ShaderDirectoryMapper

Unreal Engine plugin for automatically registering plugin and project shaders.

Motivation

In order to use custom shaders, the engine expects them to be located in a directory virtually mapped with the shader compiler.
While it's easy to add virtual shader directories, it can be a bit tedious.

• Requires code compilation so doesn't work with Content only plugins.
• At minimum it requires to add Plugin.build.cs, PluginModule.cpp and module dependencies.
  And this setup has to be repeated for every plugin that uses custom shaders!

How it Works

The plugin hooks into module loading phase complete event and checks all enabled plugins and project for /Shaders directory. If it finds any relevant directory and it's not already registered by the plugin itself, it adds virtual mapping for it.

• Plugins paths are registered with /Plugin/{PluginName} prefix.
• Game/project path is registered with /Game prefix.

Note The shader directory name should be "Shaders"

Example

For a plugin named "TestPlugin" and directory structure

TestPlugin
    -> Shaders
        -> Test.ush

The virtual path would be "/Plugin/TestPlugin" and header include path would be "/Plugin/TestPlugin/Test.ush"

For a project named "MyProject" and directory structure

MyProject
    -> Shaders
        -> Test.ush

The virtual path would be "/Game" and header include path would be "/Game/Test.ush"

Settings

The plugin settings can be configured from ProjectSettings->Plugins->Shader Directory Mapper page, which allows to disable certain plugins or only register specified plugins.

Contributions

Special thanks to Victor Careil for suggesting virtual shader path prefixes.