Gamemakin UE4 Style Guide() {
A mostly reasonable approach to Unreal Engine 4
Heavily inspired by the Airbnb Javascript Style Guide.
Every section of this style guide is numbered for both easy reference and easy linking. You can link to any section directly by simply append a hash tag and the section number to the end of http://ue4.style
For example, if you want to send someone to the first principle of this style guide you would append #0.1, resulting in http://ue4.style#0.1.
The word 'map' generally refers to what the average person calls a 'level' and may be used interchangeably. See this term's history here.
There are a few different ways you can name things. Here are some common casing types:
Capitalize every word and remove all spaces, e.g.
DesertEagle,StyleGuide,ASeriesOfWords.The first letter is always lowercase but every following word starts with uppercase, e.g.
desertEagle,styleGuide,aSeriesOfWords.Words can arbitrarily start upper or lowercase but words are separated by an underscore, e.g.
desert_Eagle,Style_Guide,a_Series_of_Words.
These principles have been adapted from idomatic.js style guide.
If you are working on a project or with a team that has a pre-existing style guide, it should be respected. Any inconsistency between and existing style guide and this guide should defer to the existing.
Style guides should be living documents however and you should propose style guide changes to an existing style guide as well as this guide if you feel the change benefits all usages.
0.2 All structure, assets, and code in any Unreal Engine 4 project should look like a single person created it, no matter how many people contributed.
Moving from one project to another should not cause a re-learning of style and structure. Conforming to a style guide removes unneeded guesswork and ambiguities.
It also allows for more productive creation and maintenance as one does not need to think about style, simply follow instructions. This style guide is written with best practices in mind, meaning that by following this style guide you will also minimize hard to track issues.
If you see someone working either against a style guide or no style guide, try to correct them.
When working within a team or discussing within a community such as Unreal Slackers, it is far easier to help and to ask for help when people are consistent. Nobody likes to help untangle someone's Blueprint spaghetti or deal with assets with names they can't understand.
If you are helping someone who's work conforms to a different but consistent and sane style guide, you should be able to adapt to it. If they do not conform to any style guide, please direct them here.
When joining an Unreal Engine 4 team one of your first questions should be "Do you have a style guide?". If the answer is no, you should be skeptical about their ability to work as a team.
Naming conventions should be treated as law. A project that conforms to a naming convention is able to have its assets managed, searched, parsed, and maintained with incredible ease.
Most things are prefixed with prefixes being generally an acronym of the asset type followed by an underscore.
All assets should have a Base Asset Name. A Base Asset Name represents a logical grouping of related assets. Any asset that is part of this logical group should follow the the standard of Prefix_BaseAssetName_Variant_Suffix.
Keeping the pattern Prefix_BaseAssetName_Variant_Suffix and in mind and using common sense is generally enough to warrant good asset names. Here are some detailed rules regarding each element.
Prefix and Suffix are to be determined by the asset type through the following Asset Name Modifier tables.
BaseAssetName should be determined by short and easily recognizable name related to the context of this group of assets. For example, if you had a character named Bob, all of Bob's assets would have the BaseAssetName of Bob.
For unique and specific variations of assets, Variant is either a short and easily recognizable name that represents logical grouping of assets that are a subset of an asset's base name. For example, if Bob had multiple skins these skins should still use Bob as the BaseAssetName but include a recognizable Variant. An 'Evil' skin would be referred to as Bob_Evil and a 'Retro' skin would be referred to as Bob_Retro.
For unique but generic variations of assets, Variant is a two digit number starting at 01. For example, if you have an environment artist generating nondescript rocks, they would be named Rock_01, Rock_02, Rock_03, etc. Except for rare exceptions, you should never require a three digit variant number. If you have more than 100 assets, you should consider organizing them with different base names or using multiple variant names.
Depending on how your asset variants are made, you can chain together variant names. For example, if you are creating flooring assets for an Arch Viz project you should use the base name Flooring with chained variants such as Flooring_Marble_01, Flooring_Maple_01, Flooring_Tile_Squares_01.
| Asset Type | Asset Name |
|---|---|
| Skeletal Mesh | SK_Bob |
| Material | M_Bob |
| Texture (Diffuse/Albedo) | T_Bob_D |
| Texture (Normal) | T_Bob_N |
| Texture (Evil Diffuse) | T_Bob_Evil_D |
| Asset Type | Asset Name |
|---|---|
| Static Mesh (01) | S_Rock_01 |
| Static Mesh (02) | S_Rock_02 |
| Static Mesh (03) | S_Rock_03 |
| Material | M_Rock |
| Material Instance (Snow) | MI_Rock_Snow |
When naming an asset use these tables to determine the prefix and suffix to use with an asset's Base Asset Name.
