One-Click Deployment Tutorial - Never take off your headset!

[HEGI]

Hey guys!

Deploying your project to the GearVR can be a tedious process, since it is quite uncomfortable to get the APK on the device.
Either use USB 2.0 or the super slow ADB over Wifi transfer.

I like to share a faster solution for UE4 that allows you to package, deploy, install and launch your UE4 project on the GearVR with just one click.
Cable-Free and never having to remove your phone from the headset.
You just need some basic knowledge of how to normally package and deploy a UE4 project to the GearVR.

What it does

1. Build the development APK with the Unreal Build Tool.
2. Send the APK over to the device using Windows Command-Line FTP.
3. Install the APK using ADB.
4. Launch the project using ADB.

What you need

1. The batch files from the attached zip file.
2. Wifi File Transfer installed on your phone. Get it HERE.
3. Your phone connected to your local Wifi.
4. Your phones IP adress.

How to start

1. Extract the rar file to your UE4 project folder. It will create a new dir called Deploy.
   This is where your APK will later be located.

2. Set ADB mode to Wifi by running the RapidDeployment_SetWifi file.
   It should show “Connected to xxx” before closing, where xxx is your phones IP.
   If it does not, you need to connect your phone via USB once and run it again.

3. Go to the Deploy folder, right click the RapidDeployment_Setup file and go to edit.
   Here you only need to care about the Basic Settings section and edit it according to your needs.

PROJECTTITLE=GearVrGame
This should be the name of your *.uproject file.

PROJECTURL=com.hegi.GearVrGame
This is the Android Package Name you entered in the Android settings inside the editor(Case sensitive!).

PROJECTDIR="D:\Development"
This is the location of the folder of your project.

DEVICEIP=192.168.178.21
This is the IP adress of your Samsung phone(Shown in the Wifi File Transfer App).

AUTOLAUNCH=0
This is an option for automatically launching the project after installation finished.
For this you need to disable the GearVR service on your phone, so it won’t auto start once you put on the headset.
Check out THIS link on how to disable the service.
If this is 0, you need to press a key inside the command line window, after the build finished and you put on your headset.

UE4PATH="D:\Development\UE4\Unreal Engine"
The path where you installed UE4.

UE4VERSION=4.11
The version of UE4 used for your project.

4. If everyhing is set up correctly, you should be able to just start the RapidDeployment_Full file.
   Currently i have not added any error handling to the batch files, so if something goes wrong they will just close.
   In this case you need to execute the batch files in this order and see wich one fails.

*RapidDeployment_Build
RapidDeployment_SendFile
RapidDeployment_Install
RapidDeployment_Launch
*

5. The process will take some time, but it is the fastest way i have found so far.
   Let me know if you have any questions or suggestions.

Cheers
Michael

[motorsep]

Oh, nice one!

I never used ADB or anything special - copied .apk to device and installed it using android package manager

[anonymous_user_70a68998]

This sounds awesome and will save so much time! thanks HEGI im going to buy the newer gears today and try it out!

[anonymous_user_389e656c]

Thank you, interesting! In your experience transferring the whole apk through ftp is anyway faster than using the incremental installs with the launch button?

[HEGI]

@devel.bmad;490047

Thank you, interesting! In your experience transferring the whole apk through ftp is anyway faster than using the incremental installs with the launch button?

This just reduces the size of the project(If this even works for GearVR ?!). But the process remains the same, since you will need to unplug the device from the headset. With the FTP method you never need to do that.

[anonymous_user_389e656c]

It works with Gear VR, and you can use add over wifi so no need to unplug the device. The problem is that even if this is supposed to transfer only the files that were actually modified (and not the whole APK + contents) it seems to be quite slow. Anyway, it should reduce greatly the amount of data transferred, if working.

[HEGI]

@devel.bmad;490349

It works with Gear VR, and you can use add over wifi so no need to unplug the device. The problem is that even if this is supposed to transfer only the files that were actually modified (and not the whole APK + contents) it seems to be quite slow. Anyway, it should reduce greatly the amount of data transferred, if working.

I missed the obvious and never tried using the launch option for GearVR. But ABD Wifi is the main problem. I never got above 300 kb/s . While the FTP transfer is 14 mb/s . Having incremental install + FTP would be a perfect solution for development and i’am sure it must be possible somehow to get it working together. But it probably needs a plugin.

After making some tests:
If you make small changes, the launch option is faster.

[anonymous_user_389e656c]

Ok, It’s likely that if you are working with a pretty large project the launch option has some advantages.
The idea of using FTP for the bulk of the transfers is good anyway. It could even be an idea to have an android client by epic on the device handling the ftp transfer and the launch of the app (anybody from EPIC following this thread?

[HEGI]

@devel.bmad;490533

Ok, It’s likely that if you are working with a pretty large project the launch option has some advantages.
The idea of using FTP for the bulk of the transfers is good anyway. It could even be an idea to have an android client by epic on the device handling the ftp transfer and the launch of the app (anybody from EPIC following this thread?

Yea, the android client would be a great idea.

Also as for using launch, you will definitely need USB for the first time deployment, since that takes the longest time. After that using wifi is quite fast for just updating the changes. But you can see in the log that the transfer rates for adb are really slow (300-500 kb/s) .