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Set up SVN source control for UE4

How to set up Assembla Subversion (SVN) as source control for your UE4 project on machines running Windows operating systems.

Matthew C avatar
Written by Matthew C
Updated this week

Unreal Engine 4  (UE4) provides direct integrations with source control tools like Subversion (SVN) in the Unreal Editor to make it easy for you to save the history of your project and collaborate with others. This article describes how to connect your UE4 project with Assembla Subversion (SVN).

Adding an SVN repo in Assembla

If you already have an SVN repo in your Assembla space, you can skip this step.

To add an SVN repo to your Assembla space

  1. In the space navigation pane, click Space Settings.

  2. In the Tools section, click More.

  3. In the SVN section, click Add. An SVN repository is automatically be set up in your Assembla space with "trunk", "branches", and "tags" directories.

Installing SVN on your local machine

If already installed SVN on your machine, you can skip this step.

To integrate Assembla SVN with your UE4 editor

  1. Check out your SVN repo to your local machine using an SVN client. You can do this with SVN command line tools or client such as TortoiseSVN for Windows. 

    You can download TortoiseSVN directly from the TortoiseSVN project website.

  2. Navigate to the SVN repo you just added to your Assembla space, and then locate your repository's URL by clicking Checkout. Copy/paste this address somewhere you can easily retrieve it, because you will need this checkout URL later.

Checking out to a local working copy

To check out a local working copy

  1. Once you install TortoiseSVN, select the parent directory in Windows Explorer where you would like to check out your Assembla SVN repo to your local machine.

  2. Right-click within Windows Explorer, and click TortoiseSVN > Checkout.

  3. In the Checkout dialog box, copy/paste the URL of your Assembla SVN repository from the previous step, and then select the directory on your local machine to which you want to check out your Assembla SVN repository.

  4. Click OK, and then navigate to the "trunk" folder in the directory you just created.

Adding UE4 files to SVN

If you don't have a UE4 project already, create a new UE4 project in the directory you just created. Otherwise, move your UE4 project files into the "trunk" directory that just synced from your Assembla repo.

To add UE4 files to your SVN repository

  1. Find the UE4 project files in Windows Explorer, and then right-click and select TortoiseSVN > Add.

  2. Add the following directories and files from your UE4 project folder to your SVN depot:

    1. Binaries (The Binaries folder is optional, depending on how your team wants to work together. It is not required if every team member is going to compile their editor/game themselves, but should be included in the initial add if any team members will just be grabbing a version from the depot to create content.)

    2. Config

    3. Content

    4. Source

    5. MyProject.uproject

    When you do this, SVN marks the files you selected for addition to the repository.

  3. Next, Right-click in the directory containing your project, and then select TortoiseSVN > SVN Commit.
    This step scans the directory for any changes/adds and displays them in the Commit dialog. Make sure only the directories from step 1 are checked and added to your commit.

  4. Type a commit message, and then click OK to upload your additions to the server. 

    If you want to start work on a project that someone else already started, you must get the latest revision from SVN using TortoiseSVN. To do this, you should perform the SVN Checkout stage above and make sure you have Fully Recursive set for your checkout depth. This downloads all of the existing files to your local machine.

Connecting SVN to UE4

To connect SVN to UE4

  1. In UE4, click the Source Control icon in the Toolbar.

  2. In the Source Control Login dialog, select Subversion as the provider, and then enter your Assembla login credentials. SVN remembers your credentials if entered correctly.

  3. Click Accept settings and you now can use most of the source control commands you need to check out, lock, add, and commit your UE4 project files to your Assembla SVN repository right from the Unreal Editor. This provides you with full version history of your project and allows you to easily collaborate with your teammates.

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