UEFN or 2.0 as the community calls it is considered the key that unlocks the padlock to all the content tools that Epic uses to develop Fortnite. In my head, hearing UEFN I imagine a place where the entire database of textures, props, prop behaviors, device behaviors, and gameplay controls are now available to the creator to build with. However, there are a lot of things that make me worry that this will not be the case in general (definitely not for December launch). I will list below what I consider the dream for UEFN, so I can more easily explain:
-Textures: Fortnite has thousands of textures for walls, floors, etc. We want to be able to take any existing FN wall, floor or prop, and just swap its texture with another one, or tweak it a bit (change its color, add/remove weathering). Currently, there is no way to do that, as all content is locked and not usable. I want to grab a cyan pillar, export its texture, modify it in photoshop then import it again and now have an orange pillar (or some other workflow that allows that in a faster format, maybe through MIs). The artstyle of Fortnite is my favorite thing and what keeps me building, I don’t want to stray away from that when building experiences, but similar to a Kenney asset pack, there is always a prop or case that is missing and us having the ability to add an asset that meets the same criteria as the rest of the props, is key. Would even love if content library had all assets, so I can download and tweak as necessary (and it counts as custom, I don’t mind)
-Characters: I want to make a story map. Use a Fortnite skin that fits my artstyle, and find a couple more for background actors. I want to see the characters as a palette to a story rather than have them dictate it (with more variety, that will help). I also want to animate them, make the player care about them and be immersed in a universe. Can’t do that for 2 reasons: a) we don’t have access to the list of skins and b) adding a character device is very expensive for memory and doesn’t allow you to do much else. Would love if the content library has a nice selection of rigged skins from inside the game that we can use (I don’t care if the rigging fundamentals are different, having those would allow creators to make animations for them specifically and post them for others to use, or have the community develop a rigging conversion tool). All of this now requires datamining for creators to do, and I am pretty sure it will spark a great wave of dataminers on launch, so why not have official support for it anyway so you can control and moderate content better? The idea is to create a metaverse, not appeal to Fortnite Legal department. Epic is known as a company that takes risks, is creative and always first at innovation and what others only dream to accomplish.
-Ease of build: I want the building to feel good, to give me motivation, to get a quick result and a quick prototype. In UEFN most things require a day of work to do. There is no quick wizard or interface to help you speed up the process. It takes more than 2 minutes to even see what you are building in-game and me coming from 3 editors in a row where there is no cooking or rendering, I can’t get used to it easily. There are at least 2-3 extra steps added to everything we already did faster in Creative (camera movement while building, verse, browsing assets, saving, multiselection, building controls)
-Interface: The interface of UEFN is similar to UE, so my question is which audience are you targeting? Is it game developers or is it UGC creators? If its the latter, the interface needs a lot of work to become easier to understand and easier to navigate. Tooltips to be added to everything that explains things with an example, buttons to flash when needed, larger interface that appeals to people who use visual imagery to navigate rather than text, wizards to guide you into complex processes, help functions that solve issues when encountered (why do I have to be told “space” is not ok to add, simply convert it to an underscore and save me time like discord does, the process is not consistent to the entirety of the engine anyway) and easy/advanced mode toggle to not overwhelm new creators. If you think this build is easy to understand, ask yourself how many of the core creators from Creative are regularly building atm? And ask them whether it feels nice and easy to them. Of course we will get used to it, but at that time we no longer are UGC creators, we are game developers. However.
-Flexibility: I originally thought that Epic hinting a scripting language back in 2021 will mean a visual scripting language given this is UGC and vsls are hot in this format due to the audience being used to icons rather than text. Also I thought we would have full access to gameplay controls, inputs, outputs, player camera, etc. That’s where every game editor starts. Right now we have to rely on performance heavy hacks to pull off very basic gameplay alterations that stem just a little from the core Fortnite engine that is fully polished. This is not considered by me to be a game editor, this is still a level editor with fancy gameplay features. A game editor would entail a custom character, custom gameplay controls, custom UI and a custom artstyle (the closest one atm is artstyle, but we can’t control that fully either because we don’t have access to paper 2D workflow or post processing to name a few). There are also no alternatives in UEFN to the missing gameplay features in Creative.
Understanding the distinction between UGC and gamedev is crucial I believe and has to be set in stone. For me, I 'd put the vision of what I see Epic aiming for beyond those two categories, and call it a hybrid that uses the best of both worlds. However in order for that to happen, both UGC and gamedev need to be part of the editor, meaning powerful UE features with Creative’s easy and agile interface. Combine the two and then the community will be able to build the metaverse. In the meantime, I appreciate all the hard work that goes into both engines and know that Epic and the community are at their best when they work together. Give us the tools to create a sustainable digital ecosystem and then you are sitting on a core competency that no other game company will be able to match.
