The instructions on this page are for running the engine with projects compiled in a
Development
build configuration. You can substitute the
UE4Editor-_.exe
or
UE4-_.exe
that you need for opening projects built in other configurations. More information on the binary naming convention can be found on the
Building Unreal Engine
page.
The instructions on this page are for running the engine with projects compiled in a
Development
build configuration. You can substitute the
UE4Editor-_.app
or
UE4-_.app
that you need for opening projects built in other configurations. More information on the binary naming convention can be found on the
Building Unreal Engine
page.
Running the Editor
The process of running the editor simply requires passing the name of the project to run as an argument to the executable.
You can add the
-debug
switch to force the executable to load the debug version of the modules for your project, which contain all of the debugging symbols. This is necessary even when debugging through Xcode with the configuration set to
Debug
because the main executable is always compiled using the
Development
configuration. Of course, you must first compile your modules using the Debug configuration so they exist for the executable to load.
The process of running the editor simply requires passing the name of the project to run as an argument to the executable.
You can add the
-debug
switch to force the executable to load the debug version of the modules for your project, which contain all of the debugging symbols. This is necessary even when debugging through Visual Studio with the configuration set to
Debug
because the main executable is always compiled using the
Development
configuration. Of course, you must first compile your modules using the Debug configuration so they exist for the executable to load.
Running the Editor from the Command Line
From a command prompt, navigate to your
[LauncherInstall]/[VersionNumber]/Engine/Binaries/Mac
directory.
Run the
UE4Editor.app
passing it the path to your project:
open UE4Editor.app --args "[ProjectPath]/[ProjectName].uproject"
From a command prompt, navigate to your
[LauncherInstall][VersionNumber]\Engine\Binaries\Win64
directory.
Run the
UE4Editor.exe,
passing it the path to your project.
From a command prompt, navigate to your
[LauncherInstall][VersionNumber]/Engine/Binaries/Mac
directory.
Run the
UE4Editor.app
passing it the path to the project to run, along with the
-game
parameter
open UE4Editor.app --args "[ProjectPath]/[ProjectName].uproject" -game
Running an Uncooked Game from the Executable
When running from the executable, you must specify the path to the project you want to run along with the
-game
switch as arguments to the executable via the
Target
property of a shortcut.
Navigate to your
[LauncherInstall][VersionNumber]\Engine\Binaries\Win64
directory.
Right-click
on the
UE4Editor.exe
executable and choose
Create shortcut
.
Rename the shortcut to reflect the game it will run, i.e.
MyProject.exe
.
Right-click
on the newly created shortcut and choose
Properties
to display the properties of the shortcut.
Add the full path to the project to run as an argument at the end of the
Target
property, and specify the
-game
argument to run as a game:
See
Packaging Projects
for information on how to package and run cooked game builds
Useful In-Game Commands
When you are running the game, there are a multitude of
console commands
you can use in the console inside the game. The console can be summoned by pressing the
~ (tilde)
or
Tab
keys. Some of the most useful commands are listed below.
EXIT/QUIT
DISCONNECT
OPEN [MapURL]
TRAVEL [MapURL]
VIEWMODE [Mode]
Loading Maps
It is possible to specify a particular map to load when running the engine or editor or load a new map while running the engine. This can be useful for testing by quickly jumping into the map you want to test without needing to make your way through a series of menus.
Loading Maps at Startup
The engine will always attempt to load a default map when it is run. This map is specified in the
DefaultEngine.ini
config file located in the
Config
folder of your game project. The map to run by default is set using the
Map
property in the
[URL]
section of the .ini file. As an example, Vehicle Game has the following in its
DefaultEngine.ini
file:
Map=/Game/Maps/VehicleMenu
This will cause the
VehicleMenu.umap
(located in
[UE4Directory]/VehicleGame/Content/Maps
) to load at startup unless it is overridden. Generally, you will want to specify the map that loads or is used as the background for your main menu as the default map.
To override the default map, you can pass in a map name (without the file extension) as a command line argument. It was mentioned previously that you must specify the project name on the command line. Following these, you can also specify a map name to force the engine to load a map other than the default. For instance, the following command line could be used to load the engine running the
ExampleMap
map:
open UE4Editor.app --args "[ProjectPath]/[ProjectName].uproject" ExampleMap -game
To override the default map, you can pass in a map name (without the file extension) as a command line argument. It was mentioned previously that you must specify the project name on the command line. Following these, you can also specify a map name to force the engine to load a map other than the default. For instance, the following command line could be used to load the engine running the
ExampleMap
map:
The same concept works when running the editor. Specifying the name of the map to load will load that map when the editor opens instead of the default or blank map. To load the editor with the
ExampleMap
map loaded, the following command line can be used:
open UE4Editor.app --args "[ProjectPath]/[ProjectName].uproject" ExampleMap
The map name can also be a full map URL specifying additional settings such as the GameMode. Settings are appended to the map name as key-value pairs separated by a
?
. For example:
DM-Deck?Game=CaptureTheFlag
Loading New Maps
If you want to load a new map during play, in order to test during development or even to switch maps during gameplay, this can be done using the
OPEN
or
TRAVEL
console commands followed by the name of the map (without the file extension) to load.
The difference between the
OPEN
and
TRAVEL
commands is described above in the
Useful In-Game Commands
section.
The commands below load the DM-Deck map during play with the same settings or settings reset, respectively:
open DM-Deck
Or
travel DM-Deck
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