A photograph becomes an actor in the level you have open.

What happens when you click

1. 1
   LocalMesh converts the file. Interchange refuses a glTF that carries WebP textures, and refuses the whole file, geometry included. So a converted copy goes to the cache. The mesh in your library is never touched.
2. 2
   Unreal imports it. Into /Game/LocalMesh, as a Static Mesh, with the textures the file carries, and the asset is saved.
3. 3
   An actor is spawned. At the world origin, carrying the name of the card. Move it, scale it and place it like anything else in the level.

Setting it up, once

There is nothing from LocalMesh to install inside Unreal. The bridge is two plugins Epic already ships with the engine, Remote Control API and Python Editor Script Plugin, and LocalMesh only turns them on.

1. 1
   Open the Send to list under a finished mesh. It is the button that names your 3D software, after Export. Choose Unreal Engine in it.
2. 2
   Press Prepare an Unreal project. It sits at the foot of the list. Point it at your .uproject. LocalMesh enables the two plugins in the project file and adds the setting that lets Remote Control run the import script.
3. 3
   Restart the editor on that project. The change takes effect at startup. LocalMesh will not open Unreal for you and never reaches into a running editor to change its settings.

It tells you where the object is going

Once the project is prepared, the Send to list shows the version of the engine, the project and the level that are open. If Remote Control does not answer it says that instead, and tells you what to switch on. An object that lands somewhere you did not expect is worse than one that does not land at all.

Why this mesh is worth importing

It arrives with its UVs, a colour atlas and a roughness map that travels separately, so matte stays matte under your own lighting. Where your photograph sees the object clearly, the colour is that photograph, as you shot it; for a more even colour, switch the mesh to the AI painting before you send it. The mesh is triangles, and metal is left neutral: the model guesses it badly, and we would rather not guess for you.

It is a prototyping asset and it does not pretend otherwise. It is what you put in the level while you are still deciding what the level is, not the hero prop somebody will model properly later.

What it will not do

• Meshes only. The bridge carries .glb, .gltf and .obj. A gaussian splat is a .ply and does not go through it. That file is on your disk and Unreal is not a splat viewer in any case.
• The editor has to be open. On a project you prepared. Remote Control is what answers, so a project without it gets a message rather than a silent failure.
• It does not wire your shaders. You get the Static Mesh, its textures and the material Unreal builds from the file. If you have a material of your own, you still plug it in yourself.
• Nothing leaves the machine. Remote Control listens on 127.0.0.1, and the only thing LocalMesh sends it is a script LocalMesh wrote.