Can anyone that works on a team share their tips for minimizing project file sizes?
Other than the obvious like using compressed file formats like .jpg
ie Is the BuildData file that is created with each Level necessary when sharing a project or is it always automatically re created on launch?
the “_BuiltData” files for levels can be removed as it can be regenerated automatically. You should research how to create a repository for version control (read Git / Plastic / Perforce). Repositories can be set up to store changes in source files, which you can then easily share and merge with your team.
Source files are any base files from which you can rebuild the project entirely.
The following common folders are data which can be regenerated automatically (so should not be shared):
~.vs
~\Binaries
~\DerivedDataCache
~\Intermediate
~\Saved
. This includes the folders within your ~\Plugins\ Folder as long as you have the source files to rebuild them with, which is done with Visual Studio by first generating files (right click the .uproject file in root, then select generate vs files), after which you start visual studio from the generated .sln file and build the project with visual studio. You will see all those files will be regenerated.
Best practice is to make a “SourceContent” folder in the project root folder and add any source files there matching the same names and folder structures of “output files” which are the UAssets in the Content folder. technically if you work with Photoshop you can simply store the save file of Photoshop in the SourceContent folder and export any file extension / UAsset whenever you like, so they count as source files while a .jpg is not. Not to be mistaken with the “Source” folder, which we reserve for c++ classes.
I store my “source files” of external files in my SourceContent folder, which is both binary and text based data (blender3D save, GIMP save, so on) from which I can export files (PNG/ FBX) which UE turns into UAssets. This saves some data.
Also when working with a team you will notice version control can be difficult to manage with binary files (anything not text based, like images and audio), if you are a Git user. However even for Git there are modern solutions for teams to make this managable (new versions of Git LFS). There are alternatives which are less technical but not as cheap or advanced (Perforce / Plastic) which allow you to diff binary files like images, however, (I tried them), I can not recommend them.
You should really just get a cheap PC (150 euros) to act as your own Git server, so you can practice with it without having to worry too much about project space since adding a TB of HDD space yourself is pretty cheap.