Quick start

Updated July 2026

This guide takes a studio from zero to a working Dousen pipeline: an account, a configured project, DousenDesktop on each artist machine, and the optional Unreal plugin.

Cloud self-serve signup is currently closed during a free studio beta — accounts are provisioned manually. Studios request access rather than filling in a signup form. See Early access.

Setup

  1. Get an account.

    Cloud: request access, and a studio instance is provisioned for you. Self-hosted: run the server with Docker Compose — the full walkthrough is on the Self-hosted install page. Either way, the server listens on port 8080.

  2. Configure the project in the web admin portal.

    Open http://<server>:8080/portal/ and sign in. From there you can create users, create a project and set its Jira project key, edit the naming-convention, validator, and pipeline-settings YAML, and review validation history. Connect Jira by adding the /webhooks/jira webhook in your Jira project.

  3. Install DousenDesktop on each artist machine.

    The Windows installer (NSIS) bundles the app, the DCC addons, and the Unreal plugin. Auto-update is built in, so artists stay current automatically.

  4. Run the first-launch onboarding wizard.

    On first run, DousenDesktop opens a full-window setup: Server (Dousen Cloud or self-hosted) → Jira credentials → Version Control → Workspace (a Perforce workspace created from the project's depot path) → Unreal Project → DCC Applications (auto-discovered; tick the ones to use). Sign-in can be browser-based (secure OAuth) or direct. An admin can pre-fill all of this with a config bundle — a dropped dousen-config.json or a --config-url link; see The desktop app.

  5. Launch DCCs from DousenDesktop.

    DCC addons auto-connect to the local bridge relay on 127.0.0.1:8766. DousenDesktop launches each DCC with its addon already injected — the artist just confirms each DCC's executable path in Settings → DCC Apps (paths are auto-discovered) and launches from DousenDesktop.

  6. (Optional) Add the Unreal Engine plugin.

    Copy the DousenUE plugin into your project's Plugins/ folder, then set the connection details in Config/BaseDousenUE.ini.

Unreal plugin configuration

Under the [/Script/DousenUE.DousenProjectSettings] section of Config/BaseDousenUE.ini, set the following keys so the plugin can reach your server and the local bridge relay.

INI[/Script/DousenUE.DousenProjectSettings]
ServerScheme=http
ServerHost=<server>
BridgeRelayPort=8766
ProjectId=<your-project-id>

Once configured, the plugin polls the desktop relay on port 8766 and auto-reimports assets when an artist publishes from another DCC. No manual export-and-import step is needed.

Verify it works

  1. Open a task from the Jira panel in DousenDesktop — the issue renders with its description and details.
  2. Launch a DCC from DousenDesktop and publish an asset. The changelist that opens in Perforce is keyed to the Jira issue (for example DOU-142).
  3. If the Unreal plugin is installed, watch the asset auto-reimport in the editor.