Overview

Asset databases (.nassetdb) contains json data mapping asset GUIDs (unique identifiers), used to provide quick lookup of the latest known file paths (relative to the asset database config’s folder) and commonly queried information such as the identifier of their thumbnails. This database can be generated from the project, engine and plug-in configuration file shell menus.

The generation step works by traversing the project, plugin or engine’s asset directories, and stores the GUID and relative path to the asset in the database.

Note that full paths are never referenced in code, we always utilize the GUIDs of assets in order to maintain the ability to move any file at any point in time.

Future Plans

In the future, the asset manager could track file access times of assets, and use this to create an ideal archive memory layout for compresssed (or uncompressed archive) storage.