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The Scene Audit Checklist

Workingguide~2 min read

Use this checklist to review a level after collecting a performance baseline. It covers common content costs and links to a tool for the asset checks. Let the measurements decide which findings to investigate first.

On this page The Priority Order Highest-Value Rules Red Flags Automate It

7.1The Priority Order

When optimising a whole level (not chasing one bottleneck), review in this order - use this as a starting order, then prioritise from the measurements:

  1. Measure first - baseline stat unit / stat gpu / memreport. No numbers, no changes.
  2. High-value audit rules - mobility, shadows, culling (below).
  3. Actor & draw call counts - instancing, merging, HLOD.
  4. Materials - complexity sweep, translucency, samplers.
  5. Textures - sizes, compression, streaming health.
  6. LODs / Nanite - distant geometry gets cheaper.
  7. Lighting & shadows - counts, mobility, radii.
  8. Post-processing, particles, animation, Blueprints, physics, audio - in that order.

7.2The Ten Highest-Value Rules

  1. Nothing is Movable unless it actually moves - Static is cheapest.
  2. Disable shadow casting on tiny, distant, or insignificant objects.
  3. Cull aggressively - sane draw distances on props, clutter, decals, VFX.
  4. Instance repeated meshes (ISM/HISM/Foliage) instead of thousands of actors.
  5. Keep materials simple - translucency, two-sided, WPO, and sampler stacks add up.
  6. Choose texture sizes with the artists based on gameplay coverage and measured memory cost - most assets don't need 4K.
  7. Keep light counts low, especially shadowed movable lights.
  8. Use LODs / Nanite / HLOD intentionally - distance should mean cheap.
  9. Budget post-process features - AO, GI, reflections, DOF, bloom can dominate.
  10. Skeletal meshes and Niagara get significance/budget/culling rules - idle off-screen systems must not burn CPU/GPU.

7.3Red Flags You Can Spot In One Pass

  • High-poly meshes with no LODs (and Nanite off).
  • Textures at 4K+ on ordinary props, non-power-of-two sizes, missing mips.
  • Normal maps with sRGB on or wrong compression.
  • Meshes with 5+ material slots.
  • Movable mobility on decorative objects; shadowed movable lights everywhere.
  • White-hot areas in Shader Complexity; heavy overlap in Quad Overdraw.
  • Hundreds of ticking Blueprints (run dumpticks).
  • Assets referencing far more than they need (Size Map surprises).

7.4Automate The Asset Half

Conceptual pipeline from Unreal Editor through Python asset export and a local JSON file to a browser asset-health dashboard.
fig 14 - the local companion-script pattern, with illustrative data and findings

Rules 4-8 and every red flag above are asset properties - which means they're scriptable. The Unreal Asset Health Dashboard runs exactly this checklist against your project: one Python script exports the data, the browser scores every mesh, texture, material, and Blueprint, and you get a ranked worklist to review alongside your profiling results. Repeat the audit after changes and inspect the underlying findings, not just the grade.

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