I’ve recently released a new plugin that contains a content in form of few maps and blueprints. I was developing the plugin using version 5.4. I’ve successfully packaged the plugin for version 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4 as Epic allows to support two versions backwards to the current one.
Until this point it’s all nice and dandy. Until I received an issue report about missing content for the plugin when launching a project in version 5.3. I’ve quickly setup a test project to verify that and indeed I couldn’t see any content. As some of you might already guessed, the issue was that the content was saved with the newer engine version and is not compatible with the previous one. Except, it should be compatible as it is not using any 5.4 specific features, but for some silly reason they simply disallow/refuse to re-serialize an asset.
I wanted to ask all other plugin creators, how do you handle support for multiple engine versions for your plugins if they contain content? Do you always work in an ancient engine version and allow assets to be “upgraded” to newer version? Do you keep separate copies of your projects?
Yeah it would be great if someone has a systemic solution to this. In the meanwhile I spent entire day by redoing all assets using the lowest supported Unreal version to ensure it works fine there. Upgrading the content to future versions shouldn’t cause any issues.
Okay so I contacted with the marketplace support for this issue and here’s what they said
"Hello,
Thank you for contacting Marketplace Support.
In order to offer support for older engine versions, the product will need to be rebuilt in the lowest supported engine version and tested.
As an example, if you wish to support 5.1, 5.2, 5.3 - you will need to build the product in 5.1, and confirm it functions as intended, then submit an update with the new version supports.
This process is different for Plugins, as they only support one engine version, and we only offer to support the latest 3 engine versions.
Please let us know if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Unreal Engine Marketplace"
So basically we have to recreate the whole project in the lower version, which is the worst way to handle version downgrade. I spent entire 2 days just to recreate everything, and if you have any environments then good luck recreating exactly the same.
hey, you said you are using 5.4 and packaged it for 5.3 & 5.2 , do you just packaged it in 5.4 and works on 5.3 & 5.2 ?
or you need to have 5.3 & 5.2 engine installed?
i hope you get my question because i am new to making plugins
Hey, I do have all versions installed. I am working on the lowest supported version which, at the moment, is 5.2. Then I package it for 5.3 and 5.4. Upgrading to higher version works just fine in most cases.