Unreal Engine 4.7 Released!

[Maximum-Dev]

You should never start or continue production work on a preview build. Feel free to try out the tools and report issues, but they are previews for a reason and I would hate for you to lose work if there turns out to be a serialization issue or something like that.

Cheers,
Michael Noland

We'd keep our development delayed until final version then.
Thank you.

[Demolition Man]

If I where in your shoes, I would go ahead and start development on 4.7.5. That way when 4.8 comes out you will already have a start on your project. Things like static meshes and materials aren't going to change much between versions so you wouldn't lose much time. On the plus side, you will get some experience converting your project over to a new engine release (i.e. and that's always good experience to have!)

[charlie177]

Will the 4.8 preview include the latest Oculus 0.5.0 SDK ?

[Maximum-Dev]

If I where in your shoes, I would go ahead and start development on 4.7.5. That way when 4.8 comes out you will already have a start on your project. Things like static meshes and materials aren't going to change much between versions so you wouldn't lose much time. On the plus side, you will get some experience converting your project over to a new engine release (i.e. and that's always good experience to have!)

Thank you for the suggestion but the very first step on the project is to setup the terrain which is a large one and requires 4.8 to be there, the rest of the things also need the terrain to be setup already. I have converted projects from 4.6 to 4.7 though and not much problem there but converting from 4.7 to 4.8 isn't going to work regarding large terrain and ecosystem painting tool since they are not implemented in 4.7.

[John Alcatraz]

Why do you need to start making your game with creating a landscape with trees etc? All the visual stuff is mostly not really important at the beginning, so you surely could just create all the gameplay logic and then after some months you would make a landscape and so on.

[Galeon]

I have converted projects from 4.6 to 4.7 though and not much problem there but converting from 4.7 to 4.8 isn't going to work regarding large terrain and ecosystem painting tool since they are not implemented in 4.7.

I already got a broken project , and this will make me worry when there is some new update to get another broken project when updating it.

[Maximum-Dev]

Why do you need to start making your game with creating a landscape with trees etc? All the visual stuff is mostly not really important at the beginning, so you surely could just create all the gameplay logic and then after some months you would make a landscape and so on.

We had our time creating what we need. It's just a matter of starting a level and throwing it all together and that requires a terrain and environment to be there.

@Galeon, When I was porting my landscape pack from 4.6 to 4.7 my foliage was looking terrible. With the new foliage shading added even though I adapted the materials but the shading was just wrong and the only thing I had to do was to create a new project/level using 4.7 and setup everything again. And yes this is really a stab in the back when you are on a tight schedule. But well I'm so happy I don't have to migrate from Cryengine 3.6 to 3.7. That's a really fun story happening to their users right now

[Galeon]

I had to do was to create a new project/level using 4.7 and setup everything again. And yes this is really a stab in the back when you are on a tight schedule. But well I'm so happy I don't have to migrate from Cryengine 3.6 to 3.7. That's a really fun story happening to their users right now

When i loose months of work on a finished level map because i can't recover it , it is a serious problem.

[Adam Davis]

I already got a broken project , and this will make me worry when there is some new update to get another broken project when updating it.

In general, we don't recommend moving projects you are actively developing between versions unless there is a fix or a feature that you need in the newer versions. There is always a risk of incompatible changes or something breaking when moving between versions of live software and it is typically best to keep projects on one version unless it is absolutely necessary to move to another. Continually switching versions could increase the risk of something going wrong.

[Nick Darnell]

When i loose months of work on a finished level map because i can't recover it , it is a serious problem.

We expect users to use version control for their projects, even when working alone. Perforce, Git, SVN are all extremely useful and we highly recommend using any of them to avoid losing work.

[arbopa]

We expect users to use version control for their projects, even when working alone. Perforce, Git, SVN are all extremely useful and we highly recommend using any of them to avoid losing work.

Do you provide training or any monetary costs associated with such things? Because if you don't, you can't 'expect' anyone to use them.

[Alexander Paschall]

Do you provide training or any monetary costs associated with such things? Because if you don't, you can't 'expect' anyone to use them.

We do not provide training for using those services, but the service providers have many training tutorials on how to use them. For example. Some of these services are offered for free as well.

[zeOrb]

Do you provide training or any monetary costs associated with such things? Because if you don't, you can't 'expect' anyone to use them.

Yes, they do.
Source Control Basics
Source Control Overview
Perforce Tutorial
SVN Tutorial
Git Tutorial
I'm sorry, but are we seriously talking about monetary costs for free software or what?

[arbopa]

Yes, they do.
Source Control Basics
Source Control Overview
Perforce Tutorial
SVN Tutorial
Git Tutorial
I'm sorry, but are we seriously talking about monetary costs for free software or what?

Glad to see they offer guidance. Who knows what is free or not? I do not see a package name and instantly know if it is free or monthly fee or buy outright. But my point was the 'expect' part of the comment. Seems it was an attempt to remove any responsibility from Epic for the times when UE4 doesn't work as users 'expect' it to.

[Adam Davis]

Glad to see they offer guidance. Who knows what is free or not? I do not see a package name and instantly know if it is free or monthly fee or buy outright. But my point was the 'expect' part of the comment. Seems it was an attempt to remove any responsibility from Epic for the times when UE4 doesn't work as users 'expect' it to.

If there is a bug in the software that causes corruption to an asset, we certainly want to know so we can get the bug reported and fixed, hence why we encourage developers to post to the answerhub. However, source control is understood to be the best method of backing up software so that, should something such as data corruption or irreversible changes occur to a particular copy of an asset, one can revert to a previous, undamaged version without losing a lot of work. There are backups of assets kept within the project \saved\backup\ folder, but it is typically expected that source control is the go to option for most developers. We can locate and work on errors that occur in the editor, we cannot ensure that developers have software set up to maintain backup versions of their projects and assets.