Can you add an option to unreal editor to save asset files in text instead of binary?

Development Pipeline & Plugins
, , , , ,
1

This is a follow on question to this locked question.

I was informed recently that by selecting nodes in a blueprint and pasting them into a text editor showed a text format of the nodes. I tried it and indeed, it works. I also tried copying objects inside a level and pasting into a text editor, and surprise, surprise, it worked:

Begin Map
   Begin Level
      Begin Actor Class=SkeletalMeshActor Name=my_character Archetype=SkeletalMeshActor'/Script/Engine.Default__SkeletalMeshActor'
         Begin Object Class=SkeletalMeshComponent Name="SkeletalMeshComponent0" Archetype=SkeletalMeshComponent'Default__SkeletalMeshActor:SkeletalMeshComponent0'
         End Object
         Begin Object Name="SkeletalMeshComponent0"
            SkeletalMesh=SkeletalMesh'/Game/Characters/my_character/my_character.my_character'
            MaxDistanceFactor=1.355410
            BodyInstance=(MassInKg=449.096893)
            RelativeLocation=(X=-3015.054199,Y=-1168.384521,Z=-32.796158)
            RelativeRotation=(Pitch=0.000000,Yaw=10.097433,Roll=-0.000000)
         End Object
         SkeletalMeshComponent=SkeletalMeshComponent0
         RootComponent=SkeletalMeshComponent0
         ActorLabel="my_character"
         FolderPath="Matinee"
         Tags(0)="POV"
      End Actor
   End Level
Begin Surface
End Surface
End Map

So the obvious question is, why doesn’t Epic allow us to save the asset files as text.
Obviously, there is a text serialization built into the system already.

Please give us the option to serialize the asset files in text format so we can merge files using the standard diff tools.
It doesn’t appear to be that UE4’s serialization system non-deterministicly reorders the copied nodes.
In any case, I would rather handle the merge pain myself instead of doing the git “No don’t touch that file, I modified it and am going to push it” dance.

Thank you,

1 Like