Visual Studio – C++ – New class files location

Software:
Microsoft Visual Studio 2022

I’m not sure whether this issue is about different settings between VS 2019 and 2022, or old project source folder structure ported to a new VS project,
But I encountered an annoying problem, of newly generated class files that can’t include or be included by other classes that already exist in the project.
Forgetting that the VS explorer window doesn’t display the actual folder structure, it took me some frustrating investigation to find out, that a new class was simply added to the root folder of the project, rather than the ‘Source’ folder within the project folder, where all the other classes are found.

Fix the problem for an existing class:

Move the new files manually to the correct location, and manually update the .vcxproj file with the new path:
The example in this image shows a new class named ‘baba’, that was moved from the root folder to the ‘Source’ folder, so the path was updated accordingly:

Creating a new class:

In the add new class dialog,
Press the file path button for the .h and .cpp files, and select the wanted folder.
Note:
This may be confusing, as after selecting the path, the dialog doesn’t reflect your selection, but it works.

Fun fact?

I did some searching and..
It seems you can’t set the default location for new classes in a VS C++ project..
If you know otherwise, I would be very grateful if you’ll add a comment about this.

UE4 – Loading shaders from within the project folder

Software:
Unreal Engine 4.25

*Also tested on Unreal Engine 5.0.1

Disclaimer:
I’m probably the 10th guy that’s documenting these steps on the web,
I didn’t come up with this solution myself, I learned it from the sources listed below.
The reason I’m documenting this (again) myself is to have a clear source I can come back to for this issue because I’m absolutely incapable of remembering subjects like this…… :-\
If you find inaccuracies in the steps I’m detailing or my explanation, I’ll be very grateful if you share a comment.

  1. https://forums.unrealengine.com/development-discussion/rendering/1562454-virtual-shader-source-path-link-custom-shaders-shadertoy-demo-download
  2. https://dinwy.github.io/study/2019/july/customShaderInUE4/
  3. https://forums.unrealengine.com/community/community-content-tools-and-tutorials/1710373-using-external-shader-files-ush-usf-and-getting-the-most-of-the-custom-node

In short:
AFAIK since version 4.21 UE doesn’t load custom node shader code from your project/Shaders folder by default anymore, but only from the shaders folder in the engine installation, which makes it less practical for developing shaders for specific projects.


Steps for setting the UE project to load shaders from the project folder in UE 4.22:

> The examples here are for a project named: “Tech_Lab”

A. The project must be a C++ project:

So either create a new project, define as such or just create a new C++ class and compile the project with it to convert it to a C++ project.
Notes:
a. You may need to right click the .uproject file icon and and Generate Visual Studio Project Files for the project to load correctly into Visual Studio and compile.
b. You can delete the unneeded C++ class you added after the new settings took place.

B. Create a folder for the shader files:

Typically, it will be called “Shaders” and will be placed in the project root folder.

C. Add the RenderCore module to the project:

This is done by adding string “RenderCore” to array of public dependency modules in the <project>.build.cs file:

PublicDependencyModuleNames.AddRange(new string[] { "RenderCore", "Core", "CoreUObject", "Engine", "InputCore" });
(see image)

Notes:
a. In UE 4.21 it should be ShaderCore.
b. This addition is needed in-order to compile a new primary project module (next step).

D. Define a custom primary module for your project:

In <project_name>.h file add a new module named F<project_name>Module, with a StartupModule function overrides.
Notes:
a. We have add an include statement for “Modules/ModuleManager”.
b. The <project_name>.h file is located in the /Source/<project_name> folder.
c. Some sources state that you also have to override the ShutdownModule function, with an empty override, it works for me without this (maybe its just a mistake..)

E. Implement the function override,
and set the custom module as the project primary module:

In <project_name>.cpp file, add the StartupModule override,
With the definition of the added shaders path:
FString ShaderDirectory = FPaths::Combine(FPaths::ProjectDir(), TEXT("Shaders"));

and mapping this new path as “/Project” for conveniently including it:
AddShaderSourceDirectoryMapping("/Project", ShaderDirectory);

Last thing to do is to replace “FDefaultGameModuleImpl” with our custom module name in the IMPLEMENT_PRIMARY_GAME_MODULE macro:
IMPLEMENT_PRIMARY_GAME_MODULE(FTech_LabModule, Tech_Lab, "Tech_Lab" );

Notes:
a. We must include “Misc/Paths”
b. Note that the addition of this folder mapping is restricted to versions 4.22 and higher via a compiler directive condition. for version 4.21, you should state “ENGINE_MINOR_VERSION >= 21:

Note for UE5:
Unreal Engine 5 supports this from the get go so this compiler directive condition should be deleted for this to work.

F. Wrapping up:

After taking these steps and compiling the project.
You should be able to include .ush and .usf files stored in <your_ue_project>/Shaders with the “Project” path mapping:
include "/Project/test.usf"

That’s it! 🙂

I hope you found this helpful,
And if you encountered errors, or inaccuracies,
I’ll be grateful if you’ll take the time to comment.


Related:

  1. UE4 – Cyber enhancement shader
  2. UE4 – Fog post process effect

Creating a Visual Studio project from existing code

Software:
Visual Studio 2019

Steps for creating a new Visual Studio project based on existing code files:

  1. Create an empty project folder and name it your intended project name.
  2. Inside the new project folder, create a folder for your source code files.
    * I call is “Source”, not sure if it has to named that way..
  3. Copy your existing code files to the source folder.
  4. Launch Visual Studio, and open it without code:
  5. Select:
    File > New > Project From Existing Code..
    To open the Create New Project From Existing Code Files wizard:
  6. Note:
    The documentation on this operation states that the wizard will copy files by itself, my own experience is that it doesn’t, it just links them to the project, that’s why I copy the source files prior to this step.
    In the Create New Project From Existing Code Files wizard,
    1. Set the path to your project folder.
    2. Specify a project name.
    * I set this to be the same name as the project folder name, not sure if otherwise it will create a sub-folder..
    3. This is set to the same folder as the project folder.
    * It’s possible that I don’t understand this correctly.. but I think theoretically, the intention is that you would add external folders to this list, from which source files would be copied, but like I said, when I tried that the files where not copied to the project.
  7. Set your new projects settings and press Finish to create the new project:

Note:
New code files generated in a ported code project may be stored in a wrong folder by default, see this post for solutions.