Which topics would you like us to cover in the AMAs over the coming year? We’re looking at doing a Level Design AMA, but what else would you like to learn more about?
Be sure to like any responses in this thread that resonate with you so we can gauge interest.
Thank you for your input!
Hi! It’s hard to think of stuff but I wouldn’t mind seeing how you go about doing some of the Fortnite Niagara effects.
It would be nice to have topics dealing with currently underdeveloped & unsupported UEFN features and where the studio intends to take things in 2024 along with some rough timeframe of what quarter we’d expect them to appear. For example,
Here are some topics I would like to see:
Custom Weapons, reasons why Creative is now being shoved off to the side with the release of UEFN, Battle Royale customization, In-Game purchases for Creative and UEFN, More battle royale items in Creative, Square Thumbnail release date.
Level design is a very loose open topic. You could go down a 1,000 roads and miss the most important questions. How about Level-Design best practice or do’s & don’ts in the context of:
Example:
A highly practical AMA that goes into the risks / rewards of upgrading to UE5, or the key PRACTICAL differences between 4.27 vs UE5. For devs still working in 4.27, or both 4.27 and UE5, and planning to migrate / upgrade long-term projects. It’d really help to understand some of the gotchas of moving 100% to UE5. For example, WC to WP… Understanding the key performance implications (even without lumen / nanite). The 2 different physics systems… Lack of BP nativization… All the way to understanding why a lot of devs are reporting issues with local multiplayer and gamepad inputs (which should be an easy fix without having to resort to a custom build of the engine). Example forums threads to draw on for discussion:
Request for LTS versions of UE and marketplace assets.
Large Performance Regression in UE5 (CPU Performance)
NEW UE5.4+ feedback: Start working on and investing in PERFORMANCE innovations for actual GAMES.
Split Screen Controller ID,controller bug,and rendering Bug
How to assign first gamepad for second player in local multiplayer [Unreal 5.3]?
+1 to LTS.
Also a good moment to discuss the future plans for bug reporting methods such as posting on the forums and how the forums currently allow posting as “bug” for non fortnite cases, even though only fortnite cases are currently being handled. UE devs expect feedback and status reports on bug reports which they are not getting. Because they feel (or are) ignored, they wish to report bugs on the forum where the community can vote and respond when staff does not. This must change.
*Edit I’m also surprised about the level of attention Fortnite / UEFN is getting. Some people like me would just like UE itself to get more attention and are not interested in Fortnite development at all.
Control rig and animating skeletal meshes
Verse Programming AI NPCs and Enemies, guess this could be after we get the AI features mentioned in the roadmap
Materials, like animating them, the various use cases, etc.
I would be interested to know when we will have the opportunity to use PCG to generate large worlds, AND increasing the download size for UEFN
I’ve posted a number of topics around content creation from art production standpoint. UEFN appears to abstract and make accessible many things, and it’s easy to see UEFN moving toward being a successful “Fortnite experience building platform”. What’s not clear based on the current touch points or the communicated vision, is what successful art production abstractions look like? How can the bar for entry be lower for art content creators?
It’s easy to imagine KPIs like:
The platform currently doesn’t offer creators the ability to reach the visual bar established by the game itself, and it’s not clear how much of the platform vision is weighted towards quality art content creation (as opposed to experience / gameplay mechanics creation). I certainly understand that the platform shouldn’t be too prescriptive, but at the same time, if high quality content is to be desired then art production workflows must be more accessible. Disparate creative workflows and content implementations within a single platform run the risk of slowing down creators of all kinds. Of course, give folks the ability to customize at a low level, but also provide them with a path of least resistance. My questions are:
What are the golden path for art content creators for each discipline? What does it look like to add custom weapons, props, and modular architecture to Fortnite in a seamless way without compromising expected features and visual fidelity? We must be able to customize the world in a way that leverages both custom and existing content working in harmony.
Creative and UEFN parity, textures to be usable on all objects.
I asked the question, because there is not much documentation about it.
Would love to hear about Epic’s thoughts on making the current round-based system a little more open and flexible.
Also, as many people want, persitence between rounds and sessions.
For level design, it would be cool to hear about any future plans for FAB. Personally, I think FAB can be a great marketplace for UEFN devs.
I’d appreciate a Verse related AMA. Not speaking about UEFN specific features (or the lack of those), but about the language itself.
Are there any plans for an expansion to the API for the players? Things like retrieving players’ names, etc., are things we want to see in the future.
When will creative royale come back?
Curious about this statement, could you elaborate further?
textures to be usable on all objects.
What kind of limitations are you experiencing? What would be ideal to you? I wonder if this related to a number of the issues I’ve run into:
I tried to take the texture of the Iridescent mountains and copy them onto some of the modular mountains but it didn’t work, wouldn’t even let me get into the actual session.
Custom Asset Addition
Honestly, more XR focus and talks. We have a new Meta & Varjo headset, soon Apple Vision Pro, and I’m sure Samsung and others are around the corner chasing Apple with a device.
Can we get some AMAs, talks or similar on discussions with XR? Especially as it relates to the world of passthrough, spatial and scene understanding etc.