Collaborate on Unreal Engine projects with Wevr Virtual Studio and Anchorpoint

What is Wevr Virtual Studio?

Wevr Virtual Studio (WVS) is a cloud development platform designed as an alternative to GitHub, but it's specifically optimized for game development. Like GitHub, WVS is fully compatible with Git and offers a more user-friendly experience, especially for those who aren't developers. It eliminates the complexities of Large File Storage (LFS) billing and comes with pre-configured templates and settings for popular game engines like Unreal, Unity, and Godot. Additionally, WVS has pre-configured build pipelines, making it easier to build Unreal, Unity, or Godot games in the cloud.

Why Choose WVS?

If you're not a developer but still want to work on game projects, WVS is definitely interesting for you. It has a simpler UX. You won't have to worry about complicated billing for large files, like you have to do with Git LFS on GitHub. WVS also comes with ready-to-use templates for Unreal, Unity, and Godot engines. Plus, it has pre-configured build pipelines, so you can easily set up cloud builds.

How to Set Up an Unreal Engine Project with WVS

In this step, we will set up WVS for remote collaboration, which includes sharing files, creating backups, and syncing between multiple computers. To set up an Unreal Engine project, you'll need three tools:

1. WVS for cloud storage and build pipelines
2. Anchorpoint for uploading and downloading files
3. Unreal Engine for actual game development.

Setting Up WVS

First, create an account on WVS. Once that's done, create a new project and select the Unreal Engine template. Invite your team members to join the project and then copy the project URL. Go to wvs.io and create an account.

Open Anchorpoint

Download Anchorpoint and create an account. Next, open Anchorpoint and create a new project. For that, create an empty folder on your hard drive. Paste the WVS project URL you copied earlier. Invite your team members here as well.

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Your Project Structure

There is no perfect folder structure, and every team has its own. Because WVS is made to handle large project files and for simplicity reasons, it’s recommended to put everything in the Git repository. In the software development world, this is called a monorepo (short for monolithic repository) and it holds all the components of a software solution (frontend code, backend code, documentation, supporting services, etc.) in one single Git repository. We will follow this approach and put our art assets together with our Unreal Engine project into that repository.

This is our main folder structure

Now, copy your Unreal Engine project into these folders. In Anchorpoint, navigate to the Timeline. Create an initial commit and press "push." Your files will now be uploaded to WVS.

Workflow Overview

Once everything is set up, the workflow is straightforward. Make changes in your Unreal Engine project and save them. Then, go to Anchorpoint and push these changes to update the project on WVS.

Team Member Onboarding

Your team members will need to log in to WVS and accept the project invite. They should then download and open Anchorpoint, accept the invite there, and clone the project. After that, they can start working in Unreal Engine and push any changes they make.

Handle Unreal Engine's File Locking

When a team member needs to download changes, it's called "pulling changes." It's important to note that Unreal Engine locks the level file. So, you'll need to close the level or the Unreal Engine itself before pulling any changes.

Setting up Cloud Builds in WVS

If you want to build your game locally and directly from the Unreal Engine editor, then this part is not really interesting for you. But it’s generally a good idea to use cloud build to unblock your computer from a long building process.

Building in the cloud can definitely speed up your productivity because builds are usually faster in the cloud. You have more computing power. And, your computer is not blocked.

Configuring the Build Process

Usually, setting up build processes in the cloud requires heavy configuration work. Because WVS is optimized for game development, it makes that process easy for us and provides a lot of configuration templates for Unity, Godot, and of course, Unreal.

In the current beta version of WVS (September 2023), you need to download their desktop application and use the CLI tool to pick a configuration template. This may change in the future.

Pick a Flow

WVS uses “flows” for the build configuration. A flow is basically a chain of commands, so basically an automation. This flow can include building an Unreal Game for Windows when somebody on your team publishes a new version by committing it from Anchorpoint.

For this tutorial, we will pick the “build_ue_game_windows” flow.

Adding the Flow to Our Project

Download the WVS desktop application and install it. Then go to your Unreal Engine project in Windows Explorer and in the address field, type in “CMD” and press enter.

Once your command line is open, type in “wvs flow registry” and press Enter

Now, type in “wvs flow add build_ue_game_windows” and press Enter. This flow will trigger the cloud build every time you push a new commit to your WVS repository.

Once this is done, you can check your Unreal Project folder and look into the .wvs/flows folder for a .json file. This file was created by the command line and contains all the build instructions for the WVS cloud.

Run the Cloud Build

Push your project in Anchorpoint, and once the files are on the cloud, you will see that it starts building. For that, go to the WVS web interface and click on Flows/Pipelines.

Once the process is done, you can click on the “…” button and download the build as a ZIP file.

Note on Flows

Flows are definitely more advanced than just running a build after a commit. They can help you to automate your work. You can restrict the build to only run on a particular branch or when the commit message contains a particular word, etc. To get the most out of flows, take a look at the WVS documentation.

FAQ

How much does Wevr Virtual Studio (WVS) cost?

WVS charges per usage. It does not matter how many projects you are running or how many project members you have. WVS charges $1 per GB and $3 per processing hour, which is used when building your Unreal Project in the cloud. The first 5GB and 5 hours per month are free.

What is Anchorpoint?

Anchorpoint is a version control and asset management application for your desktop. It is based on Git and works well with WVS, which is also based on Git.

Which game engines does WVS support?

WVS works well with Unreal Engine and Unity Engine as it provides templates. But because it’s based on Git, you can use it with any game engine or in normal software development as an alternative to GitHub.

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