The way to install custom build unreal engine to launcher.
a. Install the engine from launcher.
b. Replace Engine folder by the one from source in github.com
Do not verify any more. If you do, once again the process.
Just keep three folder and one file. You can delete all the other directories and files under installed engine directory if you want, make sure you just use engine build from source only.
a. .egstore ------ The directory for verifying.
b. Engine\Binaries\Win64 ------ The directory to keep UnrealEditor.exe
c. Engine\Plugins\Marketplace ----- The plugins directory for saving plugins from Marketplace
d. UnrealEditor.exe ------ The file for verifying
Build engine from source in another directory.
This way, you can save the space. You are not risky losing your work of modifying engine source code by accident click the button for verifying or update in launcher.
You can install plugins to the directory Engine\Plugins\Marketplace of engine build from source by copying it from installed engine’s marketplace plugins directory the Engine\Plugins\Marketplace.
You can also use software to synchronize the both plugins directory of directly.
For anyone finding this, I’m adding another way of doing this. It’s a bit more complicated and requires a lot of extra work if done in the wrong order, so I recommend this only for advanced users.
Start by installing the latest version of Unreal as normal. Allow the full install to complete; do not cancel midway through.
Go to C:\Program Files\Epic Games (or wherever the engine is installed), make note of the installation directory name and delete it.
Open Start and type cmd, right click the command prompt icon and select run as administrator. Confirm if requested - Windows will most likely ask to make sure that you know what you’re doing.
Type in the following to replace what was deleted with a symlink:
If you did any of this out of order, you’ve bricked your install and will get plugin errors. This is not an easy fix by any means, but to repair this you have to rebuild the entire engine in exactly the same place as the symlink is pointed to. You may also encounter build errors as the Unreal project depends on a number of prerequisites that as of this post will very likely report major security risks if it’s not sufficiently updated, consequently preventing builds of the required files (and for obvious reasons). Sadly, the only way to fix this is to go into wherever you cloned the engine to and delete everything - this includes closed-platform stuff like Xbox and PlayStation - and then restore from the repository, add the closed platform stuff back in, run the setup script and regenerate the project files to rebuild from, which is a royal pain and very time-consuming.
If during the repair process, you receive the “directory exists and is not empty” message from GitHub Desktop, then you will also have to delete the clone destination before you can refetch.
If during the repair process, you receive errors from either the setup or project file generator scripts, you’ll not only have to delete the engine files and clone destination but completely remove both the symlink and the entry from the launcher and start the whole entire process from the beginning. (You may also have to run them as an administrator in the same way that you did for the command prompt executable.)
If you’re still having errors, you may have a proxy/vpn set which interferes with the operation. If it’s a personal account (CyberGhost, NordVPN, etc.) pause it or put the terminal into split tunneling; if you have a corporate machine, inform your IT administrator that an exception is necessary. Do this for both the setup and project file generator scripts or it won’t work.
You should now have an updated project after all this. Open it and check if everything’s up to date - if C++ needs to be updated, you’ll see it in solution explorer (it’s very important to do this before doing anything else).
Build the project as normal, and everything should be back in order. If any third-party APIs need updating, the project generator will have skipped these (and you will need to repeat the previous two steps after addressing these concerns). The definition files in the respective platform databases will tell you what version you need at a minimum - look for the json file for that SDK in its configuration directory to determine what you need:
