UEScripts/ReadMe.md

Steve's UE4 Scripts

Subversion Repo Setup Script

This initialises the structure of a Subversion repository for UE4 usage. Run in the root of a new Subversion repository, whether you've created the UE4 project in there yet or not.

Usage:

    ue4-svn-setup.ps1 [[-src:]sourcefolder] [Options]

        -src         : Source folder (current folder if omitted)
                     : (should be root of trunk in new repo)
        -skipstructurecheck
                     : Skip the check that makes sure you're in trunk
        -overwriteprops
                     : Replace all properties instead of merging
                     : Will overwrite svn:ignore, svn:global-ignores, svn:auto-props
        -dryrun      : Don't perform any actual actions, just report on what you would do
        -help        : Print this help

What it does

1. Ignore unnecessary folders

   It ignores folders in the root we don't need in Subversion:

   • .vs
   • Binaries
   • Build
   • DerivedDataCache
   • Intermediate
   • Saved

   It sets the svn:ignore property in the root folder to do this. It will merge with the contents of any existing property by default. svn:ignore is not set recursively and does not get inherited (despite what TortoiseSVN gives the impression of).

2. Sets binary files to needs-lock

   By setting the svn:auto-props value for common binary types tracked in the repo such as .uasset and .umap, it enforces locking on those files, triggering UE4 to give you check out prompts when you edit them.

   This property is set on the root folder and is inherited throughout the tree.

3. Creates folder structure

   Subversion, and particularly TortoiseSVN has a "quirk" whereby inherited properties are not respected for files inside a folder that isn't added to SVN yet. This means that if you rely on svn:global-ignores being inherited from a parent, a file inside a new folder that should be ignored is still shown in the Add/Commit TSVN dialog, until its parent folder is added, at which point it is hidden.

   I maintain this is extremely dumb behaviour because you can easily add files that should be ignored by accident, unless you manually add the folder first. However a big TSVN thread from a few years back has defended this bizarre approach as "by design". So to mitigate this, I pre-create the majority of our preferred folder structure ahead of time.

   Our preferred workflow is:

   1. All content creation tool files in $REPO/MediaSrc (subfolders by type)
      • These are typically in formats that UE4 might not read directly, so outside Content
      • These files are tracked in SVN
   2. When exporting, place output (FBX, PNG, WAV etc) in $REPO/Content (and subfolders)
      • These files are ignored in SVN because they are derived data
      • UE4 imports them to a .uasset which contains all their contents anyway
   3. All .uasset post-imported content in $REPO/Content is tracked in SVN (binary)

   So the tool pre-creates MediaSrc, Content and subfolders (if they don't already exist), and adds them to Subversion ahead of time to head off as many quirks as possible.

4. Ignore derived export data in Content folder

   As discussed in the workflow section above, exported files like PNG and FBX are not committed because they're duplicated data (source is in Maya/Blender/Photoshop files in MediaSrc, game-ready data is in .uasset files in Content). So we want to ignore them underneath Content.

   The svn:ignore property isn't helpful because it isn't inherited by subfolders, and if you set it recursively it only applies to folders that already exist. Although we've tried to help by creating most of the structure up-front, we don't want to preclude creating new folders, and don't want everyone who does so to have to remember to set the svn:ignore up.

   So instead we use svn:global-ignores, a newer property that is inherited by children (although as noted above it behaves a little oddly before you add folders to SVN, but at least you don't have to set the property again). Any PNG, FBX files you export into Content for import will be ignored, and you can just commit the .uasset files, and the original sources in MediaSrc. The export files can be considered temporary.

   We set svn:global-ignores for all the common intermediate formats only on the Content folder. This is so that if, for some reason, you don't have a typical content creator file for an asset and for some reason you want to store the PNG or FBX for it manually (instead of just the .uasset, which is all the game needs), you can put those files in MediaSrc if you want, and copy them to Content for importing as a substitute for the normal export workflow.

   In practice I don't think you need to do this, because you can export .uasset files anyway. Probably better to just put orphaned files like this directly in Content and only commit the post-import .uasset. But the option is there.