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Building an Unreal project

How programming engineers compile and launch Rephrased_Demo through Visual Studio. This is the preferred path for engineers on this team.

Install Visual Studio and the engine first — Developer setup (UE 5.8, VS 2026, .vsconfig).

Designers and artists use the scripted build instead — Building Rephrased.

Generate project files (first clone)

Rephrased_Demo.sln is not checked into Git. On a fresh clone:

  1. Right-click Rephrased_Demo.uproject → Generate Visual Studio project files, or
  2. Open the project once from the Epic Launcher (generates files as a side effect).

Then open Rephrased_Demo.sln in Visual Studio 2026.

Visual Studio workflow

  1. Set configuration to Development Editor and platform to Win64.
  2. In Solution Explorer, right-click Rephrased_Demo → Set as Startup Project.
  3. Ctrl+Shift+B to build. F5 to launch the editor with the debugger attached.

First full compile on a fresh machine often takes 10–20 minutes. Incremental builds are usually 1–3 minutes.

Verify the build worked

  • Visual Studio reports Build succeeded for Development Editor | Win64.
  • Unreal Editor opens and loads the project without a module-missing dialog.
  • Open Rune Showcase in Content Browser → Content/Levels/, press Play (PIE), and confirm WASD movement and interact input respond.
  • On failure, attach the latest log from Saved/Logs/ when asking for help.

Editor panel basics: Unreal Editor 101.

Live Coding (small C++ changes only)

  1. With the editor already open, change C++ in Visual Studio and save.
  2. In the Unreal Editor toolbar, use Compile or Ctrl+Alt+F11.

Live Coding does not support adding new UPROPERTY, UFUNCTION, or classes, or changing constructors. Close the editor and rebuild from Visual Studio for structural changes.

Common issues

"Unable to unlink old file"

Close Unreal Editor completely, wait a few seconds, and rebuild.

Compilation is slow

First build after a clean pull compiles the full module. Later incremental builds are much faster.

Change history

  • 2026-08-12 — Gabriel Li — VS 2026 + UE 5.8.
  • 2026-05-23 — Gabriel Li — Default engineer PIE level Rune Showcase; moved from standalone quick build guide into Unreal basics onboarding.