Unreal editor for fortnite

Last updated
Unreal editor for fortnite
Other namesUEFN, Creative 2.0
Developer(s) Epic Games
Initial releaseMarch 2023
Written in Verse
Operating system Windows
PredecessorFortnite Creative
Type Game engine
Website https://dev.epicgames.com/community/fortnite/getting-started/uefn

Unreal Editor for Fortnite, or UEFN is a specialized version of Unreal Engine released in 2023 tailored for creating and editing UGC content within Fortnite, a popular online video game developed by Epic Games. UEFN integrates the functionalities of Unreal Engine with aspects of Fortnite, allowing for a more comprehensive experience than it's predecessor Fortnite Creative.

Contents

Overview

With a GUI almost identical to that of Unreal Engine, UEFN gives developers a familiar interface and tooling. It defers from Unreal Engine by allowing users to enter a live 'edit' session, where other collaborators can load into the project via Fortnite and participate in development via the Fortnite Creative toolset. Changes made in the edit session by collaborators are automatically updated in UEFN, although changes made in UEFN must be pushed through the content service- a process that takes anywhere from thirty seconds, to several minutes depending on server availability and the hardware of the host. The most prominent feature is implementation of the Verse programming language to interact and interface with players, objects, game logic, and the spatial environment. The addition of Verse is the first time developers have had scripting ability, and has allowed for far more robust and unique experiences to be created than the Fortnite Creative toolset allowed. To the surprise of many, Epic chose not to include it's visual scripting platform 'Blueprints' that is widely used in Unreal Engine. Amongst the Fortnite community, projects made with UEFN are referred to as 'Creative 2.0' while projects created in the former are considered 'Creative 1.0'. [1] With the release of UEFN, Epic also launched it's 'Island Creator' program in addition to the previous 'Support-A-Creator' program, both creator programs allow developers to benefit financially from their creations through different methods- most of which, are not publicly disclosed as a precaution for abuse. Dubbed by Epic as the 'Creator Economy', the Island Creator program follows a similar model of its sandbox competitors Roblox , and Minecraft . As with other social media communities that allow user monetization, the Island Creator program has turned many into 'overnight millionaires' with the viral success of their projects- due to this, the ecosystem has caught the attention of prominent AAA game developers. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]

Features

Many features in UEFN added capabilities for developers that were not possible in Fortnite Creative, or if they were possible- often had many problems. The logic, and event binding required to create complex games in Creative 1.0 can quickly become a programmatical disaster, for many reasons- lack of scripting ability, gamepad-centric user interface, lack of an outliner, lack of an 'Undo' or 'CTRL-Z' action, inefficient methods for naming actors and objects, and other platform instability bugs. There are new tools, as well as Unreal Engine tools available to use in UEFN that supersede development work flows in Creative 1.0.

UEFN Tools
FeatureDescription
Verse A scripting language developed by Epic for the ' metaverse '. Communicates with UEFN via proprietary VS Code extension and language server. The extension automatically lints, parses, and interprets code as it is written and then built and deployed by UEFN. This is currently the only way to work with Verse.
Custom AssetsCompatible filetypes include .FBX (with or without animated sequences), .obj, .png, .wav.
SequencerMulti-track linear media editor for creating and managing cinematic sequences, animations, and other scripted events. It provides a toolset for choreographing in-game events, cutscenes, and animations. It includes real time editing, event triggering, keyframe animation, camera control, scene management and animation blending.
ModelingInterface to model custom 3D objects and their associated attributes.
LandscapeTool's to paint and sculpt the spatial environment's landscape.
OutlinerBrowser GUI to perform various actions with actors present in the project.
Details PanelPreviously limited in Creative 1.0, UEFN has a details panel for every actor, where attributes can be edited.
L.O.D.Referred to as 'L.O.D.s', UEFN has tooling for Level of Detail optimization by adjusting the complexity of 3D models based on their distance from the camera.
Unreal Revision ControlUnreal Revision Control, or URC- was implemented to support collaboration amongst teams. Teams are created through the 'Creator Portal' (a web portal for creators to manage projects). Members of a team are then able to upload snapshots of a project for other team members to sync with their client. In a similar manner as other revision control systems, users 'check-out' the assets being worked on and then check them back in when uploading their latest snapshot.
World PartitionA tool for optimizing an experience by segmenting the data into layers or grids, to be streamed to the end user rather than being always spatially loaded.
Material AttributesUnreal Engine 'Blueprint' styled GUI for editing materials and textures with node parameters.
Output LogA runtime status output and error reporting message log.

