You do not need to follow these steps if the plugin loads successfully. If it fails to load, the first step (Artstation version) should be to delete the temporary Binaries and Intermediate directories to be rebuilt, and copy the prebuilt plugin in by running installer.bat or manually copying it from PluginsBuilds_ForDifferentUEVersions\PluginsBuild<UEVersion>.

However, you might want to build the plugin yourself if you want to make changes to the C++ code or make it run on an unsupported engine version. To do this:

• Follow Epic Games’ instructions for setting up Visual Studio for Unreal Engine
• Add a C++ project to your Unreal Engine project by selecting Tools > New C++ Class… (For more info see managing-game-code-in-unreal-engine)
• Build the C++ project in Visual Studio by right clicking your project name (XCC) and selecting Build. This will also build the plugin. For more info see compiling-game-projects-in-unreal-engine-using-cplusplus
• If it succeeds, the last line should say ‘Build: 1 succeeded, 0 failed’ and the uproject can be opened. If it failed, there may be more detail if you scroll up in the text. Send us a screenshot of the errors in the ‘Output’ window if there are any problems and we can help you resolve it.

Common Issues

When trying to Compile for UE 5.0 it fails with errors to do with StringConv.h and the Output log mentions that the Visual Studio compiler is newer than expected

Note this workaround is NOT necessary for UE 5.1 – 5.4 +, only UE 5.0 which is the oldest version of UE that the character creator supports.

If you are building for UE 5.0, UE 5.0 it actually has a dependency on a specific older version of visual studio 2022 and even if you have both an older and newer version of visual studio 2022 installed it will try to use the new one and therefore fail.

To fix this, Add the following to %AppDataRoaming%/Unreal Engine/UnrealBuildTool/BuildConfiguration.xml while you are compiling for UE 5.0 (I recommend remove it after compiling so that it doesn’t impact anything else)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Configuration xmlns="https://www.unrealengine.com/BuildConfiguration">
	<WindowsPlatform>
        	<Compiler>VisualStudio2022</Compiler>
        	<CompilerVersion>14.36.32532</CompilerVersion>
	</WindowsPlatform>
</Configuration>