Best approach to copy multiple objects to other levels?

Hey everyone! UE4 beginner here :slight_smile:
I’ve been reading across the boards to find a way to replicate “prefabs”, a workflow that I am used to, coming from Unity. It’s pretty much just a group of actors which can be stored in the asset browser for re-use in multiple levels.

Here’s my issue: I have a level in which I’ve set up some buildings consisting of multiple static mesh modules and I would like to re-use these buildings in another level. I’ve read that the UE equivalent to prefabs are blueprints. However, blueprints will only allow me to add objects from the content browser, but not the architecture I’ve already set up in my level. I would have to re-build everything from scratch.

Am I just missing an option here or is there any other way to copy entire structures between levels?

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There are 2 ways to move the assets tself. Either using “migrate” or copy the files through the windows file browser.
With migrate, you would need your static meshes etc. correctly setup, See here for further information:

For copying, you can just use Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V as long as the meshes are in the same folders in the content browser.
So you select your objects in your level, copy and paste them over. Try 1-2 objects at first and see if the staticmesh actors have a static mesh assigned to them, if not they will be an empty actor and you have to reassign the static mesh through the Details Panel.

In unreal u are using blueprints.
Make a new blueprint, with parent Actor that u can place it in the world.
add the components you need, like mesh, trigger, particles whatever, and in the event graph
add your logic. you can place your blueprint actor wherever you want.

Thank you! I actually didn’t expect copy+paste to work in between levels, since I can only edit one level at a time. Great to know!

Hey there! Thanks, but I was already aware of this workflow. As described above, my problem was that the objects had already been set up in the level, so I would have to re-build everything in a blueprint. Would’ve been handy to just copy the entire structure over into a blueprint, but that didn’t work.

I went ahead and used LeFXGuy’s solution.

mhh maybe i don’t understand the u can arrange everthing in blueprint and you can reuse it everywhere!

alt text

here i arranged door, doorframe, groudplane, doorswitch, and
i have the logic.

same thing u can do with buildings.

isnt that, what you want?

it’s the same like prefabs in Unity, but in unity u have to place your items in the world then you hate to select them and make a prefab.

if this is what you wanted to do and answers your question, pls mark my answer as correct :slight_smile:

Actually did so when I responded, got reset for some reason shrugs

This can still be done, select the items in world and at the top of the viewport go to BlueprintsConvert Selected Components to Blueprint Class

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Oh sheesh, that is the one place I didn’t look. Followed instructions from older answers (outliner / scene context menu, details panel), but all these options did not exist. Worked like a charm, thanks a lot!

The solution that RimmyD said is not working with other blueprint actor selected, it work ok with a couple of mesh selected but when we start to select blueprint this dont work anymore (blueprint can have child blueprint right?) so i expected this to work :o

I’ve found two useful methods for this:

  1. Select all of the objects that you would like to copy, group them (CTRL + G), copy (CTRL + V), open the new level, then paste into the new level,

  2. Using the ‘Levels’ window (Window > Levels) bring your other level into the same world (Levels > Add existing…). In your main window, select all of the items that you want to transfer between levels. In the Levels window, right-click on the name of the level you want to move the objects to and use ‘Move Selected Actors to Level’.

If you decide you need to create a new level for your objects, you can also use the Levels window to create a new level directly from a collection of actors, rather than creating a new level manually, adding it, and then copying the actors across.

More about grouping objects here:

More about the Levels window here:

Hope that helps someone else with this problem!

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My first login into unreal.answers, just to say THANK YOU :=)