Unreal Engine 5 Tutorial - Level Instancing

In this video tutorial we talk about the new level instances feature of Unreal Engine 5
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[@TraZix]

This seems very useful for level designers when making symmetrical multiplayer maps. Helps speed up iteration by not having to go to the other side of the map to implement layout changes. Thanks for making this video!

[@wagasani4199]

In trying to copy things from one level to another, I accidentally made a level instance. I had no idea how to undo it and thought I pretty much ruined it. Not only did you explain what I did, but how to fix it and what I should have actually done in the first place. Thank you.

[@thhm]

Thank you, very clear and concise.

[@seithcg]

Thank you very much for this video, Ryan! One suggestion: Since you end up focusing more on Packed Level Actors (and rightly so) it might be helpful to include those words in the title of the video itself for future reference... Cheers!

[@sonny5974]

Nice Shirt Ryan, you suited up! Legendary!

[@RiverFox_YT]

this isnt even what i was searching for lol, but very very interesting none the less. thank you. back to searching for my world partition issue

[@HowlC]

Great tutorial, saves my day :)

[@solarstoned]

wow its so handy.....I've done a lot more study in everything other then blueprints....but seeing this..i will look into it a lot sooner. thanks for the advice

[@KarkulakCz]

YEEES! That's it what im looking for! :-) Thank you! 🙂

[@archcast5550]

Thank you so much!

[@oleksandrshvets]

Thank you very much! Please, don't stop doing us happy! Hello from Ukraine!

[@real2late]

Good video! How about the original sublevel loading and unloading (thats the reason i am here). So if i want to unload levels with triggers to optimize performance. Do i still do this like you did in your ue4 tutorial?

[@worldatsurvival]

Hello!! I love your videos and thanks at some point could you do a tutorial on how to respawn interacting with a bed?

[@tjrizvi251]

Not Ryan, but Im assuming you can tie a variable to the player that has the location vector. After you die, you can tell the game to respawn the player at the saved vector.

[@gregoiredesrousseaux]

Seems like a good way to make several levels based on one same level design, for example you come to a house in the morning, then need to come back at night and there are different interactions there but it's the same base

[@olaufr]

Thanks for this great video! Question about performance: are meshes inside a level instance converted to instanced static meshes? It doesn't seem to be the case, however it seems to be the case for the blueprint (packed) version right? If so, I guess it means every identical mesh within the packed level instance will be drawn in a single draw call? Or maybe is the level instance considered as a single merged mesh then using a single draw call regardless of what's inside of it?

[@3dsmax_metronomus480]

Yeah, I was wondering the same. But what is the point of having a packed (prefab) actor, if the meshes are no instances?

[@manonthedollar]

Thanks for the video! I don't think I understand the difference between this and creating a typical Actor Blueprint?

[@tryptamedia7375]

Hey Ryan, love your content ,was curious if you ever have tried to transform a level instance in the sequencer. The weird thing I'm encountering is that it loads in the sequencer but not in MRQ. Any idea what might be going on>

[@Gatlen_Shado]

Been playing with these and love them. Question I’ve not been able to answer though, how to control the draw distance for building in a Packed Level Actor BP? The current default is resulting in the building popping in to view. I assume it has something to do with the HLOD system, still searching for an answer…. Thanx for any help in advance.

[@JorgeRodiles]

GREAT

[@CommanderColson]

Which of the two (Level Instance, Packed Level Actor) is more optimized?

[@FF-FAN9999]

Good video, but I'm confused about why would I use this as level instance instead of just a regular bp? Specially in the last example

[@brianpk7206]

Same lol

[@Native_Creation]

Level instance appears to be better for environmental assets, especially large pieces that are streamed. Furthermore, they can be imported to other Maps easily.

