Continuous integration in games development
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How to implement automatic game development workflow with Jenkins server and Git SCM. Workflow consists of development, building, testing and deployment performed automatically.
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Continuous integration in games development
- 2. Heroes of order & chaos Continuous integration in game development
- 3. Order 1. Idea 2. MVP feature freeze 3. R & D phase 4. Define target HW requirements 5. Predict performance optimisation (optional) 6. Develop & deploy
- 4. Chaos 1. Development w/o source control a. Impossible code undo b. Impossible concurrent development c. No development history 2. Development w/o unit tests a. Time loss due to manual testing b. Regression bugs 3. Manual deployment
- 5. Discipline Your source code BEATING THE CHAOS Based on Vincent Driessen’s post.
- 6. Define Your labeling scheme X.Y.Z release feature hotfix
- 7. GitFlow - Main branches
- 8. GitFlow - Supporting branches features hotfixes
- 10. GitFlow clients For lazy developers For hard-cores
- 11. Automate! SPEEDING UP THE ORDER
- 12. Continuous integration (CI) Automation of the following steps: integrate (GitFlow) build test deploy
- 13. Prerequisites Jenkins Git Extensions Java Unity 3d Every specific platform requires its own topics. For example, android builds require android SDK to be installed on computer and set up in Unity. You MUST make sure it works before setting up build server.
- 15. Triggering build on commit 1. Install git-client plugin on Jenkins ● Plugin url: https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Git+Client+Plugin 2. Navigate to .git folder of Your repo 3. Enter HOOKS sub-folder 4. Edit post-commit hook: ● curl http://yourserver/jenkins/git/notifyCommit?url=<URL of the Git repository>
- 16. Running Unity3d build from Jenkins 1. Install Unity3dBuilder plugin in Jenkins ● Plugin url: https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Unity3dBuilder+Plugin 2. Add “Invoke Unity editor” build step in Jenkins with following command: ● -quit -batchmode -nographics -executeMethod BuildScripts.BuildWebPlayer -projectPath [full project path] 3. Implement method BuildScripts.BuildWebPlayer in Unity3D project ● see appendix A for sample source code } Based on the GranCruGames blog. ● NOTE: If You don’t want to customize Your build with own script, You can use something like: ○ -quit -batchmode -projectPath "$WORKSPACE" -buildWindowsPlayer "Artifacts/game.x86.exe" -logFile "$WORKSPACE/unity3d_editor.log"
- 17. Unit testing after build from Jenkins 1. Install Unity Test Tools from Asset Store ● Plugin url: https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/13802 2. Implement some unit tests in Your Unity project 3. Add “Invoke Unity editor” build step with following command: ● -batchmode -executeMethod UnityTest.Batch.RunUnitTests -quit -resultFilePath=”$WORKSPACETestsUnitresult.xml” Based on the RamblingCoder’s channel.
- 18. Deploy after test from Jenkins 1. Install SSH Publish plugin in Jenkins ● Plugin url: https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/Publish+Over+SSH+Plugin 2. Configure SSH Server 3. Add SSH file transfer build step }
- 19. Report NUnit testing results 1. Install NUnit plugin in Jenkins ● Plugin url: https://wiki.jenkins-ci.org/display/JENKINS/NUnit+Plugin 2. Add “Publish NUnit test result report” post-build action: Based on the RamblingCoder’s channel.
- 20. The end result
- 21. Summary Why practice GitFlow? Why use CI?
- 22. Thanks!