1.2.1 Most Common
1.2.2 Animations
1.2.3 Artificial Intelligence
1.2.4 Blueprints
1.2.5 Materials
1.2.6 Textures
1.2.7 Miscellaneous
1.2.8 Paper 2D
1.2.9 Physics
1.2.10 Sound
1.2.11 User Interface
| Asset Type | Prefix | Suffix | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Level / Map | Should be in a folder called Maps. | ||
| Level (Persistent) | _P | ||
| Level (Audio) | _Audio | ||
| Level (Lighting) | _Lighting | ||
| Level (Geometry) | _Geo | ||
| Level (Gameplay) | _Gameplay | ||
| Blueprint | BP_ | ||
| Material | M_ | ||
| Static Mesh | S_ or SM_ | Pick only one. Prefer S_. | |
| Skeletal Mesh | SK_ | ||
| Texture | T_ | _? | See Textures |
| Particle System | PS_ | ||
| Widget Blueprint | WB_ or WBP_ | Pick only one. Prefer WB_. |
| Asset Type | Prefix | Suffix | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aim Offset | AO_ | ||
| Aim Offset 1D | AO_ | ||
| Animation Blueprint | ABP_ | ||
| Animation Composite | AC_ | ||
| Animation Montage | AM_ | ||
| Animation Sequence | A_ or AS_ | Pick only one. Prefer A_. | |
| Blend Space | BS_ | ||
| Blend Space 1D | BS_ | ||
| Level Sequence | LS_ | ||
| Morph Target | MT_ | ||
| Paper Flipbook | PFB_ | ||
| Rig | Rig_ | ||
| Skeletal Mesh | SK_ | ||
| Skeleton | SKEL_ |
| Asset Type | Prefix | Suffix | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Controller | AIC_ | ||
| Behavior Tree | BT_ | ||
| Blackboard | BB_ | ||
| Decorator | BTDecorator_ | ||
| Service | BTService_ | ||
| Task | BTTask_ |
| Asset Type | Prefix | Suffix | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blueprint | BP_ | ||
| Blueprint Function Library | BPFL_ | ||
| Blueprint Interface | BPI_ | ||
| Blueprint Macro Library | Do not use macro libraries. | ||
| Enumeration | E | No underscore after E. | |
| Structure | S | No underscore after S. | |
| Widget Blueprint | WB_ or WBP_ | Pick only one. Prefer WB_. |
| Asset Type | Prefix | Suffix | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Material | M_ | ||
| Material (Post Process) | PP_ | ||
| Material Function | MF_ | ||
| Material Instance | MI_ | ||
| Material Parameter Collection | MPC_ | ||
| Subsurface Profile | SP_ or SSP_ | Pick only one. Prefer SP_. | |
| Physical Materials | PM_ |
| Asset Type | Prefix | Suffix | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texture | T_ | ||
| Texture (Diffuse/Albedo) | T_ | _D | |
| Texture (Normal) | T_ | _N | |
| Texture (Roughness) | T_ | _R | |
| Texture (Alpha/Opacity) | T_ | _A | |
| Texture (Ambient Occlusion) | T_ | _O or _AO | Pick only one. Prefer _O. |
| Texture (Bump) | T_ | _B | |
| Texture (Emissive) | T_ | _E | |
| Texture (Mask) | T_ | _M | |
| Texture (Specular) | T_ | _S | |
| Texture (Packed) | T_ | _* | See notes below about packing. |
| Texture Cube | TC_ | ||
| Media Texture | MT_ | ||
| Render Target | RT_ or RTT_ | Pick only one. Prefer RT_. | |
| Cube Render Target | RTC_ | ||
| Texture Light Profile | TLP |
<a name="anc-textures-packing"
It is common practice to pack multiple layers of texture data into one texture. An example of this is packing Emissive, Roughness, Ambient Occlusion together as the Red, Green, and Blue channels of a texture respectively. To determine the suffix, simply stack the given suffix letters from above together, e.g. _ERO.
It is generally acceptable to include an Alpha/Opacity layer in your Diffuse/Albedo's alpha channel and as this is common practice, adding
Ato the_Dsuffix is optional.
