Data Validation

Asset Doctor registers a validator with Unreal’s Data Validation plugin. The Data Validation plugin is a dependency of Asset Doctor and is enabled automatically.

With the integration enabled, the Asset Doctor rules run wherever Unreal runs Data Validation, for example:

• Validate Assets on assets or folders in the Content Browser,
• validate on save, if it is enabled in your project’s Data Validation settings,
• changelist validation before you submit to source control.

Turn it on or off

The integration is controlled by Run During Data Validation in Project Settings > Plugins > ta Asset Doctor > Integration. It is enabled by default.

Which assets are validated

An asset is validated by Asset Doctor when all of these are true:

• Run During Data Validation is enabled.
• The asset is loaded. Data Validation passes loaded assets to validators.
• The asset’s folder is inside one of the Included Paths and not inside an Excluded Paths folder. World Partition __ExternalActors__ and __ExternalObjects__ folders are always skipped.

The same rules, enabled states and severities as in the panel are used. See Settings.

Messages and severities

Every issue becomes one Data Validation message in this format:

[ta Asset Doctor] <RuleId>: <Message>

For example:

[ta Asset Doctor] Naming.Convention: Static Mesh names should start with 'SM_'. Suggested: SM_Rock

Severities map like this:

Asset Doctor severity	Data Validation message	Validation result
Error	Error	The asset fails validation
Warning	Warning	The asset passes, with a warning
Info	Info	The asset passes

If an asset has no Error issues, Asset Doctor reports it as passing.

Tip

To make only the problems you care most about fail validation, set those rules to Error in Rules and leave the others at Warning or Info.

Fixes and validate on save

Data Validation reports issues but doesn’t fix them. To apply automatic fixes, use the editor panel, the commandlet with -Fix, or Python.

While Asset Doctor applies fixes, validate on save is turned off temporarily. Saving renamed assets and their referencers therefore doesn’t fill the Message Log with issues that are already listed in the panel.