How to use Git for Unity3D source control

Question

What are best practices for using Git source control with Unity 3D  particularly in dealing with the binary nature of Unity 3D projects  Please describe the workflow  what paths would be included in  gitignore  what settings should be set in Unity and or the project  and any other special things that should be noted   Note  I realize that using the Asset Server is the Unity-recommended way  but I would like to use Git for a variety of reasons  Please no answers that state or argue that I should just use the Asset Server  The Asset Server really isn t an option for me

User · Accepted Answer

The following is an excerpt from my personal blog    Using Git with 3D Games  Update Oct 2015  GitHub has since released a plugin for Git called Git LFS that directly deals with the below problem  You can now easily and efficiently version large binary files   Git can work fine with 3D games out of the box  However the main caveat here is that versioning large   5 nbsp MB  media files can be a problem over the long term as your commit history bloats  We have solved this potential issue in our projects by only versioning the binary asset when it is considered final  Our 3D artists use Dropbox to work on WIP assets  both for the reason above and because it s much faster and simpler  not many artists will actively want to use Git      Git Workflow  Your Git workflow is very much something you need to decide for yourself given your own experiences as a team and how you work together  However  I would strongly recommend the appropriately named Git Flow methodology as described by the original author here   I won t go into too much depth here on how the methodology works as the author describes it perfectly and in quite few words too so it s easy to get through  I have been using with my team for awhile now  and it s the best workflow we ve tried so far   Git GUI Client Application  This is really a personal preference here as there are quite a few options in terms of Git GUI or whether to use a GUI at all  But I would like to suggest the free SourceTree application as it plugs in perfectly with the Git Flow extension  Read the SourceTree tutorial here on implementing the Git Flow methodology in their application   Unity3D Ignore Folders  For an up to date version checkout Github maintained Unity gitignore file without OS specifics                         Unity generated                       Temp  Library                                               Visual Studio   MonoDevelop generated                                             ExportedObj  obj    svd   userprefs    csproj   pidb   suo    sln   user   unityproj   booproj                     OS generated                     DS Store  DS Store       Spotlight-V100  Trashes ehthumbs db Thumbs db   Unity3D Settings  For versions of Unity 3D v4 3 and up     Skip this step in v4 5 and up  Enable External option in Unity   Preferences   Packages   Repository   Open the Edit menu and pick Project Settings   Editor    Switch Version Control Mode to Visible Meta Files  Switch Asset Serialization Mode to Force Text   Save the scene and project from File menu      Want you migrate your existing repo to LFS   Check out my blog post for steps on how to do it here   Additional Configuration  One of the few major annoyances one has with using Git with Unity3D projects is that Git doesn t care about directories and will happily leave empty directories around after removing files from them  Unity3D will make   meta files for these directories and can cause a bit of a battle between team members when Git commits keep adding and removing these meta files   Add this Git post-merge hook to the   git hooks  folder for repositories with Unity3D projects in them  After any Git pull merge  it will look at what files have been removed  check if the directory it existed in is empty  and if so delete it

User · Answer

I suggest that you make a  gitignore file that includes everything other than the assets folder  all the other files that are originally inside a unity project   Next  you should place all your game projects in one folder  Next  duplicate the  gitignore in every single project folder for your games  This will exclude the libraries and unnecessary folders inside your projects other than the assets  If you have any projects you don t want  then put them in a new  gitignore inside where your game projects are stored  Note  You can have multiple  gitignore s and  gitignore is based on relative paths  I hope that helped

User · Answer

Only the Assets and ProjectSettings folders need to be under git version control   You can make a gitignore like this    Ll ibrary   Tt emp   Oo bj     Autogenerated VS MD solution and project files   csproj   unityproj   sln   suo   userprefs    Mac  DS Store   swp   swo  Thumbs db Thumbs db meta   vs

