Standin Actor
The main purpose of the standin actor is to do a complete replacement of a group source actors instead of switching at a certain distance. The replacement is handled at cooktime where the source actors are ignored and never cooked. This allows you to still be able to modify your standin through the Standin Outliner while running the editor.
There are two types of Standins: Far and Near, where Far is more suited for background actors and Near for more close up, but you are of course encourage to use it however you want. If you have worked with HLOD before you'll recognize the workflow for standin actor as well.
Near vs. Far
The main differences between Near and Far as standin type is that the latter is using the Remeshing processor to generate a proxy mesh. Meanwhile Near is using the Aggregation processor to merge existing geometry data. Continue to Near standin and Far standin for an explanation.
Near standin
Merges all source actors to one single actor and with default settings retaining original materials and reduces internal triangles. The texture fidelity is retained, which means that the resulting actor can be used close to the camera. It reduces the number of draw calls for kit-bashed actors at the cost of geometry data. For even further draw call reduction, materials can be baked into one single material by enabling Material Simplification
Far standin
Generates a proxy actor that can be used as a representation when the actor is far from the camera. The resulting mesh will only cost one draw call and is a hollow shell. Texture resolution is typically reduced, so probably not for use close to the camera (but feel free to play around with it). The process will add geometry data and a new material (with associated textures).
Outliner window overview
The standin outliner is found under Window > Standin Outliner. Once opened you'll see three major widgets: a button widget at the top, standin outliner widget to the left and settings widget to the right.
Standin outliner window
Button widget
The button widget has three buttons:
- Create new standin actor based on the level editor selection.
- Build all unbuilt standin actors in the outliner.
- Rebuild all standin actors regardless if the actors are built or not.
Outliner widget
The standin outliner widget is an essential part to the standin workflow. You don't only get an overview of your actors in the scene, you also use it to add/remove source actors, access standin context menu, enable/disable game standin, compare standin with source actors, focus standin or source actor etc.
Standin outliner widget
Below are common functionally which might be useful while working with the standin outliner:
- Focus actor in level editor by double clicking any actor in standin outliner.
- Remove source actor from standin actor by right-clicking the source actor and choose Remove from Standin actor
- Add source actor to existing standin by drag and drop an actor from the level editor's scene outliner
- Build or Rebuild single standin actor by right-clicking and choose Build or Rebuild
- Compare standin to source actor by right-clicking any of eye icons
Settings widget
You get access to the settings by selecting a standin actor in the outliner, then you'll notice a new widget appearing in the empty space to the right in the outliner window. The first choice you'll have to make is to choose standin type: Near or Far. See Near vs. Far to read more about the differences between the two types.
Overview of Standin settings, Near settings to the left and Far settings to the right