[9] [10]

'Creator Economy'

In the first year of UEFN's beta phase, the 'Island Creator' program has paid an estimated $320 million to over 20,000 developers with published experiences. Epic has used the name 'Creator Economy' to describe the structure's ecosystem. [10]

Discovery

In the Fortnite ecosystem, 'Discover', or 'Discovery' is the term used to describe the algorithm that puts UGC content in front of players in the form of playlists or 'rows' in the Fortnite lobby A Discover row consists of a thumbnail, title, and the current amount of players playing the experience. The addition of the public facing CCU metric was met with backlash from less popular developers, alleging it makes it harder to build a player base when potential users browsing Discover see no players in an experience and thus negatively compounding algorithmic bias against them. The specifics on how algorithm operates, and the data it uses to curate it's rows, is kept secret by Epic, although they have stated it is a weighted a mix of total hits, player engagement, player retention, and the amount of V-Bucks users have spent after visiting a UGC experience. [11]

Issues with IP theft and DMCA takedowns

With the release of UEFN, and it's new feature of importing custom content, Discovery was met with a wave of IP theft in its curated rows of creations, ranging from the public facing thumbnail, to in-game assets. These experiences were able to thrive in the Fortnite community due to poor internal content review policies and procedures at Epic. In a tweet posted February 23, 2023 the official Fortnite Creative account addressed the issue for the first time and although this content may sometimes still appear, it has been drastically reduced.

Another controversy that has troubled the beta stage of UEFN and the creator community is the use of requesting DMCA takedowns or action from Epic for experiences containing UGC created in Fortnite that is the same, or similar to other UGC created in Fortnite. Stemming from top creator TeamGeerzy filing an application to trademark "The Pit", [12] and subsequently requesting Epic to takedown experiences with 'pit' terminology in the title (a common practice in many UGC ecosystems). Multiple experiences were then taken down by Epic which lead to major community backlash ultimately resulting in the official Fortnite Creative X account to respond to a tweet where they addressed the issue and reinstating the offending maps. [13] [14] [15] [16]

References [17]

  1. ↑ "Fortnite Creative 2.0 Supercharging UGC Creation Tools". Platform Aeronaut. March 22, 2023.
  2. ↑ "Not even Riot wants to try competing with Fortnite on user generated content". PCGamer. June 18, 2024.
  3. ↑ "Unreal Editor for Fortnite is now available in Public Beta". March 22, 2023.
  4. ↑ "Dive into Epics announcements from GDC 2023". March 22, 2023.
  5. ↑ "Alex Seropian launches Look North World studio and Outlaw Corral game for Fortnite". VentureBeat. July 18, 2023.
  6. ↑ "VerseMetaVerse". Github.
  7. ↑ Garst, Aron (May 9, 2023). "How Epic Games is revamping the ecosystem of Fortnite Creative to sweeten the deal for in-game creators". Digiday.
  8. ↑ "Fortnite Creative, Meet Unreal Engine 5". IntoMetaMedia. August 8, 2022.
  9. ↑ "Unreal Editor for Fortnite Documentation". Epic Games Developer.
  10. 1 2 Taylor, David (April 23, 2023). "Fortnite Creative Origins". Naavik.
  11. ↑ "Fortnite and the Revolution of User Generated Content A New Era of Gaming". Medium. October 12, 2023.
  12. ↑ "THE PIT - Trademark Details". Justia. February 15, 2024.
  13. ↑ "Your island is reinstated". X. March 28, 2024.
  14. ↑ "User-Generated Content". Copyright User. 6 December 2021.
  15. ↑ "We have to action DMCA". X. March 27, 2024.
  16. ↑ "UGC how Fortnite & Roblox are leading the next wave". GameDiscover Newsletter. May 10, 2023.
  17. ↑ "Understanding User-Generated Content in Gaming". Pubnub. March 12, 2024.

Related Research Articles

A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs such as a level editor. The "engine" terminology is akin to the term "software engine" used more widely in the software industry.