User · Answer

I wanted to add a very simple workflow from someone who has been frustrated with git in the past  There are several ways to use git  probably the most common for unity are GitHub Desktop  Git Bash and GitHub Unity   https   assetstore unity com packages tools version-control github-for-unity-118069    Essentially they all do the same thing but its user choice  You can have git for large file setup which allows 1GB free large file storage with additional storage available in data packs for  4 mo for 50GB  and this will allow you to push files  100mb to remote repositories  it stores the actual files on a server and in your repo a pointer   https   git-lfs github com   If you don t want to setup lfs for whatever reason you can scan your projects for files   128 mb in windows by typing size large in the directory where you have your project  This can be handy to search for large files  although there may be some files between 100mb and 128mb that get missed     The general format of git bash is  git add    adds files to be commited   git commit -m  message   commits the files with a message  they are still on your pc and not in the remote repo  basically they have been  versioned  as a new commit   git push  push files to the repository   The disadvantage of git bash for unity projects is that if there is a file   100mb  you won t get an error until you push  You then have to undo your commit by resetting your head to the previous commit  Kind of a hassle  especially if you are new with git bash   The advantage of GitHub Desktop  is BEFORE you commit files with 100mb it will give you a popup error message  You can then shrink those files or add them to a  gitignore file   To use a  gitignore file  create a file called  gitignore in your local repository root directory  Simply add the files one line at a time you would like to omit  SharedAssets and other non-Asset folder files can usually be omitted and will automatically repopulate in the editor  packages can be re-imported etc   You can also use wildcards to exclude file types   If other people are using your GitHub repo and you want to clone or pull you have those options available to you as well on GitHub desktop or Git bash   I did not mention much about Unity GitHub package where you can use GitHub in the editor because personally I did not find the interface very useful  and I don t think overall its going to help anyone get familiar with git  but this is just my preference

User · Answer

In Unity 4 3 you also had to enable External option from preferences  but since Unity 4 5 they dropped option for that  so full setup process looks like    Switch to Visible Meta Files in Editor   Project Settings   Editor   Version Control Mode Switch to Force Text in Editor   Project Settings   Editor   Asset Serialization Mode Save scene and project from File menu   Also our team is using a bit more extended  gitignore file                         Unity generated                       Temp  Library                                               Visual Studio   MonoDevelop generated                                             ExportedObj  obj    svd   userprefs    csproj   pidb   suo    sln   user   unityproj   booproj                     OS generated                     DS Store  DS Store       Spotlight-V100  Trashes ehthumbs db Thumbs db   Note that the only folders you need to keep under source control are Assets and ProjectSettings   More information about keeping Unity Project under source control you can find in this post

User · Answer

You can use Github for Unity  a Unity Extension that brings the git workflow into the UI of Unity   Github for Unity just released version 1 0 of the extension     It uses git-lfs  git large file support  to properly store big assets File Locking so that nobody else overwrites your asset commits Push and Pull to from any remote repository You can also download it in the Unity Asset Store  https   assetstore unity com packages tools version-control github-for-unity-118069

User · Answer

What is GIT    Git is a free and open source  distributed version control system  SCM  developed by Linus Torvalds in 2005   Linux OS founder   It is created to control everything rom small to large projects with speed and efficiency  Leading companies like Google  Facebook  Microsoft uses GIT everyday   If you want to learn more about GIT check this Quick tutorial   First of all make sure you have your Git environment set up You need to set up both your local environment and a Git repository  I prefer Github com    GIT client application Mac Windows  For GIT gui client application i recommended you to go with Github com   GitHub is the place to share code with friends  co-workers  classmates  and complete strangers  Over five million people use GitHub to build amazing things together   Unity3d settings   You need to do these settings   Switch to Visible Meta Files in Edit   Project Settings   Editor   Version Control Mode     Enable External option in Unity   Preferences   Packages   Repository      Switch to Force Text in Edit   Project Settings   Editor   Asset Serialization Mode     Source  Using Git With 3D Games Source Control

User · Answer

Unity also Provide its own Source version control  before unity5 it was unityAsset Server but now its depreciated  and launch a new SVN control system called unity collaborate but the main problem using unity and any SVN is committing and merging scene   but Non of svn give us way to solve this kind of conflicts or merge scene   so depend upon you which SVN you are familiar with   I am using SmartSVN tool on Mac   and turtle on windows