- 23. Appendix A Source code for custom build script: using UnityEditor; using System; class BuildScript { static void BuildWebPlayer () { string buildTarget = System.Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("UNITY_BUILD_TARGET"); if (buildTarget == null || buildTarget.Length == 0) { throw new Exception("UNITY_BUILD_TARGET -system property not defined, aborting."); } string[] scenes = { "Assets/Level0.unity", "Assets/Level1.unity", "Assets/Level2.unity", "Assets/Level3.unity" }; string error = BuildPipeline.BuildPlayer(scenes, buildTarget, BuildTarget.WebPlayerStreamed, BuildOptions.None); if (error != null && error.Length > 0) { throw new Exception("Build failed: " + error); } }
Editor's Notes
- Hi everybody and welcome to my presentation. I am Nebojsa Brindic from Bincode Entertainment. We are gaming startup which develops AAA games for mobile devices. Our project “Svarog: The Awakening”, is recently funded by Eleven Accelerator. It’s an RPG game based on Slavic mythology.
- We were brave enough to jump into game industry right from the world of business apps, and, while facing many new, unknown challenges, we slowly started to apply our software experience in the development of aforementioned gaming project. That is actually our topic for today. The topic that is less known about, but the topic which saves You a lot of headaches. And that is continuous integration. I will not start with the definitions. It’s better to start just as the gaming project should start.
- First of all, You got an idea that will blow the market and earn millions of dollars. Ideas are usually so wide and so full of details, that You will need 100-people team in order to develop it. And, althought You think Your idea is nothing but failure without any of these cool features, You have to be aware that You are walking on the thin string which will break sooner or later. So what is the solution? Sit back, relax Yourself, and think about minimum set of features that, together, can constitute smaller, playable game. It’s not that this game will be blockbuster like Your final idea, but think about the featureset that can be at least good enough to have some minimal user base. And, once You know all the features in your MVP (minimum viable product), LOCK THEM! Do not allow anyone or anything to change Your mind and push You in the direction of adding new features. Because You will be literally dead if You do so. Actually - You will enter the never-ending development cycle. When You finally understood the importance of this, and once You locked the features, go on with research & development. Here You have to examine and investigate all the potential glitches and challenges You will face during the development. Use Google. Ask some experienced developers about Your doubts. The point is to make Your ground stable. This step will usually give You the answers on the questions like: which technology we will use to develop code, how we will test, which formats of UI sketches do the programmers need, how to import animations in dev environment, et cetera. This will lead You on the next step, and that is - what is Your target hardware? If You do not care about Samsung S3, S4, and S5, and You want to develop only for S6+, You will have much more computation resources available, so You will save precious time by ignoring some optimisations. If, on the other hand, You care about lower performance devices, You will have to do a research about how to boost performance of Your game. In the end, with all the knowledge You gathered, You can start. And here comes the trouble :-)
- From order, we are jumping directly into chaos. Actually, it will become chaos if You do these things. The worst thing one developer in the 21st century can do is to develop without source control. If he does this, he is not good developer. If You ask why, well - first of all - You can make a mistake without worry that something will be lost. Furthermore - it’s incredibly simple to develop same code in parallel with other developers. When You finally realized the importance of source code management, You have to know that testing is also crucial aspect of development. Unit tests became so useful and so big time-saviors, that You really wish to incorporate them into Your development. Because they largely free You from stupid and time-consuming manual testing of Your code. And they make sure that Your code will be tested with each new feature and upgrade. When everything is in place, and the game is developed and tested, it should be deployed. In many cases, deployment requires numerous configurations and repetitive procedures. It is pointless to do it each time manually, both because of time and because of possible errors due to human factor.
- So, how to beat the chaos? First, let’s see how we should organize our source code development.
- The first step in ordering Your chaos is to define Your labeling scheme. The way we work in our company is as simple as possible: First number marks the release, second number marks the feature, and the third marks the hotfix. Have on mind that this is not decimal notation, so You can easily see the labels such like 3.231.44.
- Then, we start with source control management. In this talk, we will use git, as it is used by us in Bincode. And we will present GitFlow branching strategy, as it is by far the most advanced strategy which gives You great structure and big discipline. The idea is to use develop branch as the unique place for development purposes. For adding new features, for correcting some development bugs, for literally everything related to development. Once You reach some reasonable feature set You planned, merge develop branch to master, and tag it with release mark. The outcome of this procedure is that master branch will always contain ONLY stable releases.