<i>ZZT</i> 1991 video game

ZZT is a 1991 action-adventure puzzle video game and game creation system developed and published by Potomac Computer Systems for MS-DOS. It was later released as freeware in 1997. It is an early game allowing user-generated content using object-oriented programming. Players control a smiley face to battle various creatures and solve puzzles in different grid-based boards in a chosen world. It has four worlds where players explore different boards and interact with objects such as ammo, bombs, and scrolls to reach the end of the game. It includes an in-game editor, allowing players to develop worlds using the game's scripting language, ZZT-OOP.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unreal Engine</span> Video game engine developed by Epic Games

Unreal Engine (UE) is a 3D computer graphics game engine developed by Epic Games, first showcased in the 1998 first-person shooter video game Unreal. Initially developed for PC first-person shooters, it has since been used in a variety of genres of games and has been adopted by other industries, most notably the film and television industry. Unreal Engine is written in C++ and features a high degree of portability, supporting a wide range of desktop, mobile, console, and virtual reality platforms.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Epic Games</span> American video game company

Epic Games, Inc. is an American video game and software developer and publisher based in Cary, North Carolina. The company was founded by Tim Sweeney as Potomac Computer Systems in 1991, originally located in his parents' house in Potomac, Maryland. Following its first commercial video game release, ZZT (1991), the company became Epic MegaGames, Inc. in early 1992 and brought on Mark Rein, who has been its vice president since. After moving the headquarters to Cary in 1999, the studio changed its name to Epic Games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sandbox game</span> Type of video game encouraging creativity

A sandbox game is a video game with a gameplay element that provides players a great degree of creativity to interact with, usually without any predetermined goal, or alternatively with a goal that the players set for themselves. Such games may lack any objective, and are sometimes referred to as non-games or software toys. More often, sandbox games result from these creative elements being incorporated into other genres and allowing for emergent gameplay. Sandbox games are often associated with an open world concept which gives the players freedom of movement and progression in the game's world. The term "sandbox" derives from the nature of a sandbox that lets people create nearly anything they want within it.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roblox</span> Multiplayer game creation platform

Roblox is an online game platform and game creation system developed by Roblox Corporation that allows users to program and play games created by themselves or other users. Created by David Baszucki and Erik Cassel in 2004 and released in 2006, the platform hosts user-created games of multiple genres coded in the programming language Lua. For most of Roblox's history, it was relatively small, both as a platform and as a company. Roblox began to grow rapidly in the second half of the 2010s, and this growth has been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

A fan game is a video game that is created by fans of a certain topic or IP. They are usually based on one, or in some cases several, video game entries or franchises. Many fan games attempt to clone or remake the original game's design, gameplay, and characters, but it is equally common for fans to develop a unique game using another as a template. Though the quality of fan games has always varied, recent advances in computer technology and in available tools, e.g. through open source software, have made creating high-quality games easier. Fan games can be seen as user-generated content, as part of the retrogaming phenomena, and as expression of the remix culture.

<i>Fortnite: Save the World</i> Co-op sandbox survival game developed by Epic Games

Fortnite: Save the World is a cooperative hybrid-third-person looter shooter tower defense sandbox survival video game developed and published by Epic Games, part of the game Fortnite. The game was released as a paid-for early access title for macOS, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One on July 25, 2017, with plans for a full free-to-play release announced in late 2018. Epic eventually opted to move the game to pay-to-play in June 2020. The retail versions of the game were published by Gearbox Software, while online distribution of the PC versions is handled by Epic's launcher.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Psyonix</span> American video game developer

Psyonix LLC is an American video game developer based in San Diego. It was founded in 2000 by Dave Hagewood with the team of his Internet-focused company WebSite Machines. After canceling its first two projects, Psyonix created VehicleMOD, a mod that adds vehicles to Unreal Tournament 2003. The game's developer, Epic Games, subsequently hired the studio to recreate this gameplay for a game mode in Unreal Tournament 2004. Psyonix subsisted off contract work and released its first original game, Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars, in 2008. The game was not as successful as anticipated but Hagewood held on to the game's concept and had a small team prototype a sequel while the rest of the company worked on further contract projects. This sequel was released as Rocket League in 2015 and became a commercial success. Epic Games acquired the studio in May 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cross-platform play</span> Ability of players using different video game systems to play with each other simultaneously

In video games with online gaming functionality, also called cross-compatible play, cross-platform play, crossplay, or cross-play describes the ability of players using different video game hardware to play with each other simultaneously. It is commonly applied to the ability for players using a game on a specific video game console to play alongside a player on a different hardware platform such as another console or a computer. A related concept is cross-save, where the player's progress in a game is stored in separate servers, and can be continued in the game but on a different hardware platform.