User · Answer

We now have seamless integration to unity with Github to Unity extension    https   unity github com   The new GitHub for Unity extension brings the GitHub workflow and more to Unity  providing support for large files with Git LFS and file locking   At the time of writing the project is in alpha  but is still usable for personal projects

User · Answer

Just adding in on the subjet of Gitignore  The recommended way only ignores Library and Temp  if its wihtin root of your git project  if you are like me and sometimes need unity project to be a part of the repo  not the whole of the repo  the correct strings in gitignore would be       Tt emp     Ll ibrary     Bb uild

User · Answer

I would rather prefer that you use BitBucket  as it is not public and there is an official tutorial by Unity on Bitbucket   https   unity3d com learn tutorials topics cloud-build creating-your-first-source-control-repository  hope this helps

User · Answer

The main things to remember when using git for unity-3d source code version control    A  DO NOT check-in the Library folder  I have made this mistake multiple times in past and have suffered for it  Delete OR move out library folder before adding your project   files into git    B  Use  Visible Meta Files  - for newest unity versions - 5 3 4 and above this happens by default  For some of the earlier versions you need to change the settings under   Edit-  Project Settings-  Version Control   C  Use a  gitignore file for Unity- to make sure sanity is maintained and files are not unnecessarily added- if on android   tizen - add rules to exclude APK and TPK files from being added to repository  Google around for a  gitignore file for unity OR else use this model  gitignore for Unity provided by GitHub  https   github com github gitignore blob master Unity gitignore   D  Make sure the  gitignore file is added to the repository as the first file added - because in past I personally have missed adding  gitignore file  Have many thoughts in hindsight on why this happened- but nowadays I just copy and add  gitignore file as first step of setting up repository   So    to make a Unity project ready for git  do the following    1  Go to project folder   2  Type git init     3  Copy the  gitignore file  On MacOS  cp   Downloads  gitignore On Windows  copy c  Users yourusername  Downloads gitignore     4  git add  gitignore   5  git add    Hope this helps    all the best

User · Answer

To add to everything stated  it is also ideal to use git lfs with Unity  I have been using this since it came out and I had no trouble with it   You will want to add this  gitattributes next to your  gitignore file    cs diff csharp text   cginc text   shader text    mat merge unityyamlmerge eol lf   anim merge unityyamlmerge eol lf   unity merge unityyamlmerge eol lf   prefab merge unityyamlmerge eol lf   physicsMaterial2D merge unityyamlmerge eol lf   physicsMaterial merge unityyamlmerge eol lf   asset merge unityyamlmerge eol lf   meta merge unityyamlmerge eol lf   controller merge unityyamlmerge eol lf    a filter lfs diff lfs merge lfs -text   mp3 filter lfs diff lfs merge lfs -text   wav filter lfs diff lfs merge lfs -text   aif filter lfs diff lfs merge lfs -text   ttf filter lfs diff lfs merge lfs -text   png filter lfs diff lfs merge lfs -text   jpg filter lfs diff lfs merge lfs -text   exr filter lfs diff lfs merge lfs -text   fbx filter lfs diff lfs merge lfs -text   FBX filter lfs diff lfs merge lfs -text   rns filter lfs diff lfs merge lfs -text   reason filter lfs diff lfs merge lfs -text   lxo filter lfs diff lfs merge lfs -text   That is my rolling file list  If you use additional binary files not listed  add them   I also have files configured to use yamlmerge  you would need to set this up  You can read about it here  http   docs unity3d com Manual SmartMerge html

User · Answer

I thought that I might post a simpler  gitignore for anyone that is interested     Ignore Everything       Except for these     gitignore   Assets   Packages   ProjectSettings

User · Answer

Edit - gt  Project Settings - gt  Editor  Set Version Control to meta files  Set Asset Serialization to force text   I think this is what you want

[git] How to use Git for Unity3D source control?

Using Git with 3D Games

Git Workflow

Git GUI Client Application

Unity3D Ignore Folders

Unity3D Settings

Want you migrate your existing repo to LFS?

Additional Configuration

Examples related to git

Examples related to unity3d

Examples related to version-control