About Perforce
"Perforce is an enterprise version management [source control] system in which users connect to a shared file repository. Perforce applications are used to transfer files between the file repository and individual users' workstations."
"Source Control allows users on your team to share assets and code with one another, as well as providing a backup and history of changes so any files can be rolled back to an earlier version if something went wrong with the file."
We use Perforce at Escape Studios as it is an industry standard piece of software, with 18 of the top 20 games developers including Ubisoft and Electronic Arts using it for version control.
External guides and documentation
Logging in for the first time
From the Start Menu, go to the Perforce subfolder, then launch "P4V" (the Perforce Visual client). You should see the following dialog box:
The Server details should be pre-populated and correct (connecting to the server on IP 10.159.118.227 on port 1666 over SSL) but you'll need to manually enter your User and Workspace details. For most undergraduate students, your username will be in the format "A_Student" (i.e. initial-underscore-surname) - if in doubt, please ask your tutor who should be able to find your username through P4Admin.
Click "Browse..." next to the (optional) Workspace box, and it should attempt to log you in. If this is your first time logging in with a new account, it'll ask you to create a password. It will then pop up a series of dialog boxes asking things like "Do you trust this connection?" (click the 'Trust' tickbox then OK) which you can click OK through.
It'll then pop up the "Select Workspace" dialog which should automatically filter down to a single workspace, which should have a name like "A_Student_main" (Owner: A_Student, Host: [blank]). If you make sure that's selected then click OK, it should return you to the main login window (which should now look as it is below) and click OK to launch P4V for the first time.
