Install Code Plugin to Source-built Engine

Development Pipeline & Plugins Plugins
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I tried a lot of things to have the plugin in the built Engine and found a solution.

Requirements:

  • You have a version of the Engine installed from the Epic Launcher, for example, 5.0.1
  • You compiled the engine from source code with the same version. In this case 5.0.1
  • The plugin is supported in this engine version

I tested with more than 10 plugins supported by version 5.0.1 and they worked. For instance I will use the ActorInteractionPlugin, that you can find for free in the marketplace.

  1. Open the Epic Launcher
  2. Go to your library
  3. Install the Plugin into the engine version 5.0.1
  4. Go to the engine installation folder and navigate to the plugins folder. For example, C:/Program Files/Epic Games/UE_5.0/Engine/Plugins
  5. Into the Marketplace folder you will find your previous installed plugin ActorInteractionPlugin folder. Copy it please
  6. Go to your project and paste it inside the Plugins folder
  7. Start the .uproject file associated with your built engine
  8. You will receive a message, that complains about the new plugin in the project. You only need to accept and it will rebuild the project.
  9. After a while the engine should start and the plugin will be available in the list. Just activate it and it will be usable.
  10. Enjoy it :slight_smile:

You will see that your .uproject file contains now the new plugin in the list