Source Build with your Favorite Plugins

Hi All…

I’ve created my first tutorial for those wanting to build a source build with your favorite plugins built in. Here’s the overview…

Tired of having to put @Rama excellent VictoryBPLibraries into all of your projects manually? How about building a Git source that includes your favorite plugins. This means when new projects are created, the plugins are already there. This tutorial is aimed at beginners so I will go through the entire process.

This thread is for support, comments and suggestions. Thanks and I hope someone finds it useful.

teak

PS: I’m thinking of setting up a google hangout for those would like to go through the process. Let me know if interested.

Wow, your wiki tutorial is massive! And with so many pictures!

Quite the impressive first tutorial!

Thank you for sharing!

:heart:

Rama

Thank you for the kind words…

I saw that you have updated your plugin so I went to Github and it appears that its the older version. Will you continue to use GitHub? Should I use your zip file for the tutorial? Also, someone pointed out that I should have documented how to upgrade plugins, this is a PERFECT opportunity if Git gets updated. In any event, what are your plans and I will adjust. Thanks for all your hard work!

teak

I’ve just updated my github to the latest, which includes changes not in the current release version :slight_smile:

Have fun today Teak!

:slight_smile:

Rama

The tutorial has been updated to include how to upgrade plugins and the engine itself. Thanks for my pal victorb from Slackers for pointing out that I missed it. Also, @Rama happen to have upgraded his VictoryPlugin (perfect timing!) so I took the opportunity to walk thru the process.

If you have any questions, please let me know…

teak

Raahahahahaha

Great work teak! This is an amazingly in depth wiki!

:heart:

Rama

Moved to proper forum… and thanks to @VictorBurgos for helping find a few things that can be improved!

teak

This is some great information teak, and very clearly explained too. UE4 is really lacking info on this kind of thing, good job!

One thing - it gives the impression that a source engine build is the only way to install plugins to the engine, which isn’t the case. Plugins can be installed to the launcher engine, in the same way that is done for plugins downloaded from the marketplace. If you want to add the info, here is how it can be done:

  1. Open a command prompt at …/Epic Games/UE_4.xx/Engine/Build/BatchFiles.
  2. Run the following command:

RunUAT BuildPlugin -Plugin="path-to-plugin/PluginName.uplugin" -TargetPlatforms=Win64+Android+etc] -Package="path-to-output-directory"

  1. Copy the files from the output directory given above into …/Epic Games/UE_4.xx/Engine/Plugins/….

If the plugin is provided with binaries already built for the correct version of the engine, you can just drop them straight in without steps 1 and 2, in which case you don’t need Visual Studio installed.

Thank you for the note… Good point about the tutorial giving that impression. Should fix that up. Now that we can get plugins in the marketplace the value of the tutorial is greatly reduced. The only real reason why someone would want to do a gitbuild is for dedicated servers and for when want to stick to a single version and just pull fixes (the ones that DO NOT BREAK your code) directly from github into your version…

teak

ps: Also, I didn’t know about the above! (your three step). I will need to add that.

Hi there…

I tried this command with 4.16 and it didn’t work… Its even been moved. Tried finding some documentation no luck. Could you point me to any documentation that I may have missed? Thanks!

teak

None that I’m aware of. Other that you can run “RunUAT -list” to list the commands, and, for example, “RunUAT BuildPlugin -help” to print command options.

I don’t think it was moved, I just put the wrong path (fixed now). Are you saying you found it though and still couldn’t get it to work? If so, what was the output/error?

Works well, I must have typed something stupid… Thanks for your insight.

teak