Hi everyone! In this AMA we will be covering Devices. Questions can include, but are not limited to:
v2 conversions
Feature requests
Direct Event Binding
Submit your questions directly to expert members of our team. Ask away by replying to this post!
Our experts will be joining us on 2023-07-27T08:00:00Z. Check out their bios, below!
MEET THE TEAM
Brian Lawson Lead Designer for Fortnite Creative. Brian has been working on Creative since its early days, and now his team works across both Creative and UEFN developing new features for Creators to expand the scope of what can be achieved with the toolset.
Nathan Green Lead Engineer. Nathan has been a full time Unreal developer for the past 10 years. He was also part of the team that got Creative up and running to the public and has been working on UEFN recently. He’s written or worked on many systems and devices for Creative and UEFN use, including the Objective Device, Stats, Channels, and Direct Event Binding systems. Currently Nathan is working on trying to fix stability issues in Creative and UEFN with his team.
Ray Benefield Creative Tools Designer. I have experience as a Software Engineer and a UGC Creator. I was recruited by Epic directly from the Fortnite Creative community as I’ve been working in the tool since day 1. I specialize in game design and game logic. I stubbornly lean towards breaking the mold in terms of ideas and innovation. When I’m not working, I’m probably still working on some side project.
Sean Edwards QA Analyst. Sean is a QA Analyst working in partnership with Epic from his studio, Hardsuit Labs. In the 2 years he’s been working along side Epic, he has been a staple in Creative, responsible for work on the Direct Event Binding system, the Event Browser system, and several Devices like the Melee Designer. He’s loved working alongside such a talanted and creative team, and is looking forward to more collaboration in the future.
AMA GUIDELINES:
Ask one question at a time by replying to this topic, using the Reply button at the bottom. Please read through the questions to see if your question has already been asked, before posting your own.
Please give others a chance to ask questions too.
Please do not reply to anyone else’s post—the purpose of replies in this topic is to receive answers from our guests. If you’d like to discuss a related topic in more detail, create a new topic.
Keep in mind, this is not a support session. Questions that are specific to your islands, account, or troubleshooting will be removed.
And don’t forget to have fun!
Posts not following these guidelines may be removed by moderators to keep the AMA flowing smoothly. Thank you!
Is there a Analytic Device in RoadMap in the near future or at all? This would be the most useful device for game design, as right now we can’t observe where exactly the omission and design error was made. Simply put, it allows us to improve the quality of islands many times over.
Are there any plans to reduce the weight of the devices? Why do some devices require less memory when reinitializing? And some, like Guard Spawner take the same amount?
Do you know how far away spawning of devices might be?
Bonus question - Prop manipulator doesnt seem to affect props that are spawned in is this intentional? My main request is setting health on props that are spawned in at runtime.
I know ya’ll have heard this a million times now and we usually get the same answer😂 but they’re so important for our games; Any updates on the Save Point and Accolades Devices for UEFN?
And unrelated to that, would it be possible to get a ‘teleport all valid players’ option in the Teleporter device? Basically it teleports everyone in the map if they align with the options, without needing instigation. This is mostly for games with player collision turned off, so we don’t have to use more memory on an Item Granter, Mutator Zone, etc.
Are you going to fix the bug where sometimes on Creative Sandbox, opening a devices settings page can sometimes say “Option Text” rather than the actual setting?
I have a 2-part question that I would like to ask the entire panel.
What’s your opinion on introducing an optional feature that would enable the
auto-translation or automated adaptation of event binding mechanics into Verse Code?
Do you feel creators will find this type of feature beneficial? Is this something that maybe possible in the future?
Thanks so much for taking the time to review my question!
Plus + Thank you for all you do and I hope you have an awesome day!
Will Creative 1.0 get weapon customizor? (It could work as melee device, but instead of swords, you could add 5-6 weapon types and models into creative and make them customizable by device)
I recently was adding sounds to a boss animations (level sequence). It’s pretty difficult and time consuming as there’s no way to use devices from sequences.
Are there any plans to add devices support to sequences? If not could we get AmbientSound (drag and drop audio asset to level) actor from normal UE?
Is there any way to make a sort of “Level Instance” styled device that could compress music blocks placed within a zone and play back the saved audio preset in a more optimized device?
Can you guys consider adding more QOL options to the Creature Spawners?
They’re lacking the ability to turn off their ominous, ambient sound in-game which ruins jumpscares and makes attacks predictable.
More Events and Functions (transmitters) will be really nice to have. We can currently only transmit when a Creature is Eliminated - that’s it. Stuff like “When Spawner is destroyed”, “When Spawner is triggered”, etc will be great.
Health options to the Spawner, pretty please?
When Creatures were first added to Battle Royale, there were two types of Spawners. They were officially called “Large Cube Fragment” and “Small Cube Fragment”. We currently only have the “Small Cube Fragment” spawner style. It’d be nice to have the Large one for a change. It looks prettier too and has since been used in Battle Royale (Horde Rush) and Save the World (Dungeons mode) multiple times.
Is there any plan to provide a way to access the components that make up the device from scripts in the verse?
For example, being able to update material parameters of a device from verse would expand the range of expression.
