Upcoming: Product type and category changes – temporarily limited functionality affecting publishers

Update: Please note that previously communicated date of the Publishing portal planned downtime has been changed from April 14, 3 am ET to April 16, 3 am ET

Hi everyone. We’re planning to release some updates to product types over the coming weeks as part of our improvements to the site and product taxonomy.

Taxonomy changes

We are optimizing the taxonomy tree, removing redundancy in the categories and product types, consolidating the ones that are a bit too granular at the moment, and expanding the ones that are too general and difficult to navigate. Doing this helps us ensure that each part of the tree has enough meaningful content for the best possible browsing experience.

We want to make sure that Smart Assets are getting all the love they deserve, and this is why we are merging them into 3D models or Game Systems starting on April 14. 3D models and Games Systems are some of the most popular product types on Fab, and 3D models share the same taxonomy with Smart Assets. This means that many users don’t realize that when they search for something like ‘weapons’ within “3D models”, there is also a whole section of game-ready ‘weapons’ within “Smart assets” as well. The same goes for complex Smart Assets that would fit right in in the Game Systems scope.

We will also remove “Environments” as a product type and merge it with the “Scenes” category under 3D. This will be renamed to the “Environments” category to avoid confusion. All assets in the current “Environments” product type will be assigned with a ‘level” tag to help users differentiate between full playable levels—as this is what “environment” traditionally meant for Unreal users—and discrete elements that you can build your own levels with.


If you are a publisher on Fab, we encourage you to check your listings’ categorization logic after these changes go into effect. You are also welcome to update your product types or categories in advance of the changes. We’re sharing details here so you know the plan:

Smart Assets
Products currently under Smart Assets will be moved to either 3D Models or Game Systems product types.

Smart Asset products in the following categories will be moved to 3D Models:

  • Characters & Creatures
  • Weapons & Combat
  • Vehicles & Transportation
  • Furniture & Fixtures
  • Clothing & Jewelry
  • Food and drink

Smart Asset products in the following categories will be moved to Game Systems:

  • Buildings & Architecture
  • Electronics & Technology
  • Nature & Plants
  • Scenes
  • Tools, Objects & Decor

We’ll also be adding some tags according to the following rules:

  1. If the listing is in “Characters & Creatures” and includes a UE format, then we will assign “AnimationBlueprint” and “Script” tags to the listing.
  2. If the listing includes a UE format, we will assign the “Blueprint” and “Script” tags.
  3. If the listing includes a Unity format, but not a UE format, we will assign a “Script” tag.

If the listing doesn’t include any engine formats (UE/Unity/UEFN), we will not apply any tags.


Environments
Products currently under the Environments product type will be moved to the 3D Models product type and put into a new “Environments” category, which will also include items currently in the “Scenes” category.

We will add the “Level” tag to any products that are moved as a result of this change.


Atlases and Decals
Products currently under the Atlases or Decals product type will be moved to the Materials & Textures product type and we will add an “Atlas” or “Decal” tag to them


Scenes
Products categorized as “Scenes” under 3D Models will be moved to the new “Environments” category under 3D Models


Assorted other categories
We will be merging a number of subcategories to help consolidate the category tree. A couple of examples:

  • Under 2D and 3D product types, we will merge “Forest” into “Trees”
  • Under HDRI, we will merge “Studios” into “Indoors”

We will also add some much needed subcategories for certain assets. For example:

  • Under “Characters and creatures” → “Animals” subcategory, we’ll add “Mammals”, “Marine”, “Birds” and “Other” to help navigate almost 9k assets we currently have there

UE channel banner

As part of these changes, we’ll also be adding a new header section on the Unreal Engine channel that will provide some recommended tags for UE-ready assets. This will also enable users to filter by the recommended tags listed below:

  • AnimationBlueprint
  • Blueprint
  • ControlRig
  • EpicSkeleton
  • EditorUtilities
  • PCG
  • Script
  • Niagara
  • Lumen
  • Metasounds
  • Nanite
  • UMG
  • Level

If any of the above tags are relevant to any of your assets, now’s a great time to review and update your listings with the new tags. Descriptive tagging can improve your products’ discoverability.


Please note that some of these updates will temporarily limit functionality on the Publishing Portal on April 14 upd. April 16 starting at 3:00am ET.

If functionality is limited, Fab users will still be able to find, download and purchase assets. However, publishers will be unable to view their listings, edit or delete listings, submit or publish listings, or migrate listings from Sketchfab to Fab.

Here’s the plan:

April 14 upd. April 16 - limited functionality in the Publishing Portal from 3am to 6am ET
We will update the UX and categorization of smart assets.

April 23 upd. The team has identified certain technical difficulties, the exact date to be announced soon - there should not be any impact to Publishing Portal functionality
We will update the categorization of atlases, and decals. We will also add the header section on the Unreal Engine channel at this time.

Mid-May - limited functionality in the Publishing Portal, exact date and time TBD
We will make the changes to the Environments product type along with some small changes to subcategories. We will update you on the exact date and time of this in advance of it happening.


Update (04/17/25)
With the changes that we made to product types and categories earlier this week, you may notice that some of your listings now appear in the ‘Update Draft’ tab of your Listings page. This behavior was expected, and there is nothing you need to do. Your listings are still live, and their visibility is not affected. The next time you make your update, the draft state will be resolved, and the listing will no longer be displayed under the ‘Update Draft’ tab. We expect that this will happen again during the next two rounds of taxonomy changes planned for next week and mid-May.

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch with Fab Support.

