Packing and shipping a project

Packaging sequence

We cannot click on "Build All Levels" as UE 5.1 breaks the lights if you do so. Reason is that "Build Geometry" makes the light disappear from the editor until relaunch, and breaks the relight.

Sequence I used is:

1. Load the Persistent level first
2. Loaded ALL the submaps
3. Be sure to have the current level selected as the Persistent Level
4. Build Paths (about 10 minutes)
5. Ensure Build->Lighting Quality->Production
6. Build Lighting Only (about 1.5 hours)
7. Save all

Generating separate Chunks in Packaging and Cooking

To generate multiple chunks while packaging based on the folders present in your Content Browser do the following:

1) First thing to enable is:

 Edit->Project Settings->Packaging->Generate Chunks

2) Create a new Primary Label in one of the directories.

 rightclick->Miscellaneous->"Data Asset" then select "Primary Label" as type
 Give it a name
 Open the Label and assign a chunk ID, and flag "Label Assets in My Directory"
 NOTE: Chunk ID 0 is anyway used by unreal engine as the "default" chunk, so our specific chunks should start from 1

3) Add the directory to the Asset Manager.

Project Settings -> Game -> Asset Manager -> Directories, add the one you need

4) Open the Asset Audit Window

 Window->Developer Tools->Asset Audit  -> Add Chunks

5) Click on Add Chunks

NOTE: In case of subdirectories, you can flag your labels present in subdirectories with higher priority compared to the main dir labels, so those will take priority and will be split into a separate chunk.

PSUnreal

MacOSX:

Got this error while packaging on Mac:

 Unable to load module '/Users/luke/PSUnreal/Binaries/Mac/UE4Editor-PSUnreal.dylib' because the file couldn't be loaded by the OS.

I fixed it by running this command after the error occurred, than restart the build:

 install_name_tool -change Wordnet.dylib @loader_path/Wordnet.dylib /Users/luke/PSUnreal/Binaries/Mac/UE4Editor-PSUnreal.dylib

Linux :

/home/planeshift/UnrealEngine/Engine/Build/BatchFiles/RunUAT.sh BuildCookRun -project="/home/planeshift/PSUnreal/PSUnreal.uproject" -noP4 -clientconfig=Shipping -utf8output -platform=Linux -targetplatform=Linux -build -cook -allmaps -stage -archive -archivedirectory="/home/planeshift/temp/psunreal_shipping"

Windows 9Gb uncompressed , 3.9Gb after zip, takes about 13 minutes to create the shipping package:

C:\UnrealEngine\Engine\Build\BatchFiles\RunUAT.bat BuildCookRun -project="C:\PSUnreal\PSUnreal.uproject" -noP4 -platform=Win64 -clientconfig=Shipping -cook -allmaps -build -stage -pak -archive -archivedirectory="F:\temp\psunreal_shipping_client"

Check this:

https://pypi.org/project/buildbot-UnrealEngine/

Check this:

https://blog.jamie.holdings/2019/09/15/debug-shipping-builds-in-unreal-engine-4-23/

Example and notes

To package and ship a project you need to have AutomationTool and UnrealBuildTool compiled. You can find those under your project .sln in the "programs" group. Compiling these with DebugGame config gave me errors, so I had to compile those with "Development" config.

Example of packing the VehicleGame sample on my machine. This will compile and package in one command. Consider DebugGame is stilla debug Build. Total is 770Mb (without pdb file)

C:\Luca\UnrealEngine\Engine\Build\BatchFiles\RunUAT.bat BuildCookRun -project="F:\Unreal Projects\VehicleGame\VehicleGame.uproject" -noP4 -platform=Win64 -clientconfig=DebugGame -serverconfig=DebugGame -cook -allmaps -build -stage -pak -archive -archivedirectory="F:\temp\vehicle_packaged"

Example of packing the VehicleGame in Shipping config (best optimized). Total is 680Mb (without pdb file)

C:\Luca\UnrealEngine\Engine\Build\BatchFiles\RunUAT.bat BuildCookRun -project="F:\Unreal Projects\VehicleGame\VehicleGame.uproject" -noP4 -platform=Win64 -clientconfig=Shipping -serverconfig=Shipping -cook -allmaps -build -stage -pak -archive -archivedirectory="F:\temp\vehicle_packaged_shipping"

Example of packing MyProject2 in Development configuration.

D:\Luca\UnrealEngine\Engine\Build\BatchFiles\RunUAT.bat BuildCookRun -project="D:\Unreal Projects\MyProject2\MyProject2.uproject" -noP4 -platform=Win64 -clientconfig=Development -serverconfig=Development -log -cook -allmaps -build -stage -pak -archive -archivedirectory="F:\temp\myproject2"

Overall timing for packing and shipping

Numbers are expressed in hours with: measured number (my estimate)

OS	Compile UE	Compile PS	Build shipping client	Upload to updater server	Upload the full package
Windows	? (2)	? (1)	? (2)	? (0.2)	? (1)
Linux	? (2.5)	? (2)	? (2.5)	? (0.2)	? (1)
MacOS	? (10)	? (6)	? (12)	? (0.2)	? (1)