Last post I went into details of how I “side loaded” Oculus Quest games for free from my Linux (Ubuntu 18.04) gaming laptop, but this time I want to get into developing MY OWN VR content. In order to do this, I’ve found myself a great discussion board post on the Developer forum to follow along with that goes into how to build your own game AND deploy it!
And if I find out the this laptop is incompatible with Kubuntu, then I’ll be installing a second SSD to dual-boot Windows 10 that I’ll try again on.
The first thing the article said to do is follow the two official guides on how to build and run UE4 on Linux, and how to set up Android development on Linux. It also said I may need this guide on how to set up Qt Creator. Before getting started on those, I read through the author’s list of warnings and problems he ran into to hopefully help me get through this easier.
I started off by signing up for a UE account, creating and setting up a github account, and downloading the git account on Linux with the terminal lines below.
sudo apt-get update; sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:git-core/ppa
sudo apt update; sudo apt install gitThere are even several Linux git GUIs to choose from since GitHub Desktop is Windows and Mac OS only. I decided to go with SmartGit since it is highly rated and cross platform, so if I like it enough I can use it on Windows and Mac as well.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:eugenesan/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install smartgit
sudo apt-get install smartgithgUnfortunately, the installation via command line failed, so I downloaded the .deb package from SmartGit’s downloads section and installed with the following commands.
sudo apt install ~/Downloads/smartgit-19_1_4.debAfter that SmartGit successfully launched and walked me through the setup process! Rejoice!
To clone the Unreal Engine repo to SmartGit, I went to “Repository -> Clone…” and added GitHub as a hosting provider. All I had to do was click “Generate API Token” and click through the on-screen prompts. After it was connected to my GitHub, I selected the UnrealEngine repository to clone.
After the repository downloaded, I officially have the Unreal Engine source code on my laptop itself. Now to finish the setup I ran the following commands:
UnrealEngine/./Setup.sh
UnrealEngine/./GenerateProjectFiles.sh
cd UnrealEngine
make
It only took….18,230 seconds, which is only 5 hours. Good thing I left it overnight!
Time to launch Unreal Engine, configure it, and then continue on to setting up Qt Creator and Android on Linux!
cd Engine/Binaries/Linux/
./UE4EditorOkay, so I got the following error and then installed Vulkan per this thread’s advice.
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa; sudo apt upgrade
sudo apt install libvulkan1 mesa-vulkan-drivers vulkan-utilsThen I got this………. -_-
So I heeded the advice of this forum post and ignored the Vulkan check to open the software (./UE4Editor -opengl4) and got THIS ERROR 0_o
It’s at this point that I realize my problem is likely an incompatible graphics card, so obviously I will need to buy a kicka$$ laptop and come back to this later (check out my post on My NEW Linux (Kubuntu 18.04) Laptop OF GLORY!!!).
ALRGHT I’m back with my new laptop! I literally just pulled up this post, followed the steps. and BOOM–IT WORKS!!!
REJOICE!!! ….and then this. FML
It still let me load though so I went ahead and started a VR Phone project, because why not?
This post has been long enough already, so I’ll end it here. Next time I’ll explore the Unreal Engine 4 editor and troubleshoot along the way, and then HOPEFULLY make and load my first ever VR content!!!
