in the prefix map for the class “MyBP”, the native class is still a blueprint.

PROCESS:

1. Import textures with the texture naming convention set in the plugin settings.
2. Open the Quick material Creator window
3. Select the textures in your content browser
   LDA2 will search in the texture name for the naming convention to plug the textures in the correct channels.
4. Create the material (and the material instance).

CHANNEL PACKING:
If you use channel packing in a texture, add arm in the name and LDA2 will:

• Red channel : Ambient Occlusion channel
• Green channel : Roughness channel
• Blue channel : Metallic channel

Windows:

• OpenOutputLog: Opens the Output Log window, which displays engine and game logs.
• OpenLightEnvMixer: Opens the LightEnvMixer window, used for editing lighting environments.
• OpenPlaceActor: Opens the Place Actor window, allowing users to place actors in the scene.List
• Viewports: Opens viewport 1/2/3/4 windows for viewing the scene.
• Details: Opens Details tab 1/2/3/4 windows for viewing and editing actor properties.
• Outliner: Opens Outliner 1/2/3/4 windows for viewing the scene hierarchy.
• StatsViewer: Opens the Stats Viewer window, which displays engine performance statistics.List
• Layers: Opens the Layer Browser window for managing layers in the scene.
• WorldSettings: Opens the World Settings window for configuring global settings of the level.
• WorldPartition: Opens the World Partition window for managing world partition data.
• LODOutliner: Opens the Hierarchical LOD Outliner window for managing hierarchical LOD settings.
• LDAActors: Opens the LDA Actor Tools window for managing LDA actor-related tools.
• LDAUtilities: Opens the LDA Viewport Utilities window for managing LDA viewport-related utilities.
• MergeActors: Opens the Merge Actors window for combining multiple actors into a single actor.

Functions (set the value in the “argument” field):

• RestartEditor: Restarts the Unreal Engine Editor.
• OpenMarketplace: Opens the Marketplace window for browsing and downloading assets, plugins, and other content.
• ConsoleCommand: Executes the specified console command within the Unreal Engine Editor.
• OpenSettings: Opens the specified settings in the Unreal Engine Editor.
• OpenIDE: Opens the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) configured for the project. (Visual Studio for example)
• OpenURL: Opens the specified URL in the default web browser.
• OpenEUW: Starts the specified Editor Utility Widget (EUW) within the Unreal Engine Editor.
• OpenLVL: Opens the specified level in the Unreal Engine Editor for editing.

Process scripted action:

1. Select asset(s) in the content browser
2. Right click on the asset
3. Go to scripted asset actions > LDA2

Process project cleaner:

1. Select folder(s) in the content browser (or the hierarchy)
2. Right click on the folder

Warning:UE needs to load every asset under the selected folder, if your project is big this might freeze the engine for a long time, be patient :-)
The scripts are also gonna fix every redirector under the selected folder, this process will clean your asset database and might require some time.You can set protected folders and classes in the plugin settings.

Use the deletion tools at your own risk. LDA2 can’t be held accountable for breaking your project.
Double-check every asset LDA2 is trying to delete/rename. It’s highly recommended to use a versioning tool (GitHub, Perforce…, etc.).

With the selection lock tool, exclude specific actors from selection, especially useful when you “square select” actors (ALT+CTRL+hold click).
You can flag an actor as “unselectable” with:

• The lock icon in the outliner
• The Keyboard shortcut (available in the editor preferences)
• Right click on the actor and “lock selection actor selection”.

To hide/show the new outliner column, right click on the column label and check “Selection Lock”
Note: Hotkeys are available for Lock/Unlock. See Hotkey section.

Prefix map: The class in the settings is the native class, you cannot add a specific prefix to a user created blueprint for example.

Smart Location/Rotation settings: If the smart features are not working correctly in your specific use case, tweak the values and enable “show trace debug” to understand what is happening with the smart features calculations.

Function shortcuts: Hover the function name to know what you need to do to make the shortcut work. Some functions need arguments, and some don’t.

Smart location: By default I create a line trace above the actor but if your actor is very large you might want to use a box trace based on the actor bounds.

Prevent smart duplication: If the line trace hits an actor with a tag “LDA2NoDupli” (can be changed in the plugin settings), LDA2 can skip the duplication above this actor.

Smart rotation: Based on the bound size multiplier I create 4 line trace above the actor. Depending on your use case:
- Normal based: The smart rotation will be based on the average impact normal to create a rotation (so if every surface is horizontal/flat, the average normal is horizontal/flat.)
- Location based: I will create a rotation based on a plane rotation created from the 4 impact points.