ue4versionator

ue4versionator is a tool to download custom engine builds based on a uproject's EngineAssociation key. Once downloaded, the engine is extracted to ~/.ue4/ and registered for use.

Builds are expected to be archived with 7zip, and both an engine and symbols archive are supported.

Usage of ue4versionator:
  -config string
        ue4versionator config file (default ".ue4versionator")
  -user-config string
        ue4versionator user config file (default ".ue4v-user")
  -virgin
        ask configuration options like the first time
  -with-engine
        download and unpack UE4 engine build (default true)
  -with-symbols
        download and unpack UE4 engine debug symbols

Configuring ue4versionator

uproject association

A UE4 uproject file's EngineAssociation key needs to be modified with a ue4v: prefix, followed by the version of the custom build.

{
    "FileVersion": 3,
    "EngineAssociation": "ue4v:4.21-custom",
    "Category": "",
    "Description": "",
    "Modules": [
        ...
    ],
    ...
}

ue4versionator config

A simple configuration file is used to tell ue4versionator where to fetch builds from.

[ue4versionator]
baseurl = https://downloads.example.com/builds

ue4versionator expects builds to be found under this location, with the filename engine-<version>.7z, where the version matches the EngineAssociation key without the ue4v: prefix. So for the uproject example above, the build would be expected to be found at https://downloads.example.com/builds/engine-4.21-custom.7z.

If --with-symbols is used, a debugging symbols archive is expected to be found with the filename symbols-<version>.7z.

Example engine build

We create our custom builds and archive them with the following commands:

# Build UE4 engine
.\Engine\Build\BatchFiles\RunUAT.bat BuildGraph -target="Make Installed Build Win64" -script="Engine/Build/InstalledEngineBuild.xml" -set:HostPlatformOnly=true -set:WithWin32=false -set:WithDDC=false

# Create archive without debugging symbols
7z.exe a -bsp1 -mx9 -md512m -mfb273 -mlc4 -mmt24 engine-%VERSION%.7z LocalBuilds\Engine\Windows\Engine\ -r -x^^!*.pdb'

# Create archive with debugging symbols
7z.exe a -bsp1 -mx9 -md512m -mfb273 -mlc4 -mmt24 symbols-%VERSION%.7z LocalBuilds\Engine\Windows\*.pdb -r'