Level 1 / MainMenu Import — state, delete list, and recovered data

Migration of Level1 and MainMenu from the UE 5.6 project at C:\3D-DEV\HaloProject\SystemLink into 5.7. Branch: level1-import. Started 2026-07-31.

Collision reference: Docs/CollisionMeshes.md.

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#1. What was migrated

Two passes from the old editor's Migrate (dependency-filtered, not whole folders except Environment):

Folder	Assets	Notes
Levels	151	Level1, MainMenu, Meshes, Forerunner trim-sheet Materials
Environment	266	Whole folder taken — the main source of orphans
MasterChief	141	Pulled by MainMenu (only needs MasterChiefHead)
Weapons	73	Pulled by MainMenu (only needs 3 *-static meshes)
Generic	66	Decals, fonts, UI sounds
LevelPrototyping	9	SM_Cube / SM_Cylinder / SM_ChamferCube

Total ~706 assets. Deliberately NOT migrated: 3rdParty_Assets (3.8 GB, 12 demo maps), Blueprints (old gameplay + old menu UI).

The old project's Content is 5.2 GB. Never migrate it wholesale — let Migrate

compute the dependency closure and read the report before confirming.

#2. 🔎 The migration repaired a pre-existing bug

/Game/Generic did not exist in the 5.7 project before this import, yet the project's own CommonUI styles already referenced assets inside it:

Asset	Referenced by
Generic/Fonts/Microgramma_D_Extended_Bold_Font	SystemLink/UI/Styles/Text/Style_Text-DefaultLarge, -InfoMedium, -Small
Generic/Sounds/UI/Click_on_Button_Cue	SystemLink/UI/Styles/Buttons/Style_ButtonSmall, XL, XXL
Generic/Sounds/UI/Selection_Changes_Cue	the same three button styles

The menus had been falling back to a default font and silent buttons. These three must never be deleted — they are the only orphans (by level-reachability) that the shipping project actually needs.

#3. Delete list — ✅ DONE 2026-08-01 (commit 730c0c0f)

345 orphans deleted, 172 MB, 699 migrated assets down to 354, plus 62 empty directories pruned. Fully revertible — it is all in git.

The count grew from 202 to 345 because deleting BP_MasterChief, its anim blueprints and the pickup chain cut loose everything they held alive: 60 MasterChief animations, 23 UI assets, 11 input assets and most of the old non-GAS weapons implementation. Recompute, never reuse — the list is a function of what else has been deleted.

Reachability now runs from three sets of roots:

1. the two levels

1. every asset outside the migrated folders — this is what protects

Generic/Fonts/Microgramma_D_Extended_Bold_Font and the two UI sound cues (§2), which no level reaches but SystemLink/UI/Styles does

1. every CoreRedirect target

⚠ CoreRedirects are INVISIBLE to reference scanning. They live in

DefaultEngine.ini, not in any package's name table. Five crate assets (BP_Box_A2,

BP_Box_A3, SM_Barrel_B3, SM_Box_A2, SM_Box_A4) looked unreferenced because the

level points at the old 3rdParty_Assets paths and only the .ini joins them. Deleting

them would have broken MainMenu's 207 crate actors again and left the redirects

dangling. Any future orphan sweep must parse the redirect table first.

⚠ The sweep got two wrong — and the method is why. It read references by scanning

package name tables for /Game/ strings, with no editor needed. UE does not always store a

package reference as one contiguous string, so Sitting_1 and Sitting_2 scanned as

unreferenced and were deleted, leaving three ERROR! Sequence Players in

ABP_MasterChiefMenu (the menu Chief's fidget state). Sibling animations in the *same

folder* were kept correctly, which is what makes the failure so easy to miss.

Restored in 7b2b91fa.

The method had been validated against UE's asset registry earlier and agreed exactly — 329

on disk / 127 used / 202 orphaned — so it was trusted on a later, larger dataset. **That

agreement was a property of the first dataset, not of the method.**

Use AssetRegistry.get_dependencies() for anything that decides a deletion; the

registry found both immediately. Afterwards it confirmed only three unresolvable dependency

targets across the migrated folders, the third being pre-existing.

