UE5 - Understanding the Basics of Data Assets

[@BenskiGameWorks]

Great explanation and example with the meshes!! Thank you so much! Small question, are data assets meant to be read-only or can I also write to them? Currentley I'm using a data asset to act like a "shared variable" between all instances of a certain class. The asset only holds a reference to a widget "The currently active widget in the world" and I want all instances of an Actor Component to have access to read/write to this variable. i.e. Every component of this class can read the active widget reference, or activate it's own widget and overwrite the previous one etc.

[@MrButiier]

I just realized I never responded here! Data Assets are absolutely amazing but can become complicated very quickly if you don't use C++. The data assets created are meant to be read-only, you can write to them however this will change the values to the data asset permanently in-game and in-editor. If you do go the route of re-writing a variable in game, then you would need to make sure to reset this value upon the next time the game starts somewhere in your scripting to set the initial value. There are ways to get around the annoyance of re-writing the permanent data by creating a new object of the data asset class and then setting the values to the newly created DA, you can then use that as a reference and it won't have any impact in the data asset outside of runtime. (bare in mind, this is a very huge rabbit hole to fall in and loading/unloading data assets can be quite extensive but worth the learning experience if you master it).

[@jingjingmannen]

Great, thanks!

[@RoeJogan]

If you know you are going to have 100s of different characters/creatures is it better to do it with a struct and data table vs Data assets?

[@MrButiier]

It depends on the intended use honestly, either or could be suitable however data assets may be easier to utilize to spawn creatures into the world so you don’t have to iterate through a data table with hundreds of lines. However like I said it depends on the “how” you use them

[@RoeJogan]

@@MrButiier yeah a bit to tricky to describe here.. with how I intend to use this. I will take it to the Discord server. Been enjoying the video playlists.

[@MrButiier]

@@RoeJogan Oh great to have you join the discord! Glad you're enjoying the playlists, I spent some time 3 weeks ago adjusting all the playlists videos so i did it just in time for you haha