Nanite for Foliage Assets has been available since Unreal Engine 5.1, and there’s an easy way to enable it on multiple assets even if they’re already part of a scene. Since UE 5.5 we often get the yellow “Nanite buffer overflow” warning, which can be eliminated by turning assets including foliage into Nanite meshes. Here’s how to do that.
Converting single meshes
Find the asset in your content browser, then right click and enable it from there. This works for a multi selection too, and it’s a good option for regular static meshes that are not foliage.
While this works for foliage too, thin meshes like branches may disappear as the camera moves further away from them. Thankfully there’s an option to preserve this, but we have to open the asset with a double-click to access it. In the asset viewer, under Nanite options, find the tickbox “preserve area”.
Converting multiple meshes using Property Matrix
If you want to keep the “preserve area” option intact on multiple meshes, you can use the Property Matrix to set this and the Nanite flag on several selected assets. Right-click a multi-selection, then choose Asset Actions – Edit Selection in Property Matrix.
A rather scary window opens up. Find the Nanite section, enable both options, then save all assets and boom – lots of assets converted.
Thanks to Jonathan Winbush for this tip!