Script: scratchpad/recompute_orphans.py — convenient (no editor) but not authoritative; use it to draft a list, then confirm every entry against the registry before deleting.

<details><summary>Original pre-deletion breakdown (202 assets, Level1 as the only root)</summary>

Computed from UE's asset registry with both levels as roots, then re-checked so that nothing outside the orphan set references any entry. 207 safe, 3 to keep (§2).

Folder	Count		Folder	Count
Environment/Textures	39		Environment/Crates	9
Levels/Materials	29		Levels/MainMenu	9
Environment/Panels	23		Levels/LevelPrototyping	8
Environment/Doors	20		Environment/DoorWall	5
Levels/Meshes	20		Environment/Hallway	5
Environment/Props	16		Environment/gaming	5

Plus singles/pairs in OverShieldPickup (3), Lights (2), Materials (2), forrunner-door-1 (2), Barricade, FBX_HaloTech1, FBX_Tech, Teleporter, folding-tbl-chr, Generic/Textures, CRT_test, CRT_test_Tex.

The first pass (Level1 only) called 202 assets orphaned; adding MainMenu as a second root rescued gaming 40→5, Crates 27→9 and all of folding-tbl-chr.

</details>

⚠ Not yet verified in engine. Both levels should be opened once to confirm nothing

essential went with the 345. The analysis was double-gated and deliberately under-deletes,

but only loading the levels proves it.

#4. Recovered design data — weapon pickup placements

Captured before the actors were deleted from Level1, so GAS pickups can be re-placed:

Class	Label	Location (X, Y, Z)
BP_ShotgunPickup_C	BP_ShotgunPickup2	−30.0, −300.0, −271.51
BP_ShotgunPickup_C	BP_ShotgunPickup4	−30.0, 2180.0, 1518.49
BP_ShotgunPickup_C	BP_ShotgunPickup5	640.0, −1985.13, 203.79
BP_AssultRiflePickup_C	BP_AssultRiflePickup	777.40, −1760.32, 0.0
BP_OverShieldPickup_C	BP_OverShieldPickup	649.0, −1745.47, 211.79
BP_OverShieldPickup_C	BP_OverShieldPickup2	2142.51, −1049.47, 0.0

All yaw 0. The two OverShield actors are still in the level — they compile fine.

#5. Blueprint compile errors and the fix

Three Blueprints failed to compile, blocking PIE. None inherited from the old C++ module — the root cause was three missing Blueprint interfaces:

Blueprint	Parent	Broken dependency
BP_WeaponPickupBase	Engine.Actor	BPI_WeaponPickupHandler
BP_MasterChief	Engine.Character	BPI_Interactable, BPI_WeaponPickupHandler, BPI_WeaponUser
ABP_MasterChief	Engine.AnimInstance	CtrRig_TurnInPlace_Manny — exists at SystemLink/Characters/MasterChief/Anims/Rigs/

Chosen fix: remove them rather than migrate the old interfaces, since the GAS equivalents already exist. Alternative if ever needed: migrating the three tiny BPI_ assets would make all three compile.

Progress: 4 pickup actors removed from Level1 and the level saved · BP_AssultRiflePickup and BP_ShotgunPickup deleted · BP_WeaponPickupBase, BP_MasterChief, ABP_MasterChief, ABP_MasterChiefFirstPerson still to delete.

⚠ EditorAssetLibrary.delete_asset in a loop CRASHED the editor (2026-07-31):

EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION in Background Worker #0 on the third delete. It performs a

Force Delete (LogUObjectGlobals: Force Deleting 1 Package(s)), and a background

worker was still churning the registry from the previous one. **Delete one asset per

bridge call, not in a loop.** Nothing was lost — the level had already saved, and the

crash discarded the half-applied reference nulling.

#5a. MainMenu load errors — FIXED with CoreRedirects

MainMenu threw ~200 CreateExport: Failed to load Outer errors on load. Two causes, two fixes.

