3rd Post on May the 4th be With You

Hello once again,

I am back with a third post. Since the last suggested question on the rubric allows for an open-ended discussion about the project, I will use that as a blog post starter.

I want to take the time to vent a bit about the Unreal version control process. It took me an unnecessary amount of time to get to where I felt I could commit and push code safely to my team’s GitHub repo. At first, I decided to use GitHub Desktop to help me manage my commits. It worked for a bit, but after a while, the process started to get hectic, as thousands of file changes would get generated from small changes I made to my level. It made no sense, and I found myself looking through thousands of file changes to commit the few files that I made changes to. If I download an asset pack from the Epic Game Store Launcher, all of the assets, even the assets that I did not use in my project stage will get added to GitHub Desktop as a file change. To make a long story short, GitHub Desktop made the version control process a complicated mess. I am sure I am missing some more details, but I decided to forgo the GitHub Desktop application for the built-in version control system in Unreal Engine. So far, the built-in version control is easier to manage. I have to use the command line to push up my commits, but I no longer have to deal with the thousands of file changes. As we move forward with the project, we will run into a file size issue as the assets and levels are starting to get into the gigabyte range.

In terms of communication, the team and I are using Discord to communicate. It is funny because I was able to find out that my teammate is also dealing with version control issues via the Discord channel we created. So, version control and Unreal can be a minefield to navigate. Discord is proving to be handy as I was able to get unstuck with some problems I came across with the guidance of my teammates. For future students reading my blog, you can’t go wrong with using Discord to coordinate with your fellow classmates.

I feel that the project is on the right track. Despite the version control issues, Unreal is extremely powerful. Also, there are a plethora of Unreal tutorials available online.

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