Working on my deployment system I can stream and cache files from the interwebs. I can also make pak files, mount them, load files from them.
Now what to put in those file. json text files work and are a good start. Binary files look like they should be able to give me new texture data, and new audio with a bit of mangling. Awesome theory I’ll test that out tomorrow.
However when I tried to cook a simple umap level (or a simple texture uasset) the cooker seems to go through the whole project (looking at the generated assets was eye opening) and builds everything.
How do you package up a minimal dataset for a small package release? For instance a mesh, level, animation and blueprint to respond to game events?
If I guess at the uasset / umaps that need to make a coherent pak am I likely to find things straightforward or take a brave step into a new world of hurt?
Still no idea on this - in fact I’m starting to think it might be a bit of a dead end.
The approach I finally figured out is to use the Project Launcher (under the launch button) to create custom cook settings, one of the released game and one per DLC (Patch and DLC support - Platform & Builds - Epic Developer Community Forums).
The other part I hadn’t understood was how to see Plugin Content in the content browser. Bottom right hand corner has “View options” and one of the options is “Show Plugin Content”
When invoking RunUAT you can invoke that particular project launcher custom profile using “-SessionName='MyDLCProfile” on the commandline.
One missing piece seems to be that ability to package non asset directories within your DLC structure. I’m looking into repacking the staged pak file RunUAT produced with the extra content I want. At the moment this is functional - the final pak contains the content - but untested and will wait until many of the other balls I’ve got in the air hit the ground.