Cause 1 — 3rdParty_Assets was never migrated, but ~207 crate actors referenced /Game/3rdParty_Assets/Military_Crates/.... The identical assets were already in the project under Environment/Crates/MilitaryCrates/ (they arrived with the Environment folder). Rather than re-migrate a duplicate set, Config/DefaultEngine.ini gained a [CoreRedirects] block mapping the 9 old package paths to the existing ones, plus wildcard redirects for VFX_Muzzle_Flashes and MilitaryWeapDark/Sound → /Game/Library/… and one for T_Tech_Hex_Tile_N.

⚠ MatchSubstring= is deprecated in UE 5.7 — it warns on every startup. Use

MatchWildcard=true with a trailing * on both OldName and NewName.

CoreRedirects are read at startup only — the editor must be restarted for a change to

take effect.

Cause 2 — BP_MainMenuPlayerController needed the old menu UI (WB_MainMenu, WB_RootContainer, three modals, IMC_UI_GenericActions), none of which were migrated because CommonUI replaces them. Fix: pointed BP_MainMenuGameMode.PlayerControllerClass at the engine default PlayerController, saved it, and deleted BP_MainMenuPlayerController. The menu logic gets rebuilt on CommonUI; the level keeps the diorama.

Result — verified by reloading the level:

	Before	After
CreateExport: Failed	~200	0
dependent package … not available	18	8
Crate actors resolved	0	207

MainMenu now loads 729 actors: 358 StaticMeshActors, 207 crates, 68 decals, 59 groups, 6 × BP_MasterChiefMenuGuy, 2 skeletal meshes, and the CineCameraActor + CameraRig_Rail for the LS_MainIntro cinematic, with full lighting/sky/fog. The level is not marked dirty by the redirects — saving it would bake the new paths in and let the crate redirects be retired later.

The 8 that remain (no local equivalent — need a small targeted migrate or replacement): MilitaryWeapDark/Weapons/{AssaultRifleB_Ammo, Grenade_Launcher_B, Shotgun_B} (props in the diorama), StarterContent/Materials/M_Tech_Hex_Tile, and UEShieldSystem/{M_ShieldMasterMaterial, T_DireNoise_01, T_ML_Rubber_Blue_01_D} (the OverShield visual).

#6. Still broken / still missing

53 broken references at last count; 28 of them already exist elsewhere in the project and only need repointing:

• 9 × Military_Crates BP/meshes → Environment/Crates/MilitaryCrates/…

• 9 × VFX_Muzzle_Flashes → Library/VFX_Muzzle_Flashes/…

• 8 × MilitaryWeapDark sounds → Library/MilitaryWeapDark/Sound/…

• T_Tech_Hex_Tile_N, CtrRig_TurnInPlace_Manny → SystemLink/Characters/MasterChief/…

25 are genuinely absent: the old menu UI (WB_MainMenu, WB_RootContainer, modals, IMC_UI_GenericActions, BP_SystemLinkGameMode, 3 × BPI_) — absent by design, CommonUI replaces them — plus MilitaryWeapDark weapon props, StarterContent HDRI/Shape_Sphere, and UEShieldSystem's shield material.

Consequence: MainMenu gives you the diorama (set, lighting, Chief, LS_MainIntro cinematic), not working menu logic.

#7. Open decisions

1. Are the migrated /Game/Weapons (73) and /Game/MasterChief (141) wanted, or are they

duplicates of SystemLink/ content? This changes both the orphan list and whether the repointing in §6 is worth doing at all.

1. Migrate the missing 3rdParty slices for the menu diorama's props, or restage it?

1. Levels/LevelPrototyping shows 8 orphans — the level references

/Game/LevelPrototyping/..., so check the second copy under Levels/ before deleting.

#8. Naming cleanup (deferred until after deletion)

Deleting first roughly halves this. Across the survivors: 52 assets carry the forrunner → Forerunner misspelling, 48 have hyphens, 66 lack a type prefix, and 19 use an FBX_ prefix where SM_ belongs. The Assult/Assualt typo already tracked in CurrentFocus.md arrived again with this import.