Making games are really fun but to share it with your friends and the world you will need to export your game with very specific configurations. This article will show you just how you can do that. It is a very easy process once you get an understanding of some basic steps.
- Package settings
- Build Config
- setting up levels
- details of the project
- supported platforms
- target hardware
- Finalizing set up for export
- Export the final product
Package Settings
Before we can get started we need to set some settings up depending on what kinds of games are being exported and what kind of platform are we targeting. We need to set all of that as the first step of this. So let’s get right into it!
Click on the Platform button and look for project settings. This is where we are going to select all the necessary settings that are needed for this.
Build Configuration:
Scroll down until you see the Project drop-down like the image above. The first thing you need to change is the Build Configuration. For the finished version of your game, you would select Shipping in the drop-down menu. For testing when you are building the game select the Development option. You should always test out your game as you are developing to look for bugs and the gameplay overall and the Development build configuration is perfect for that.
Staging Directory:
Next up is Staging Directory, which basically means where you want your files to be saved after the whole building process is complete. Click on the three dots right next to it and navigate to the location on your hard drive where you want your game to be exported.
Full Rebuild:
Enabling this will rebuild everything in your project. For the final build of your project, it is better to do a full rebuild. It will take more time if you enable this before building your project. So it is not recommended when you are rebuilding your game to test out some features and bugs and you only made some minor changes. If Full Rebuild is disabled unreal engine will only build the parts that have been changed and reduce the total time required to build the project
Description
Next, we have the project description where you put some basic information about your games/ project. Do this for the final build. It is not really important to do it for testing purposes but it is up to you if you want to get this out of the way beforehand. Everything here is your personal information.
Maps & Modes
Game Default Map
This is basically what the player will see when they start their game. This should be the main menu. Make sure you have that as the game’s default Map. Usually, both Editor Startup Map and Game Default Map will be at the same game mode level that will be here. So make sure the default game mode and default maps are the correct ones!
Supported Platforms
This is where all the magic will happen. You get to decide what platform your want to deploy your game. Select all platforms or the ones you would like your game to be published. I will pick just windows for now. Make sure you have the support for the platforms you want to export your game for and have the necessary plugins and version or unreal engine downloaded before you go and select a platform to export to. You can check your epic launcher to check what version of unreal and the platform supports you have on your computer.
Target Hardware
You can leave targeted hardware as it is or switch to scalable if you are ware trying to test it on a lower-spec computer but be careful about the system requirement of your game when you are trying to run it on another computer that might not have the required hardware for the game.
Platforms
We are only exporting game for windows here but all the platform has pretty much the same settings. Here you change the splash screen for the game. Check the current resolution of the splash screen by hovering over the current splash screen images. The splash screen is basically the loading screen image that pops up when you are starting a game.
Also, you can change the game icon to something you like from here as well.
If you do not understand the other settings you can leave it as it is. Basically, you can change some things about the games like audio sample rate and targeted APIs like DirectX12 or 11
Packaging!!!
We are almost at the end!
Setup
Now close the window and go back and click on the Platforms button again and this time select the platform that you want to export the game. In my case, I will select windows and click on shipping/Development depending on what you need.
Finalization
Now go to Platform then Windows again but this time click on the Package Project and you will see this window pop up. Now select the same folder you selected on the Staging Directory.
The Waiting Part!
Now you just need to wait for it completely!!! You have done it!! You exported your first game. Now go to the directory your selected and click on the EXE file to play your game!!!
Some Things To Look For
Some things may not go your way when you are trying to build your first game. What do you do when that happens? Chances are someone else already had that problem when they were building their first game. So look for the solution using the error code/messages. The error message is in red fonts and the warnings are in yellow. You can ignore the warnings for now. Google is your best friend when you are debugging errors. Unreal Engine Forum is also a very good source to find solutions. You can also look at stack overflow of coding-related problems