[@joshua42777]

Thank you for sharing! now I don't need to buy a prefab addon

[@O_Obsidious]

So, is it possible to make a level system using this? Having doors reference levels to spit the player into when interacting with, and choosing the matching entrance point in the referenced level? I'd love to get some answers to this, I'm not sure if Level Instances are what I'm looking for with this system I've got in mind

[@MADMOVIESINC]

Thanks so much for the video. This is a huge help. Question: I have a space scene. I have a planet with a volumetric cloud system using Ultra Dynamic Sky. Because of the nature of the space scene, I'm unable to use UDS in it at the proper scale. I went ahead and instanced the planet and UDS together in one map. When I drop it into the space scene though (Completely different map all together) I only see the level icon. The planet is not visible. Am I missing something? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[@nijq]

I think data layers replaced level streaming in UE5 or no?

[@srod8509]

Hello, how can we load the Geo/Instance into the level and freeze it so it is not touchable in the level?

[@jamesonvparker]

What if I’ve designed a pretty complete map (level) and I want to bring that entire map into another more open world map. Is level instancing the proper solution for very large maps?

[@quinnpurcell]

Interesting-so what is the benefit of grouping the meshes into its own "level" for level instancing? Is that less expensive than a blueprint?

[@Eagle6Airsoft]

It’s a time saver thing for world building I think, if you are building a scene with the same grouped objects ten times over, makes sense to group them. Plus I think file structures are changed for improved streaming in unreal 5. This is the same as “object containers” in the star citizen I think.

[@FRACTUREDVISIONmusic]

Same question here.

[@semirukiya5308]

Does it make any difference when it comes to optimization? And how about using it with nanite meshes? What else does it gives us aside of just making it easy to copy things on the scene? Cheers!

[@fkknsikk]

It seems like it becomes more useful the larger you go with it. If you have a huge map with multiple similar areas you can now just copy the instance over and have people working on each while still in the context of the open world environment and everything in that level instance can still be dynamic. It's meant to tie in to one file per actor and the new way of doing things with World Partition. With Nanite meshes you'd want to turn them into a packed level actor since they're probably going to be static. The performance gains are quite nice with the new way of doing things. The "Building Open Worlds in UE5" talk goes over all of the basics and they've got some decent examples to go off of.

[@Sky-hl8iw]

tq4this

[@naytbreeze]

When I try this I get an error message saying I cannot unload a level I am editing. then it crashes without creating the instance but just creates another level if i rename it or something. Just trying to transfer a house with interior i made from one level into another.

[@SaynYT]

I don't use world partition. Will this work without world partition?

[@josephsnyder5713]

it doesnt seem to be working right now in 5.3 ... I cannot do the edit single piece at a time in the BP part...

[@SureAction]

Please anybody.. if i try to migrate one of these creates instances i get an error "because its out of its content" how do i fix this?

[@stephsnotfluffy]

What's the point of instancing a level when open level exists?

[@armchairgeneral7363]

Outside of what he did around 6 minutes in, all this appears to be is an way to quickly design an certain category of objects. Only downside is that if you try to edit one of them, than the changes applies to all of them

[@carlosrivadulla8903]

Im going to ruin ur day but the right question is... what's the difference between: 1.grouping actors on hierarchy 2.convert selected actors into BP 3.batch actors into instanced static meshes 4.lightwave instances 5.lvl instances 6.packed lvl actors 7.make childs of a parent BP instead of duplicating the BP with the methods above A question on top of this one is, which one of these approaches is nanite compatible and if it worth to do it

[@stephsnotfluffy]

@@carlosrivadulla8903 who said anything about nanite? Instancing a level (from my experience) just turned the entirety of the map white. Maybe I'm doing something wrong but nothing here answers the question why instance instead of just opening?

[@mihaiwilson]

Thanks Ryan, just wondering what the benefits are of using level instancing vs the old technique of using an actor bp as a prefab?

[@dakotayocom7764]

Did you ever get deeper knowledge to this? I'm wondering the same. I mean, if I can set the static mesh to anything I want then how is that better that just doing an actor bp? DrawCalls maybe?

[@Celestetinepte]

been wondering as well

[@lilian_21]

@@CelestetinepteStill no idea ?

[@Celestetinepte]

@@lilian_21 Nop

[@mikemorton7844]

I'm no expert at this but I believe that using level instancing gives better performance. Packed Actors flatten the content and batches the Static Mesh Components. I believe this is happens at runtime (not sure if before or after build) but you still have the ability to edit them like prefabs (Blueprint Actors)