Packing 4 channels of data into a texture (RGBA) is not recommended except for an Alpha/Opacity mask in the Diffuse/Albedo's alpha channel as a texture with an alpha channel occurs more overhead than one without.
| Asset Type | Prefix | Suffix | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Animated Vector Field | VFA_ | ||
| Camera Anim | CA_ | ||
| Color Curve | Curve_ | _Color | |
| Curve Table | Curve_ | _Table | |
| Data Asset | *_ | Prefix should be based on class. | |
| Data Table | DT_ | ||
| Float Curve | Curve_ | _Float | |
| Foliage Type | FT_ | ||
| Force Feedback Effect | FFE_ | ||
| Landscape Grass Type | LG_ | ||
| Landscape Layer | LL_ | ||
| Matinee Data | Matinee_ | ||
| Media Player | MP_ | ||
| Object Library | OL_ | ||
| Redirector | These should be fixed up ASAP. | ||
| Sprite Sheet | SS_ | ||
| Static Vector Field | VF_ | ||
| Touch Interface Setup | TI_ | ||
| Vector Curve | Curve_ | _Vector |
| Asset Type | Prefix | Suffix | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Paper Flipbook | PFB_ | ||
| Sprite | SPR_ | ||
| Sprite Atlas Group | SPRG_ | ||
| Tile Map | TM_ | ||
| Tile Set | TS_ |
| Asset Type | Prefix | Suffix | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physical Material | PM_ |
| Asset Type | Prefix | Suffix | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dialogue Voice | DV_ | ||
| Dialogue Wave | DW_ | ||
| Media Sound Wave | MSW_ | ||
| Reverb Effect | Reverb_ | ||
| Sound Attenuation | ATT_ | ||
| Sound Class | No prefix/suffix. Should be put in a folder called SoundClasses | ||
| Sound Concurrency | _SC | Should be named after a SoundClass | |
| Sound Cue | A_ | _Cue | |
| Sound Mix | Mix_ | ||
| Sound Wave | A_ |
| Asset Type | Prefix | Suffix | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Font | Font_ | ||
| Slate Brush | Brush_ | ||
| Slate Widget Style | Style_ | ||
| Widget Blueprint | WB_ or WBP_ | Pick only one. Prefer WB_. |
| Asset Type | Prefix | Suffix | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Particle System | PS_ | ||
| Material (Post Process) | PP_ |
Equally important as asset names, the directory structure style of a project should be considered law. Asset naming conventions and content directory structure go hand in hand, and a violation of either causes unneeded chaos.
There are multiple ways to lay out the content of a UE4 project. In this style, we will be using a structure that relies more on filtering and search abilities of the Content Browser for those working with assets to find assets of a specific type instead of another common structure that groups asset types with folders.
If you are using the prefix naming convention above, using folders to contain assets of similar types such as
Meshes,Textures, andMaterialsis a redundant practice as asset types are already both sorted by prefix as well as able to be filtered in the content browser.
|-- Content
|-- GenericShooter
|-- Art
| |-- Industrial
| | |-- Ambient
| | |-- Machinery
| | |-- Pipes
| |-- Nature
| | |-- Ambient
| | |-- Foliage
| | |-- Rocks
| | |-- Trees
| |-- Office
|-- Characters
| |-- Bob
| |-- Common
| | |-- Animations
| | |-- Audio
| |-- Jack
| |-- Steve
| |-- Zoe
|-- Core
| |-- Characters
| |-- Engine
| |-- GameModes
| |-- Interactables
| |-- Pickups
| |-- Weapons
|-- Effects
| |-- Electrical
| |-- Fire
| |-- Weather
|-- Maps
| |-- Campaign1
| |-- Campaign2
|-- MaterialLibrary
| |-- Debug
| |-- Metal
| |-- Paint
| |-- Utility
| |-- Weathering
|-- Placeables
| |-- Pickups
|-- Weapons
|-- Common
|-- Pistols
| |-- DesertEagle
| |-- RocketPistol
|-- Rifles
The reasons for this structure are listed in the following sub-sections.
2.1 Folder Names
2.4 Maps
2.5 Core
2.7 Large Sets
2.8 Material Library
These are common rules for naming any folder in the content structure.
2.1.1 Always Use PascalCase*
PascalCase refers to starting a name with a capital letter and then instead of using spaces, every following word also starts with a capital letter. For example, DesertEagle, RocketPistol, and ASeriesOfWords.
See Cases.
Re-enforcing 2.1.1, never use spaces. Spaces can cause various engineering tools and batch processes to fail. Ideally your project's root also contains no spaces and is located somewhere such as D:\Project instead of C:\Users\My Name\My Documents\Unreal Projects.
If one of your game characters is named 'Zoë', its folder name should be Zoe. Unicode characters can be worse than Spaces for engineering tool and some parts of UE4 don't support Unicode characters in paths either.
