Version Control Get Started
Current state of the addon
This addon tries to implement generic API for various version control system.
Currently contains WIP implementation of Perforce, but there might be more in the future which should follow same API methods.
The implementation aims to rely solely on a single dependency, p4python, which is binary-dependent on the Python version in use.
This means it might be different in different DCCs, different versions of Unreal etc.
To mitigate need of having binary compatible p4python libraries addon currently implements REST api to run p4 commands
only on separate webserver started by AYON Tray which contains p4python library installed via dependency package and
REST stub class which might be used in each DCC that has requests library.
The AYON Version Control addon doesn't replace the built-in versioning functionality. Instead, it adds an extra layer by publishing the product to two separate locations: the AYON publish directory and the Perforce server.
Configuration of connection to Perforce server
Addons offers configuration of credentials to P4 server with username and password on multiple levels via Studio(single credentials), Project (credentials different per project) or Site settings(credentials different per artist.)
Perforce workspace
It is expected that P4 workspaces would be setup and existed on artists machines. Each artist then only provides path to their locally accessible P4 workspace folder in Site Settings.
It is expected that folder name of the workspace matches worskpace name. (unreal in this example)
Main functionalities for Perforce
This addons contains two main functionalities for slightly different use cases:
- create separate version controlled streams from AYON of published products in Perforce
- help with Deadline rendering of Unreal projects with Perforce
It is expected that majority working for Perforce with Unreal project files are done with official Perforce
tools like P4V or command line utility. Neither of those are distributed by addon and it is required
for IT department to install/configure them.
Commits to Perforce
This approach allows to copy version control not only in AYON, where each publish results in new version of published product, but committing this version directly to Perforce.
The products with versions are separately kept in Perforce, from which ordinary Perforce tools could be used (P4V) to pull latest version of published product.
Profiles could be used to limit which published products should be committed to Perforce.
As Perforce controls the product which doesn't contain version name directly in its name nor path, additional AYON template must be configured in Project's Anatomy > Templates.
New template must follow Hero template approach,
Hero template could be used directly too (if it is matching required folder structure in Perforce)
Support for Unreal and Deadline
The other workflow is to help rendering Unreal from Perforce on Deadline rendering farm.
In this use case there is an exception that multiple artists are working on Unreal project with standard utilization of P4 or Unreal P4 official plugin to checkout/commit any modifications to Unreal project to Perforce.
Addons offers additional possibility to mark current stage of Unreal project, eg. latest commit/changelist, as 'published' and store its metadata in AYON for possible future workflows and enhancements.
New additional mini tool is provided for artists before they open Unreal via AYON launcher which allows them to
P4 sync (not checkout - that would lock the files) to any previously published version before Unreal is actually opened.
This marker, or tag, points to commit/changelist and could be pushed to Deadline integration where Deadline syncs to this particular commit before rendering.
This requires to have AYON integration to Deadline installed. Please check Deadline Admin Docs for more details.
Usage of Perforce in Deadline submissions could be controlled by toggling on/off of automatically created instance of
changelist_metadata product type in AYON Publisher.