We have a custom build of the engine we would like to distribute to our users. I would like it to behave like the released version of Unreal Engine, so if a user makes a new C++ project, it does not have to rebuild the entire engine. I have looked into suggestions here, such as this:
However, these instructions don’t allow use of the custom engine to create C++ projects. When we include the source directory (such as is included in downloaded released versions of UE), it triggers an engine rebuild even though it is an empty project that doesn’t affect any engine source files.
I am not entirely sure that I fully understand what you are needing to do. Would you be able to provide more details about the process that your team members are following when they create a new project and see Visual Studio rebuilding the Engine?
Content developers create new or modify existing C++ projects
Content developers see visual studio, and build the project
Currently, the build dispatches a build of the engine as well (1 hour or so) rather than just the project. If instead of 1-3, we distribute a downloaded binary version of the Unreal Engine, then do 4-5, the C++ project compiles quickly and doesn’t rebuild the Engine. Ideally, we could have the same behavior as the downloaded version of UE with out custom engine.
I’d say it happens intermittently. It definitely happens the first time a project is built after syncing an engine, or when we create a new project (such as for a test). However, with the binary release of the engine, C++ projects do not cause the engine to be rebuilt when making new projects. Is there a way to get this behavior when we internally release a new version of the Engine?
You can build something similar to the binary version of the Engine available through the Launcher. This forum post has some information that should help you to do this. This isn’t a workflow that we generally recommend, though.