Related to this, if your project has unexplained issues and your computer's user name has a Unicode character (i.e. your name is Zoë), any project located in your My Documents folder will suffer from this issue. Often simply moving your project to something like D:\Project will fix these mysterious issues.
All of a project's assets should exist in a folder named after the project. For example, if your project is named 'Generic Shooter', all of it's content should exist in Content/GenericShooter.
The
Developersfolder is not for assets that your project relies on and therefore is not project specific. See 2.2 for details about this.
There are multiple reasons for this approach.
Often in code style guides it is written that you should not pollute the global namespace and this follows the same principle. When assets are allowed to exist outside of a project folder it often becomes much harder to enforce a strict structure layout as assets not in a folder encourages the bad behavior of not having to organize assets.
Every asset should have a purpose, otherwise it does not belong in a project. If an asset is an experimental test and shouldn't be used by the project it should be put in a Developer folder.
When working on multiple projects it is common for a team to copy assets from one project to another if they have made something useful for both. When this occurs, the easiest way to perform the copy is to use the Content Browser's Migrate functionality as it will copy over not just the selected asset but all of its dependencies.
These dependencies are what can easily get you into trouble. If two project's assets do not have a top level folder and they happen to have similarly named or already previously migrated assets, a new migration can accidentally wipe any changes to the existing assets.
This is also the primary reason why Epic's Marketplace staff enforces the same policy for submitted assets.
After a migration, safe merging of assets can be done using the 'Replace References' tool in the content browser with the added clarity of assets not belonging to a project's top level folder are clearly pending a merge. Once assets are merged and fully migrated, there shouldn't be another top level folder in your Content tree. This method is 100% guaranteed to make any migrations that occur completely safe.
For example, say you created a master material in one project that you would like to use in another project so you migrated that asset over. If this asset is not in a top level folder, it may have a name like Content/MaterialLibrary/M_Master. If the target project doesn't have a master material already, this should work without issue.
As work on one or both projects progress their respective master materials may change to be tailored for their specific projects due to the course of normal development.
The issue comes when, for example, an artist for one project created a nice generic modular set of static meshes and someone wants to include that set of static meshes in the second project. If the artist who created the assets used material instances based on Content/MaterialLibrary/M_Master as they're instructed to, when a migration is performed there is a great chance of conflict for the previously migrated Content/MaterialLibrary/M_Master asset.
This issue can be hard to predict and hard to account for. The person migrating the static meshes may not be the same person who is familiar with the development of both project's master material, and they may not be even aware that the static meshes in question rely on material instances which then rely on the master material. The Migrate tool requires the entire chain of dependencies to work however, and so it will be forced to grab Content/MaterialLibrary/M_Master when it copies these assets to the other project and it will overwrite the existing asset.
It is at this point where if the master materials for both projects are incompatible in any way, you risk breaking possibly the entire material library for a project as well as any other dependencies that may have already been migrated, simply because assets were not stored in a top level folder. The simple migration of static meshes now becomes a very ugly task.
An extension to 2.2.2, if a team member decides to add sample content, template files, or assets they bought from the marketplace, it is guaranteed that these new assets will not interfere with the project in any way unless your project's top level folder is not uniquely named.
You can not trust marketplace content to fully conform to the top level folder rule. There exist many assets that have the majority of their content in a top level folder but also have possibly modified Epic sample content as well as level files polluting the global Content folder.
When adhering to 2.2, the worst marketplace conflict you can have is if two marketplace assets both have the same Epic sample content. If all your assets are in a project specific folder, including sample content you may have moved into your folder, your project will never break.
If your project plans to release DLC or has multiple sub-projects associated with it that may either be migrated out or simply not cooked in a build, assets relating to these projects should have their own separate top level content folder. This make cooking DLC separate from main project content far easier. Sub-projects can also be migrated in and out with minimal effort. If you need to change a material of an asset or add some very specific asset override behavior in a patch, you can easily put these changes in a patch folder and work safely without the chance of breaking the core project.
During a project's development, it is very common for team members to have a sort of 'sandbox' where they can experiment freely without risking the core project. Because this work may be ongoing, these team members may wish to put their assets on a project's source control server. Not all teams require use of Developer folders, but ones that do use them often run into a common problem with assets submitted to source control.
It is very easy for a team member to accidentally use assets that are not ready for use which will cause issues once those assets are removed. For example, an artist may be iterating on a modular set of static meshes and still working on getting their sizing and grid snapping correct. If a world builder sees these assets in the main project folder, they might use them all over a level not knowing they could be subject to incredible change and/or removal. This causes massive amounts of re-working by everyone on the team to resolve.