  1. Many assets still display migration date to FAB instead of their publication date.
    Pls fix it and don’t let the date of merging the categories appear as the publication date of the moved assets. :pray:

  2. Add a filter to hide sellers. Just as you can filter for specific sellers, you should be able to filter out sellers from your search.

  3. Add a filter by discount amount like in the old marketplace! It is a headache trying to find -70% discounted assets in thousands of assets which are only -30% or -50% off. :hot_face:

9 Likes

Hi. It’s very sad to see that we have to add tags for new categories. You haven’t thought about the people who have been working here for 5+ years and who have 100-400 products. You need to open each one and add a new tag. For example, This is a fish or a bird. Then you will divide the characters into “zombie, monster, survival, etc.” and you will need to edit everything again and add new tags to get into a new category. But that’s okay. But there is one but. Your terrible AI checker, which automatically does not let models through the first time, but throws them into the adult section. You have to re-send 2-5 times for it to let them through. Can you remove it at least for those models that have already passed the check and are sold on the market? Even adding a new version that came out, for example 5.5, your AI checker can send the model to adult content. Thank you!

8 Likes

AFAIK, Epic has never clarified what is implied by EpicSkeleton. Is it the legacy UE4 EpicSkeleton, which was referred as such in the Marketplace? Or is it the newer humanoid skeleton introduced with Manny in 5.0? Because those two are very much not the same, and we’ve already seen too much confusion over this over the years.

So until you make that abundantly clear to both sellers and buyers, I would (once again) advise against pushing the “EpicSkeleton” tag any further.

2 Likes

hello
will be updates about licenses ? caouse on many pages ,like artstation, renderhab, cgtrader, are possible selling licened product, like star wars, cars, buses, and transformer robots more

but here not really. and it is bad, caouse you will losing many many customers by the time.

Question about new tags.

What does “Level” mean? IIRC every asset for UE has to have at least overview map, so I would guess that this is about something else than asset having .umap file…

Does “Niagara” tag encompasses only Niagara-centric assets, or if let’s say I have 3 Niagra systems in my Low Poly Graveyards - should I tag it with Niagara too?

A little advise from tool/plugins publisher.
The game development framework I’m working on has to be categorised under Tools/Plugins due to its use of C++, however my Gameplay framework also fits very well into the GameSystem definition. But it’s frustrating that most people just skip the Tools/Plugins category when looking for a GameSystem, which is very frustrating for me.
Here is my profile: YueWuDev

4 Likes

You made a great point saying smart assets can be systems but people don’t notice it BUT you’ve completely ignored that there is a Good number C++ based Systems or Templates. Just because my plugin has a C++ base class it does not mean all features are not exposed to Blueprints and it does not mean Blueprint users need to know about C++.

You’re creating an environment where you’re discouraging performant assets, its undeniable, a template with a c++ base will most times be much faster than a Blueprint only system.
It’s like if one chose to update their “Game System” and add code to make it faster or other reasons, then their product will be Demoted to “Tools & Plugins”….
I say demoted cause it’s all the way down there…

3 Likes

Totally agreed, hope fab team will improve this one.

I agree about the need for game systems to be able to have a C++ base.

4 Likes

Glad to know improvements are being made, but what about migrating the former UE Marketplace Reviews and Q&A section? These features are much more impactful for User Experience and Sellers. This must have a higher priority on the roadmap.

About Vehicles & Transportation being migrated to the 3D models category, I agree for assets that include only the vehicles meshes, but shouldn’t ready to use vehicle systems be migrated to the Game Systems category instead?

Most Buildings & Architecture are static meshes, so unless they are part of some procedural generation system, it makes more sense to migrate them to the 3D Models category instead.

5 Likes

We totally agree, also because the mature content damage the indexing and the discoverability on the marketplace

1 Like

Tools & Plugin section needs many more subcategories. Please add " Materials "

Could you add a visible category or a dedicated section just for models with a 3D viewer? I always upload my models with a viewer, but I feel like people still mostly come across such models through Sketchfab :smiley: Models with a 3D preview just get lost among all the others.

Somehow I doubt we will get that ever. E.g., I recently noticed that for one of my assets review count is missing around 10 from UE times… and got informed by support that there is nothing they can do to restore those for me, so…

It would be great to have a reviews section back. Not only would it help us (developers) build a better reputation for our product, but it would also give customers a clearer idea of whether the asset is worth it. In the old marketplace, going though reviews and Q&A was the primary way to evaluate a product.

8 Likes

I just wanted to share with you that please please be careful when launching new products on FAB and/or releasing new features there.

My question to FAB team:

  1. I’m wondering HOW do I know the content of user reviews? How do I understand what they don’t like?? Imagine if my product got 10 bad new reviews, HOW do I read them to improve my product?

Their response:

2.1 At this moment this is the only information on rating we can provide, however, we are currently in the process of revamping our review system.

2.2 As previously mentioned, we are currently in the process of revamping our review system, however, we recommend creating a Forum post of your products in order to get feedback. We’ve attached an image as a guide to show you how to create this.

FAB is a joke these days.

P.S. I even offered FAB a quick workaround: allow merchants to DISABLE reviews for now but no response

CAN WE PLEASE DO SMTH ABOUT IT???

3 Likes

I agree, it would solve the problem if they let sellers opt out of reviews if they want. This is the best solution IMO.

2 Likes

They may do that, one of the fab devs answered why reviews are taking so long. Basically the higher ups at epic want the fab team to make a platform agnostic review system that can be implemented in places like Fortnite, epic games store, or other platforms they have so they have to work with various departments which is causing long delays.

2 Likes

FAB response re disabling reviews:

  • Unfortunately this is not posible, we are not able to disable reviews to any product.