AssetsTooling

Overview

AssetsTooling is an Unreal Engine editor-only plugin that gives developers and technical artists a centralized, automated workflow for auditing and cleaning up project assets. It runs eight categories of validation checks — broken references, unused assets, naming convention violations, missing source files, texture quality, mesh LOD coverage, stale redirectors, and duplicate content — entirely on a background thread so the editor stays fully interactive during the scan. Compatible with Unreal Engine 4.26 through 5.7 on Windows, Linux, and macOS.

Key Features

• Eight independent validation rules (broken references, unused assets, naming conventions, texture audit, mesh LOD, stale redirectors, duplicate detection, missing source files)
• Background-threaded validation with cancellation, CPU yield, and memory-guard safeties — editor never freezes
• Configurable rules via Project Settings: prefix maps, excluded paths, texture size limits, batch yield interval
• One-click bulk fixes: delete unused assets, fix redirectors, consolidate duplicates
• CSV and JSON report export for CI pipelines and post-audit reviews
• Blueprint and Python-callable facade (UAssetValidationLibrary) for automation and pre-submit hooks

Technical Decisions

Built entirely on engine-native APIs (no third-party dependencies) to ensure compatibility across a 10-version UE span; a single UE_VERSION_AT_LEAST macro header centralizes all API-breakpoint guards from UE 4.26 through 5.7. Validation runs via Async(EAsyncExecution::Thread) + TFuture rather than raw FRunnableThread — simpler cancellation/wait semantics with the same thread-safety guarantees. Rules operate exclusively on pre-snapshotted Asset Registry data collected on the game thread, so the background worker never touches the Asset Registry or loads UObjects, eliminating the most common cause of editor freezes in validation tools.