Fortnite Battle Royale is a free-to-play battle royale video game developed and published by Epic Games. It is a companion game to Fortnite: Save the World, a cooperative survival game with construction elements. It was initially released in early access on September 26, 2017, for macOS, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One, followed by ports for iOS, Nintendo Switch, and Android. Epic dropped the early access label for the game on June 29, 2020. Versions for the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5 were released as launch titles in late 2020.

Fortnite is an online video game and game platform developed by Epic Games and released in 2017. It is available in six distinct game mode versions that otherwise share the same general gameplay and game engine: Fortnite Battle Royale, a free-to-play battle royale game in which up to 100 players fight to be the last person standing; Fortnite: Save the World, a cooperative hybrid tower defense-shooter and survival game in which up to four players fight off zombie-like creatures and defend objects with traps and fortifications they can build; and Fortnite Creative, in which players are given complete freedom to create worlds and battle arenas, Lego Fortnite, an open world survival game, Rocket Racing, a racing game, and Fortnite Festival, a rhythm game.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Epic Games Store</span> Digital video game storefront

The Epic Games Store is a video game digital distribution service and storefront operated by Epic Games. It launched in December 2018 as a software client, for Microsoft Windows and macOS, and online storefront. The service provides friends list management, game matchmaking, and other features. Epic Games has further plans to expand the feature set of the storefront but it does not plan to add as many features as other digital distribution platforms, such as discussion boards or user reviews, instead using existing social media platforms to support these.

<i>Fortnite Creative</i> 2018 sandbox video game

Fortnite Creative is a sandbox game, developed and published by Epic Games, part of the video game Fortnite. It was released on December 6, 2018, for Android, iOS, macOS, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Windows, and Xbox One, and in November 2020 for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) is the latest version of Unreal Engine developed by Epic Games. It was revealed in May 2020 and officially released in April 2022. Major features of Unreal Engine 5 include Nanite, a virtualized geometry system that allows game developers to use arbitrarily high quality meshes with automatically generated Level of detail, and Lumen, a dynamic global illumination and reflections system that uses software and hardware ray tracing.

<i>Epic Games v. Apple</i> 2020 U.S. lawsuit

Epic Games, Inc. v. Apple Inc. was a lawsuit brought by Epic Games against Apple in August 2020 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, related to Apple's practices in the iOS App Store. Epic Games specifically had challenged Apple's restrictions on apps from having other in-app purchasing methods outside of the one offered by the App Store. Epic Games's founder Tim Sweeney had previously challenged the 30% revenue cut that Apple takes on each purchase made in the App Store, and with their game Fortnite, wanted to either bypass Apple or have Apple take less of a cut. Epic implemented changes in Fortnite intentionally on August 13, 2020, to bypass the App Store payment system, prompting Apple to block the game from the App Store and leading to Epic filing its lawsuit. Apple filed a countersuit, asserting Epic purposely breached its terms of contract with Apple to goad it into action, and defended itself from Epic's suit.

<i>Core</i> (video game) Online video game

Core is a free-to-play online video game platform with an integrated game creation system, developed by Manticore Games. It was released as an open alpha version on March 16, 2020, and became available as Early Access on April 15, 2021. Core hosts user-generated games that are designed for an older teen and adult audience. Core's game creation system is designed to simplify video game creation in order to allow more individuals to develop games. Manticore Games, the developer of Core, was co-founded by Frederic Descamps and Jordan Maynard in 2016 and is based in San Mateo, California. Core is based on a similar concept as other gaming platforms for user-generated games such as Roblox.

<i>Lego Fortnite</i> 2023 video game

Lego Fortnite is an open world survival video game, developed and published by Epic Games in association with The Lego Group. It was released on December 7, 2023, for Android, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. The game can be accessed and played within the Fortnite game application.

Fortnite is scheduled to have a tournament at the 2024 Esports World Cup, held in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, between August 8 and 11, 2024. Sixteen teams will take part in this tournament, six having qualified from a LAN tournament at DreamHack Dallas and ten qualifying from online qualifiers. Due to the tournament not being sponsored or sanctioned by Epic Games, the game's developer, the tournament is known as Esports World Cup: Featuring Fortnite.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Verse (programming language)</span>

Verse is a static typed object-oriented programming language created by Epic Games. It was released alongside UEFN in March 2023 and was authored by a team of well-known programmers led by Simon Peyton Jones, and Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney. Verse is designed to interact with Fortnite Creative's existing ‍​devices system. As of June 2024, UEFN remains the only way to interpret, parse, compile or run Verse code; plans to implement the language into the release of Unreal Engine 6 have been discussed.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.