- Now, let’s assume You want to add new feature. You will use new branch from develop for every new feature. When You finish with it, just merge it back with develop branch. So, imagine that You’ve added 4 features, and now You want to do a release. You will merge develop branch with master. After one month of production use by some of Your clients, You got a feedback that there is a bug with some calculations when You press “OK” on the form for invoices. It’s urgent to fix. OK. Responsible developer will make new branch from master branch for that bug correction. After bug correction, hotfix branch is merged back to master, and that commit will be tagged appropriately.
- This is pretty much everything about source code order. On this image You can see one more branch, and that is release branch. Personally, I don’t use it, but it is good when You want to keep track of release notes, etc. Generally, the point of GitFlow is to give You well-structured and disciplined code base. And it certainly does it.
- There are some tools which can speed up Your branching, without letting You to enter all the git commands in shell. SourceTree is GUI tool by Atlassian, and it’s very user-friendly and idiot-proof. And so is git-flow cheatsheet, but it is set of shell commands that simplify raw git commands. So - use them as You wish ;-)
- The second aspect of development boosting is - automation. It is the thing that will speed up Your development and bring You the production like on the conveyor belt.
- We have seen how we can develop in disciplined manner, but what after that? You have to build Your code, to test it, and to deploy it. Those are all candidates for automation. In the examples we will use Jenkins CI server, exactly the same server like we use in our development infrastructure.
- These are the prerequisites in order to turn the computer into game build server. It’s good to mention that, when installing Unity, it’s not enough to just install it. If Your project is android, or iOS-based, each of these platforms require their own specific setup procedures and possibly SDK-s to download and setup. Please reffer to platform documentation in order to setup unity properly.
- So how the infrastructure looks like? Firt of all - we have centralized git repository, where all the code changes are commited by all the developers. The idea behind automation is to do the build, test and deploy each time the code is commited. By doing that, You will make sure that each change will satisfy the tests without errors, and that You will always have the last version deployed somewhere on Your test servers. Without a single minute spent by You or any of the developers on deployment, testing or building.
- So let’s dive into the procedure. As soon as code is commited, git should trigger jenkins server, which will checkout last code, build it with Unity, send it to testing, and deploy output files. This is done via git hooks. Actually - post-commit hook. Post-commit hook will be called each time git repository is commited to. Hook is simply the set of custom shell commands. In this situation, we want to inform Jenkins server that our repository has new commit. We are doing curl web call to Jenkins’ git plugin API. As our Jenkins project is set to checkout from this repository, it will automatically trigger whole procedure.
- After hook has triggered the procedure, our code will be checked-out, and building should start. For this purpose, we need Unity 3d Builder plugin. It will allow us to define Unity Editor invocation, where we will invoke our unity command line, and build project from there. Have on mind that You can either build the project with default factory settings, or build the project with Your custom build scripts. Consult Appendix A for sample build script.
- After the code-building step, we will define testing step with the use of Unity Test Tools. The procedure is the same as in previous step, but only the command is slightly different, and we should implement our test cases using Unity Test Tools.
- In the end - we have compiled and tested code. We want to deploy. I am just giving You the idea with this SSH plugin, but You should implement this step according to Your needs. You can make a set of shell commands that do the FTP host, SCP host, or something else. I will leave that to You for homework :-)
- As the final step, we want to have nice graphic report which gives us an insight into build & testing status. With the use of NUnit plugin for Jenkins, we can get exactly what we want.
- This is the end result. Here You can see how the system looks like after all of these setups. You have build history section, You have testing report, and You can download each build. That’s exactly what we wanted, isn’t it?
- So, this is it. In the end, I want to say again that implementing GitFlow in Your development gives You the ordered, structured and disciplined routine. You cannot get lost in such environment. And with the use of CI server, You saved Yourself precious time previously used on testing and deployment. That is gone now. You can finally concentrate on development.
- Thank You for listening!