Packaging the game from outside the editor.

Development Programming & Scripting C++
1

Is there anyway to run Project Launcher profiles or packaging for a project from outside the editor (from a batch to automate release on steam for example)? If so where can i find some documentation on the subject, for things like .ini options etc?
Is the solution to manually run cooker etc and place the files correctly with a script?

As a side note, I find some little things with the Project Launcher and Package Project a bit annoying, there seems to be settings found in one but not the other. (Example: Include debug files and crash reporter in package project not present in Project Launcher which on other matters has more detailed options). Anyway the lack of consistency is a bit confusing imo. I am assuming Package Project is a more straight forward approach to be used, maybe for less tech savy? and project launcher for more intricate details? Which might explain the inconsistency.

2

This is how we package our client:


cd /D "UE4_ROOT_DIR\Engine\Build\BatchFiles"
RunUAT BuildCookRun -project=PROJECT_ROOT_DIR\PROJECT_NAME.uproject -build -cook -clientconfig=Development -NoP4 -pak -crashreporter -stage -serverplatform=Win64 -stagingdirectory=PROJECT_ROOT_DIR\Build
pause

I tossed that into a bat file to make things easier.
Make sure to replace UE4_ROOT_DIR with your source checkout directory and PROJECT_ROOT_DIR with your project directory.

Hope this helps!

3

Yes! Thanks! I just came back here to post this link:

I actually retraced what command that was run in the source code to find this… Feel kind of stupid…

4

I’ve been look around the source code and I can’t seem to find proper clean documentation regarding arguments to UAT or any other program for that matter.
Am I missing something? What is the help attribute i see in a lot of these source code files, can that be used somehow?
Do any UE programs have any help output?
Do I really have to read the source code to understand what commands do what?

5

For anyone who comes across this post you can access help with “RunUAT.bat -help” or for subcommands “RunUAT.bat BuildCookRun -help” for example.

6

I do this all the time using Powershell, and my script is on Github if you want to modify it for yourself.