This is much needed. UEFN is really agile at heart, but has all these little issues, some from updates, others from deprecated design decisions, maybe a little corner-cutting, that creates this ball of friction that crushes motivation, spirit, and flow when building.
The best software I ve ever used focused on aiding the user be constantly “in the zone” and never break that flow, so that they can use all their creativity to go beyond. Creative did this heavily too (it had its flaws ofc, but as an artist I constantly felt I was in the zone while building in it).
In UEFN, there is a lot of ignorance of this aspect. Speeding up the process maybe simple, maybe not, but it 100% helps users be creative. Its such a great engine and it pains me when its not used in gamejams or can compete with the Roblox studio which looks really bad but runs a test instantly.
IMO, Epic Games needs to invest in a department that handles tooling friction. A department that can go to the Live edit team and make a ticket for them to remove the popup when the user presses “cancel” instantly, not after 30". Or to the URC team, and have them reduce the extra waiting added on various actions in UEFN which should instead happen in parallel, not sequentially, so that renaming a file is a few milliseconds faster. Cutting time from here and there, and also helping remove or reduce the friction quirks of the engine is a much, much needed initiative.
Most of the tools feel outdated, and there is always this hidden keystroke that does what you want, but only the contracted developer who made the feature and a few geeks online know it. There needs to be standardization, tooling research, User observation in both UEFN and Live edit (fully broken now btw), and the priority of this initiative needs to not conflict with functionality (the "oh it works, we ll make sure it plays better later, then that never happens). This is the “plays better” part of the editor, which is often ignored. The tools need to feel fun when using, and this usually happens when they are fast, intuitive and easy to understand.
Some pointers and expectations from creators are (1 being more pending, 3 is long-term):
-
If I have invested in a great PC and a great internet connection, everything should be instant, no loading, I just get to build. We live in an age of powerful computing, it should be utilized.
-
UEFN is a powerful and well-thought engine, there should be nothing stopping me to make a great game on my own.
-
I trust in Epic Games to optimize UEFN/Live Edit enough so I can use it in any platform to build.
And to me, what’s currently missing is an overall specialist department that understands the current friction issues that the engine has, and jumps from department to department to create high-priority, non function-conflicted, but also function-oriented tickets on how to reduce friction and improve agility.
Some examples:
-
When cancelling Live edit, “Cancelled” should be a bottom right notification, not a popup that freezes the editor unless it’s clicked. This is both to speed up building, and to remove confusion in a multi screen setup where the popup usually lands on another monitor and now you have a frozen editor and you don’t know why (if cancelling was instant and not take 45 seconds you would, but nothing in UEFN is instant so you usually forget you pressed cancel and you are coming back from an alt tab to something else)
-
On any loading of any tool/editor within UEFN, there should never be plug-ins loading that UEFN creators cannot use. This adds extra waiting for them for no reason. All brand partners (and Epic) that use the UE version or a special UEFN version should make sure to not load these plugins when normal UEFN is operational (or live edit).
-
Renaming a file on content browser and adding a space to the name should be allowed when typing, then converted to underscore. This speeds up the process of naming, and helps remove frustration from any non UE user that tries the engine.
-
Perspective/Orthographic view to be a toggle in viewport
-
FAB should be hooked per category in the editor. For example, in Niagara preset gallery, a FAB button could show more options from within UE/UEFN, then once you purchase or download, you have a list of custom presets you can use.
-
Character animations and Face Rigging to be able to be recorded via a phone by default in the engine, no setup needed except pairing your phone (other options are still available if needed).
-
Setting up weak spots in custom characters should be straightforward (like head, takes headshot damage)
-
Creating a new material names it M_input rather than input_Mat and those prefixes can be adjusted in editor preferences. Also, duplicating a material follows this convention: Material1 >> Material2, M_Test >>Create Material instance >> MI_Test. Lastly, “force actor prefixes” as a toggle which means when I drag a texture in the content browser, it adds “T_” in front of it (can be toggled off in editor preferences).
-
AI Assistant that shows to the right of Output log button (bottom left) and provides suggestions based on the keyboard inputs and actions the user is doing (if you are copy pasting then moving an actor in space, they can suggest “Paste Here” key, for example). Can be turned off.
-
Message Log/Output Log to be able to be turned off from popping in front of everything, not everyone uses them and having to close them everytime is annoying.
Anyhow, I could keep going, and I haven’t even touched Live edit tools either, but would love if a department/program was created to handle the management/tracking of tickets that reduce friction, because we desperately need it.