Summary
Item icons from Fortnite.digest (the built-in Epic items like weapons, consumables, etc.) display fine in normal UI contexts, but when you try to use one as a texture parameter on a material, the icon disappears. It only shows up if the item exists in the world as a ground pickup at the time the texture is applied. It seems like the icon texture is unloaded from memory unless an instance of that item is currently a pickup in the world.
Please select what you are reporting on:
Verse
What Type of Bug are you experiencing?
Other
Steps to Reproduce
Take any Fortnite item from Fortnite.digest (e.g. a weapon or consumable). Get its icon texture and try to set it as a texture parameter on a material instance, then apply that material to a UI widget or mesh. The texture parameter will be empty/null. The only way to get it to show up is to first spawn that exact item as a ground pickup in the world before setting the parameter, which appears to keep the texture loaded in memory. Once the pickup is collected or despawned, the texture parameter goes empty again, and join-in-progress players who join after the pickup is gone never see the icon.
Expected Result
Item icon textures from Fortnite.digest stay loaded and can be assigned to material texture parameters at any time
Observed Result
Texture parameter only resolves to the icon while an instance of that item is a ground pickup in the world; otherwise the texture appears unloaded
Platform(s)
PC
Additional Notes
Current workaround is to keep a hidden ground pickup of every item we want to display as an icon, just to force the texture to stay loaded. This is fragile and breaks for join-in-progress because those players were not present when the pickup-driven texture assignment happened.