If these modular assets were placed in a Developer folder, the world builder should never of had a reason to use them and the whole issue would never happen. The Content Browser has specific View Options that will hide Developer folders (they are hidden by default) making it impossible to accidentally use Developer assets under normal use.
Once the assets are ready for use, an artist simply has to move the assets into the project specific folder and fix up redirectors. This is essentially 'promoting' the assets from experimental to production.
2.4 All Map* Files Belong In A Folder Called Maps
Map files are incredibly special and it is common for every project to have its own map naming system, especially if they work with sub-levels or streaming levels. No matter what system of map organization is in place for the specific project, all levels should belong in /Content/Project/Maps.
Being able to tell someone to open a specific map without having to explain where it is is a great time saver and general 'quality of life' improvement. It is common for levels to be within sub-folders of Maps, such as Maps/Campaign1/ or Maps/Arenas, but the most important thing here is that they all exist within /Content/Project/Maps.
This also simplifies the job of cooking for engineers. Wrangling levels for a build process can be extremely frustrating if they have to dig through arbitrary folders for them. If a team's maps are all in one place, it is much harder to accidentally not cook a map in a build. It also simplifies lighting build scripts as well QA processes.
Use /Content/Project/Core folder for assets that are absolutely fundamental to a project's workings. For example, base GameMode, Character, PlayerController, GameState, PlayerState, and related Blueprints should live here.
This creates a very clear "don't touch these" message for other team members. Non-engineers should have very little reason to enter the Core folder. Following good code structure style, designers should be making their gameplay tweaks in child classes that expose functionality. World builders should be using prefab Blueprints in designated folders instead of potentially abusing base classes.
For example if your project requires pickups that can be placed in a level, there should exist a base Pickup class in Core/Pickups that defines base behavior for a pickup. Specific pickups such as a Health or Ammo should exist in a folder such as /Content/Project/Placeables/Pickups/. Game designers can define and tweak pickups in this folder however they please, but they should not touch Core/Pickups as they may unintentionally break pickups project-wide.
All assets are assets.
All asset names are named with their asset type in mind. These folders offer only redundant information and the use of these folders can easily be replaced with the robust and easy to use filtering system the Content Browser provides.
Want to view only static mesh in Environment/Rocks/? Simply turn on the Static Mesh filter. If all assets are named correctly, they will also be sorted in alphabetical order regardless of prefixes. Want to view both static meshes and skeletal meshes? Simply turn on both filters. this eliminates the need to potentially have to Control-Click select two folders in the Content Browser's tree view.
This also extends the full path name of an asset for very little benefit. The
S_prefix for a static mesh is only two characters, whereasMeshes/is seven characters.
Not doing this also prevents the inevitability of someone putting a static mesh or a texture in a Materials folder.
This can be seen as a pseudo-exception to 2.6.
There are certain asset types that have a huge volume of related files where each asset has a unique purpose. The two most common are Animation and Audio assets. If you find yourself having 15+ of these assets that belong together, they should be together.
For example, animations that are shared across multiple characters should lay in Characters/Common/Animations and may have sub-folders such as Locomotion or Cinematic.
This does not apply to assets like textures and materials. It is common for a
Rocksfolder to have a large amount of textures if there are a large amount of rocks, however these textures are generally only related to a few specific rocks and should be named appropriately. Even if these textures are part of a Material Library.
If your project makes use of master materials, layered materials, or any form of reusable materials or textures that do not belong to any subset of assets, these assets should be located in Content/Project/MaterialLibrary.
This way all 'global' materials have a place to live and are easily located.
This also makes it incredibly easy to enforce a 'use material instances only' policy within a project. If all artists and assets should be using material instances, then the only regular material assets that should exist are within this folder. You can easily verify this by searching for base materials in any folder that isn't the
MaterialLibrary.
The MaterialLibrary doesn't have to consist of purely materials. Shared utility textures, material functions, and other things of this nature should be stored here as well within folders that designate their intended purpose. For example, generic noise textures should be located in MaterialLibrary/Utility.
Any testing or debug materials should be within MaterialLibrary/Debug. This allows debug materials to be easily stripped from a project before shipping and makes it incredibly apparent if production assets are using them if reference errors are shown.
Copyright (c) 2016 Gamemakin LLC
See LICENSE
We encourage you to fork this guide and change the rules to fit your team's style guide. Below, you may list some amendments to the style guide. This allows you to periodically update your style guide without having to deal with merge conflicts.