Can I Open and Unreal Engine Project in Android Studio to Build an App Bundle?

I just want to know what needs to be done (and if it’s realistically possible without messing stuff up) to open an Unreal Engine project in Android Studio to then build from that program.

Still looking for an answer elsewhere, but I’m trying to find a way to make the Android App Bundle. I can currently package and deploy my project directly from Unreal Engine without issues, and I’m aware that Unreal Engine itself doesn’t currently support Android App Bundle as a packaging option.

However, Android Studio does. If I can open my Unreal Engine project, or a built APK and work it back into an Android Studio project to re-build it as an App Bundle, that would be a working (if roundabout) solution. I just don’t have the experience with Android Studio to know if this is feasible, and thought I’d ask before spending further hours learning about Android Studio if it’s only delaying progress elsewhere.

Hi.
From the Open File or Project menu, navigate to C:\YourProjectName\Intermediate\Android\APK\Gradle and select the Gradle directory, then press the OK button.

link 2 documentation

Thank you for that!
I didn’t realize it was that simple. Never thought to look under debugging, but that makes sense. Haven’t made anything with major complications that required in-depth debugging yet, so I’ll bookmark that link for reference moving forward.

Thanks again!

Hi fynjy_ac!
I’m in the middle of trying to Android App Bundles working too! Thanks for the pointing to that documentation. I’m having an issue when trying to bundle though. I’m getting an error where it says Gradle Sync Failed because we’re not supposed to specificy minSDK and targetSDK versions in the manifest. These manifests come straight from Unreal though and I’ve seen documentation about how you’re not supposed to edit these by hand. Any thoughts? Sorry, I’m super new to building for Android and there doesn’t seem to much documentation about this stuff. Thanks for the help!

-Sam

Hi. Try this.
You need click on link “Remove minSdk and sync project”. Then you will see 3 files in the tree view: “app-app”, “downloader library” and “permission library”. Next, in each files, you need remove 1 line in code, where min and target sdk.

Hey fynjy_ac,
It worked! Thanks so much for the pointer! After some stumbling around Android Studio and a few hurdles, I managed get a playable build downloaded from the Google Play store on my Android device. In addition to removing those lines of code, I had to:

  • make sure “Package game data inside APK?” was enabled in Unreal’s project settings since Android App Bundles don’t support expansion OBBs.
  • I also had to optimize package size to under 150 megs.
  • Upgrade Gradle plugin and Gradle to the right combination of versions. (Gradle Plugin to version 3.4.2, Gradle to 5.1.1, for Android Studio 3.4.2 under File>Project Structure)

This wasn’t very straight forward. Hopefully this helpful so some other folks.

Thanks again, fynjy_ac!

Just to confirm, it seems like APKs with OBBs aren’t supported at all anymore?

-Sam

Hopefully this helps.

How To Bundle UE4 Project With Android Studio Update
How To Bundle UE4 Project With Android Studio Update - YouTube