Chapter 5: Techniques for Teamwork in Unreal Engine

5.1 Importance and Requirements of Teamwork in Unreal Engine

Teamwork is very important in the development of Unreal Engine. A good Unreal Engine production team usually has: a project manager with good communication skills, an innovative set designer, a good 3D modeler, a technical artist who knows the UE material editor, an engineer who knows how to operate Unreal Engine, and a conscientious tester. Only the cooperation of the team will prevent the project from stalling for any reason.

Dividing Teamwork in an Unreal Engine Project

In an Unreal Engine project for virtual production, there are different tasks to handle; therefore, it is not necessary for every team member to build virtual environments in Unreal Engine. In our project, our team initially needs to build two virtual environments, so tasks are divided into finding suitable models or assets, modifying or customizing the assets in Unreal Engine or Blender, and constructing the virtual environments using the assets.

5.2 Version Control Solutions

This section provides an introduction to version control solutions and version control systems (VCS), explaining the characteristics of Unreal Engine projects.

Introduction

A Version Control Solution in this context refers to an integrated solution for version control and synchronization of Unreal Engine projects. It can be separated into two components: the version control system and a server with storage to host central or remote repositories where your Unreal Engine projects are stored. A version control system is a software system that provides synchronization and versioning of project files.

Characteristics of Unreal Engine Projects

• Large file sizes
  An Unreal Engine project often contains many large files, such as 3D models and high-resolution textures. The initial size of a project may not require much storage, but as the project grows, it will need more space measured in gigabytes.

• Diverse file types
  An Unreal Engine project typically contains different types of files, many of which are binary files.

How These Characteristics Affect the Choice of Version Control System

It is possible that a version control system may not manage large files and binaries effectively. For example, Git itself does not handle large binaries well, but the Git extension Git LFS¹ addresses this issue.

Version Control Systems

Categories of Version Control Systems

There are mainly three types of version control systems:

1. Centralized Version Control Systems
   Centralized systems, such as Perforce Helix Core², use a single server to store all versions of project files and their changes. This central server stores all versions of the project files and is the main repository for team collaboration.

2. Distributed Version Control Systems
   Distributed systems, like Git³, keep a complete project repository on each collaborator’s computer. This allows team members to work offline, committing changes locally before pushing updates to the remote repository.

3. Local Version Control Systems
   Local systems are primarily designed for solo developers rather than virtual production teams.

Possible Version Control Systems for Unreal Engine Projects

This section references Unreal Engine documentation⁴, which describes methods for enabling version control within Unreal Engine. Three version control systems are discussed:

• Perforce
  P4² is a version control platform widely used in game development. Known as “Helix Core” or “Perforce,” it is utilized (internally) by Epic Games and stakeholders in our project. Although it is commercial software, it offers free use for small teams of up to 5 users (without hosting services).

• Subversion
  Subversion⁵ is an open-source centralized version control system, distributed under the Apache License, Version 2.0⁶.

• Diversion
  Diversion⁷ is a cloud-based version control system.

• Git with Git LFS
  Git³ is a distributed version control system, open source under the GNU General Public License version 2.0⁸. Git LFS¹ is an open-source extension that helps manage binary files and large files.

Version Control Service

This section analyzes the pricing of the version control systems discussed above to identify a suitable option for a student group. (The pricing data may change over time; please refer to the respective websites for up-to-date information.)

Paid Version Control Service

• Perforce
  Perforce does not provide hosting services on its free plan. If you are on the free plan, you must either find a cloud host or self-host the service⁹.

• Subversion
  Since Subversion is open source, you also need to self-host or use a cloud service.

Free Version Control Service for Small Teams or Educational Purposes

• Diversion for Educational Use
  Diversion is commercial software but offers free use for educational users, allowing up to 100 GB and 10 users per repository. A user is classified under the Educational tier upon registration (verified at the time of writing)¹⁰.

• Git with Git LFS
  As with Subversion, you need to find a cloud hosting service that supports Git and Git LFS. Both GitHub¹¹ and GitLab¹² are popular cloud-based platforms for hosting code repositories. With Git LFS, each free-tier GitHub account receives 1 GiB of storage and 1 GiB of bandwidth monthly, and every GitLab project gets 10 GiB for free. However, Git can be challenging for students and creators without prior experience, which may make it less suitable for Virtual Production.