Version control addon

This addon tries to implement generic API for various version control system.

Currently contains WIP implementation of Perforce, but there might be more in the future which should follow same API methods.

Implementation tries to use only single dependency p4python which is binary dependent on version of python used. Which might be different in different DCCs, different versions of Unreal etc.

To mitigate need of having binary compatible p4python libraries addon currently implements REST api to run p4 commands only on separate webserver started by AYON Tray which contains p4python library installed via dependency package and REST stub class which might be used in each DCC that has requests library.

Configuration of connection to Perforce server

Addons offers configuration of credentials to P4 server with username and password on multiple levels via Studio(single credentials), Project (credentials different per project) or Site settings(credentials different per artist.)

Perforce workspace

It is expected that P4 workspaces would be setup and existing on artists machines. Each artist then only provides path to their locally accessible P4 workspace folder in Site Settings.

Main functionalities for Perforce

This addons contains two main functionality for slightly different use cases:

• create separate version controlled streams from AYON of published products in Perforce
• help with Deadline rendering of Unreal projects with Perforce

It is expected that majority work for Perforce with Unreal project files are done with official Perforce tools like P4V or command line utility. Neither of those are distributed by addon and it is required for IT department to install/configure them.

Commits to Perforce

This approach allows to copy version control not only in AYON, where each publish results in new version of published product, but committing this version directly to Perforce.

That way versions of particular product are separately kept in Perforce, from which ordinary Perforce tools could be used (P4V) to pull latest version of published product.

Profiles could be used to limit which published products should be committed to Perforce.

As Perforce controlled product doesn't contain version name directly in its name nor path, additional AYON template must be configured in Project's Anatomy > Templates.

New template must follow Hero template - https://ayon.ynput.io/docs/artist_concepts/#hero-version approach, Hero template could beu used directly too (if it is matching required folder structure in Perforce)

Support for Unreal and Deadline

The other workflow is to help rendering Unreal from Perforce on Deadline rendering farm.

In this use case there is an expection that multiple artists are working on Unreal project with standard utilization of P4 or Unreal P4 official plugin to checkout/commit any modifications to Unreal project to Perforce.

Addons offers additional possibility to mark current stage of Unreal project, eg. latest commit/changelist, as 'published' and store its metadata in AYON for possible future workflows and enhancements.

New additional mini tool is provided for artists before they open Unreal via AYON launcher which allows them to P4 sync (not checkout - that would lock the files) to any previously published version before Unreal is actually opened.

This marker, or tag, points to commit/changelist and could be pushed to Deadline integration where Deadline syncs to this particular commit before rendering.

This requires to have AYON integration to Deadline installed. Please check https://ayon.ynput.io/docs/addon_deadline_admin for more details.

Usage of Perforce in Deadline submissions could be controlled by toggling on/off of automatically created instance of changelist_metadata product type in AYON Publisher.