Build Great Games With Unreal Engine and Perforce
Epic’s Unreal Engine is the world’s most open and advanced real-time 3D creation platform. This state-of-the-art games engine continuously evolves. And today, it gives creators across industries the freedom and control to deliver:
- Cutting-edge content.
- Interactive experiences.
- Immersive virtual worlds.
Perforce Helix Core is the game development industry standard for version control. It provides a globally-capable infrastructure to manage millions of files, and extremely large files in support of innovative teams across industries using the Unreal Engine.
Perforce and Epic work closely together. Helix Core and the Unreal Engine are critical to the game development process, helping developers building the great games of tomorrow.
What Helix Visual Client (P4V) Does
Helix Visual Client (P4V) is an easy-to-use desktop application that works on Linux, Mac, and Windows. It gives you access to all your versioned files in Helix Core. And it complements the Unreal Editor’s built-in integration with Helix Core.
It’s easy to use for newbies as well as veteran developers. Helix Visual Client has an intuitive, customizable graphical user interface. And you can manage the most complex codelines imaginable with innovative Perforce Streams technology.
- Trouble-free branching and merging.
- File-locking.
- CI/CD workflows.
Key Unreal Integrations With Helix Core
Unreal Editor
Unreal Editor has an easy-to-use, and seamless integration to Perforce Helix Core. So, users working on 3D worlds never have to leave the comfort of their familiar environment.
The Unreal integration is built and maintained by Epic. (Epic uses Helix Core for their own development. And they encourage third-party developers using their Unreal Engine to use Helix Core.)
Depending on role, team members will interact with one or more Epic, Microsoft, and Perforce tool during the lifecycle of a project. Integrations provided by Epic and Perforce ensure these tools work well together. This increases artist and developer productivity — and helps ensure deadlines are met.
Using Perforce as source control [Epic documentation]
Unreal Game Sync
Unreal Game Sync (UGS) is a tool built by Epic. It promotes code and content integration in a collaborative development environment. This enables teammates distributed over time and distance to labor on the same project as it gets updated.
Technically, UGS provides a graphical front-end to sync UE4 projects from Perforce. You can optionally build those projects with Microsoft’s Visual Studio Compiler.
Microsoft Visual Studio
Microsoft Visual Studio is the most popular IDE for game developers working with Unreal Engine. Epic and Perforce plugins coexist, providing seamless integration for developers working with Visual Studio.
Helix Plugin for Visual Studio (P4VS) seamlessly embeds Helix Core enterprise-class version control features within the familiar UI. Without ever having to leave the Visual Studio IDE, developers can sync, add, edit, revert, diff, review file history, manage changelists, perform code reviews, and more.
Learn more about:
Windows File Explorer
Getting some users, such as technical artists or designers, to use version control can be a challenge.
Helix Plugin for File Explorer (P4EXP) is an ideal way to bring non-developers the benefits of version control — without requiring them to learn Helix Core. They’ll get easy access to Helix Core functions from the standard Windows 10 File Explorer context (right-click) menu. This makes functions like check-in/check-out a breeze.
Drop and Drag Version Control for Creatives
Helix Sync allows designers and artists to use their preferred tools — Adobe Photoshop CC, Autodesk 3DS Max, Maya, and more — and simply drag and drop files to quickly version any type of asset.
Perforce and Unreal For Non-Game Applications
Epic is known as the leader in the game development world. But this hasn’t stopped designers and artists in other industries from using the power of the Unreal Engine to build 3D models for non-game applications. This “off-label” use case has become so popular, Epic even has a special annual community event for non-game applications.
You can use Perforce Helix Core integration with Unreal Engine to improve your workflows and manage your intellectual property — no matter what industry you are in.