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Installing Night Sky Engine

There are two methods to installing Night Sky Engine: downloading the official release, or building from development source. For those who don't need to touch C++ code, or just want a quick and easy setup, I recommend grabbing the official release. However, if you want to mess around with the engine, or just want the latest changes, you will need to build from source.

Warning

The official release only has support for Windows on x64. While other platforms do work, they are not bunudled with the official release. You will need to build from source for Mac, Linux, or Windows on ARM.

Download Official Release

Starting from version 1.0.1, there are multiple versions of the official release that can be installed: the full project, the low-end project, and the plugin.

  • The full project comes with a ton of example assets to get started with. It is designed for high-end machines, such as more powerful PCs or console.
  • The low-end project comes with the same assets, but is much lighter on the graphics end. It is designed for low-end machines, such as mobile.
  • The plugin is all of the code required to use Night Sky Engine, but without any of the assets.

Full Project

To download the latest full project release, simply download NightSkyEngine.rar from this link.. Then, extract NightSkyEngine.rar using your tool of choice.

Then, you will need to install Unreal Engine 5.7. Details can be found here. After installing Unreal Engine, you may run it, then open NightSkyEngine/NightSkyEngine.uproject from within the editor.

Low-End Project

To download the latest low-end project release, simply download NSELowEnd.rar from this link.. Then, extract NSELowEnd.rar using your tool of choice.

Then, you will need to install Unreal Engine 5.7. Details can be found here. After installing Unreal Engine, you may run it, then open NightSkyEngine/NightSkyEngine.uproject from within the editor.

Plugin

To download the latest plugin release, simply download NSEPlugin.rar from this link.. Then, extract NSEPlugin.rar using your tool of choice.

Then, you will need to install Unreal Engine 5.7. Details can be found here. After installing Unreal Engine, you may run it, then create a new project. Finally, put the contents of NSEPlugin.rar in <Project Folder>\Plugins, so that the NightSkyEngine folder sits within the Plugins folder.

Build From Source

Building from source takes more steps than just downloading the release. You'll need to know how to use Git and Visual Studio (or your IDE of choice).

Clone the Engine

To get Night Sky Engine, use a Git client (such as the official client or Github Desktop) and clone the Night Sky Engine repository at https://github.com/WistfulHopes/NightSkyEngine.git. If using the command line, type in the following:

git clone https://github.com/WistfulHopes/NightSkyEngine.git

Compile the engine

To compile the Night Sky Engine, you will need Unreal Engine 5.7 and Visual Studio. The version of Visual Studio must be 2022. For detailed instructions on installing Visual Studio for use with Unreal Engine, click here.

After Visual Studio is set up, you will need to generate Visual Studio project files for Night Sky Engine. To do so, right-click on NightSkyEngine.uproject, and click on "Generate Visual Studio project files".

There will be a new file in the folder, NightSkyEngine.sln. Open it, and once Visual Studio has loaded, press Ctrl+Shift+B to compile the engine.

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