I am working on getting perforce up and running for team collaboration on my project, but I am having a frustrating issue.
I properly have a perforce server running, I am able to add files and my friend is able to download those new files just fine. I uploaded my game project and had him open it in ue4 when it finished downloading on his end in perforce. I also opened unreal engine. We both successfully connected UE4 to Perforce. I had my friend check out a simple blueprint and make a small change and then check it in. On my end i could see that he had the certain blueprint checked out when it was. I tried to sync the blueprint so I could see the changes. I opened the blueprint and I could not see the changes. I looked into the history and it showed his change to the blueprint. Becoming slightly frustrated I closed and restarted UE4, and what do you know? The edited blueprint was there. We then tested again and we both made changes to two separate blueprints, Checked the blueprints back in, and synced the folder the blueprints were in. We were unsuccessfully able to see the changes. We decided to restart the engine and the changes were there.
Long story short our files only sync after restarting unreal which is not acceptable for collaboration. I would appreciate if someone could help get this issue solved.
We started looking for a workable means of source control since the release of UE4 as protecting work in progress is a no brainer but we also needed a system that was convenient to both the needs of code as well as art assets and after looking around there does not seem to be a Internet based solution the would be ideal as to both code and content as well easy to learn as new members join the team that does not add yet another learning curve.
A bit of a premier. Internet based projects needs two components.
Source Control
Reliable delivery system.
To get things rolling we started with delivery using SVN and Tortoise which is suitable for both code and content but still have minor issues. Once that was set up and running we then took a look at in app source control via Perforce and although would be suitable for LAN based source control connivance went out the window as to needs based on Internet migration requirements.
The first issue is you can not monitor out going or incoming traffic to verify that your getting the right traffic.
Second Perforce locks files with in a hierarchy ( or at least locks files behind the scenes) so the texture artist can not update a simple texture if it’s being worked on as part of a contributor to a single project.
We tried working with Perforce for about two weeks and the conclusion was it’s a high maintenance feature that slows down the iteration process with in a small group such as our selves (12 or so individuals) that is best served through awareness and procedures of asset ownership and with the ability to revert as well as guidelines of how to resolve conflicts that serves the needs of both code and content and not dictated by hard coded solutions you can’t argue with.
Our conclusion, until there is a better Internet based solution, is to do what is necessary as to the ideals of source control manually by making people aware when a commit is going to occur so that they can monitor what is coming in and take the nessary steps if something unintended gets broken (that once you get the flow going does not happen often).
We have been having this problem and the only consistent way we see changes with perforce is to restart the editor. I agree something needs to be done. I thought we just weren’t doing it right and we needed to find a better way to work.
