ue5-gitignore

A correct git setup example with git-lfs for Unreal Engine 5 (and 4) projects.

Version Management Design and Conventions

This template implies some conventions to be used correctly, which are discussed below. You should be able copy and paste them into your project's README.md if you want to.

If you are using git with Unreal Engine, you might want to also enable One File Per Actor feature, as it provides a more atomic level versioning flow.

Repo Structure

Repository structure is fixed, and it only has a few toplevel directories. Every other directory or file is ignored.

• /Source
• /Config
• /Plugins
• /Content
• /RawContent

git-lfs management rules are mostly defined for file types, and not paths, however there can entire paths marked to be managed by git-lfs. Without a special note, expect only type-based rules apply to a directory.

/Source

C++ source code is stored under the /Source path. As with most other directories, this directory is managed by standard git (and not git-lfs). That means no blobs. Do not put here any .dlls, .exes, .zips and other binaries. Only text files are allowed. Generated text files can reside in the local /Source dir, but should be ignored by git with additional entries in .gitignore.

/Config

Engine and game config files.

/Plugins

Game plugins. Every plugin lives in a subdirectory of the /Plugins dir. A plugin internal directory structure is not strictly documented, so there are no assumptions on how a plugin is structured. It may be useful to use git submodules to manage plugins in a more robust manner. It is expected that each plugin will have it's own .gitignore file in it's subdirectory, as well other required specific git tweaks.

/Content

Game assets in Unreal Engine formats, .uasset and .umap. Only those two file types are allowed, everything else is ignored.

/RawContent

This directory is managed entirely by git-lfs.

/RawContent is a directory where you store assets in their source formats, in contrast to /Content, where assets are stored in the engine format (after the import). Having an asset in a source format is useful when you're still making updates to it. It may be a good idea to also have separate repos for managing work-in-progress assets (maybe in smaller collections or even idividually).

How to use

1. Set up git and git-lfs.
2. Copy .gitignore and .gitattributes to your project.

Caveats

Take special care when working with plugins. Plugin structure is not very well defined, so you will be able to mess the git repo up with big files if you commit them to a plugin directory.

Contributing

Rules

This repo uses UNIX-style line endings and UTF-8. Make sure every line in a text file is ended with a newline (especially the last line in a file, git should notify you if you've lost it). This is due to how lines are defined. Feel free to search the web for more info on why to end every file with an "empty line".

How to contribute

1. Fork it
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create new Pull Request