Changing external editor

Development Pipeline & Plugins
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1

Hello! Just a simple question: is it possible to change the external editor for textures or 3d objects?

When I want to edit a texture, UE opens Paint, not Photoshop.

Thanks!

2

Um. I’m really confused.

Unreal uses .uasset file types. For textures, sounds, meshes etc.
Those definitely could not be opened in Paint. And those assets handled by unreal itself.
Unreal Content Browser shows only asset files that only could be opened by unreal itself.

3

Yeah but this files have the option to be opened by other editor to change them, I don’t know why one of them is Paint instead of PS.

4

For real. Can I have a screenshot, or better, video? Never heard of asset could be opened in Paint! Sorry.

5

here it goes!

123904-d91b37e3c135c219cdd71d4e20747827.gif

6

Oh. This doesn’t open the asset, it opens the source the asset was made of ( You could test it, by hovering assets that have no source files, it will be grayed out).

  • As example You have PNG that associated with Paint
  • Import PNG
  • Open in External Editor will open source PNG (not the asset)
  • System will handle it by calling a Paint app

So to change association You have to change the default app for the format You used in import.

7

My workaround has been for the moment to “open source location” and open the image via windows in Photoshop. Then, when the image is saved, in unreal I right click it and select “reimport”.

8

Yeah that seemed like an obvious question to me. Even Blender has a specific setting in its preferences to identify your choice of external image editor, which is independent of the windows settings you would assign a file type in an explorer browser.

The key word to your initial question was EXTERNAL editor

9

You can change the software in the registry:

here is an guide!

10

Confirm - it works.
Just to have an alternative you can check this guide also, it’s a little bit shorter - https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-files-winpc/change-default-image-editor/4b01b777-338f-49c1-8300-9bcd7f60c160

Keep in mind, this also changes your default program for editing images in Windows as well (when you’re right-clicking on image and press ‘Edit’)

11

I think OP’s question was pretty clear.

UE defaults to whatever photo editor is set in the Window’s registry. So, changing the editor is done in the Windows registry.

Steps:

  1. Press Windows key + R
  2. Enter ‘regedit’
  3. Press ctrl + F
  4. Check the “keys” box. Disable the ‘Values’ and ‘Data’ box.
  5. Search ‘SystemFileAssociations’
  6. The ‘SystemFileAssociations’ folder will be selected. Double click to expand.
  7. Scroll down to the folder named “image” and expand.
  8. Expand the shell > edit folders and select ‘command’
  9. In the right side panel double click “(Default)” under the “Name” column
  10. Paste the file path to the image editor you want to use. Make sure it is in quotes. This must be followed by a space and then “%1” with quotes.