Engine
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Documents about Engine
TWIG Bonus Episode: Holiday Special (UEFN, Royal Kingdom, and the Steam race)
The Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) serves primarily as a foundational training ground for Unreal Engine development rather than a viable ecosystem for venture-scale independent studios.
- UEFN is currently better suited as a training ground for Unreal Engine development than as a viable platform for venture-scale independent studios due to limited monetization and restrictive analytics.
- Independent developers on UEFN face an uneven playing field against Epic Games, including a 15% revenue share penalty for projects utilizing licensed intellectual property.
- The mobile puzzle market is closely watching the maturation of Royal Kingdom to determine if it will cannibalize the player base and revenue of established hits like Royal Match.
Why Do Unreal Games All Look This Way — PontyPants
The discussion centers on the growing trend of asset-flipping in the indie game industry and the resulting homogenization of visual aesthetics, particularly among games developed in Unreal Engine.
- Creating custom assets instead of using store-bought ones ensures visual cohesion and prevents the 'generic' look often associated with Unreal Engine 5 titles.
- Relying on third-party assets carries legal risks, as demonstrated by the removal of the game 'Only Up' from Steam due to copyright issues regarding asset ownership.
- Players possess a subconscious ability to distinguish between 'asset-flipped' games and those with custom, intentional design, which can negatively impact the perceived quality of a title.
Inside Timi Studio: How Call of Duty Mobile Set the Stage for Delta Force
TiMi Studio Group’s evolution from a mobile-centric developer to a global powerhouse is defined by a strategic shift in platform priority and genre focus.
- TiMi Studio Group is shifting from a mobile-first strategy to a PC-first development model with the upcoming Delta Force title to capture Western audiences accustomed to higher production values.
- The studio has scaled its development team from under 200 people for Call of Duty: Mobile to 400 people for Delta Force to support a more rigorous content cadence.
- Delta Force utilizes Unreal Engine 4 to enable cross-progression across PC, console, and mobile while explicitly excluding cross-play to maintain competitive integrity.
Independent Games Summit: A Case for Making Your Own Engine
Relying exclusively on large-scale, off-the-shelf game engines often introduces unnecessary technical bloat, rigid design constraints, and financial dependencies on third-party business policies.
- Building a custom game engine is a viable alternative to commercial engines like Unreal or Unity when the financial cost of licensing fees outweighs the time saved, or when the project requires specific design constraints that existing engines cannot solve.
- Relying on third-party engines ties a company's success to the external vendor's business decisions and platform whims, creating a dependency that can be mitigated by maintaining control over your own technical stack.
- Developers can reduce the burden of building from scratch by utilizing lightweight, open-source libraries like SDL for cross-platform OS, input, and sound management, which are proven in commercial shipping environments.
Fortnite Creator Economics with MustardPlays and Birdo
The introduction of Unreal Editor for Fortnite and Creator Economy 2.0 has fundamentally transformed the platform from a hobbyist environment into a professionalized business ecosystem.
- Since March 2023, Epic Games has distributed $500 million to creators, with payouts experiencing a 32.5% year-over-year increase.
- The transition to Unreal Editor for Fortnite and Creator Economy 2.0 has professionalized the platform, creating a significant skill gap that marginalizes solo creators in favor of studios with advanced programming and operational resources.
- Despite high capital investment, the platform faces a decline in Creative engagement as a share of total activity, highlighting a struggle to maintain user interest.
Finding Space For Sound: Acoustics in 'Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora'
The acoustic architecture of Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora represents a significant evolution in planetary-scale sound design, utilizing the Snowdrop Engine to deliver high-fidelity, context-aware audio within complex organic environments.
- Massive Entertainment evolved the Snowdrop Engine's acoustic systems from 'Tom Clancy's The Division 2' to support planetary-scale environments in 'Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora' while maintaining high-fidelity city-scale effects.
- The 'Slapback 4.0' system utilizes a dual-layer emitter strategy that separates early reflections, optimized for rapid response to oncoming geometry, from late reflections, optimized for long-tail diffuse reverberation.
- To manage performance, the engine uses a 'Ring of Local Origins' and emitter cannibalization, where reflection points are dynamically shifted or killed based on the player's movement and raycast sanity checks.
TWIG #304 Supercell's Marketing Shakes Up while Web3 Shoots Back!
The gaming industry is currently undergoing a period of strategic recalibration characterized by platform diversification, technical transitions, and a cautious re-evaluation of blockchain integration.
- Stillfront Group has experienced a 96% decline in stock value since 2021, highlighting the severe financial volatility currently affecting established gaming companies.
- Supercell is undergoing significant leadership changes, including the departure of its CMO, following the underwhelming market performance of Squad Busters.
- The industry is shifting toward platform diversification, evidenced by Halo Studios moving to Unreal Engine and Xbox enabling direct game purchases on Android devices.
Escape From Hadrian's Wall with Jim Gray | 356
The modern landscape of virtual reality development is defined by a transition from high-budget, tethered corporate projects toward agile, independent production models.
- The VR industry is shifting from high-budget, tethered corporate projects toward agile, independent production models focused on standalone hardware.
- Developers are increasingly abandoning proprietary engines in favor of Unreal Engine to improve efficiency for gameplay-focused titles.
- Commercial viability for independent studios now relies on iterative development cycles that incorporate community feedback early in the process, rather than the traditional AAA singular launch model.
Week in Mobile Games E31 - The Top 50 Mobile Game Makers 2024 revealed!
The global mobile gaming industry is currently navigating a complex landscape defined by economic volatility, shifting regulatory environments, and a strategic pivot toward sustainable growth.
- Scopely is the top mobile developer of 2024, driven by Monopoly GO! generating $3 billion in revenue within its first 15 months.
- Epic Games is aggressively competing for developer loyalty by reducing Unreal Engine royalty fees to 3.5% and offering 100% net revenue for new titles launched exclusively on its store.
- The mobile market is shifting from hyper-casual to hybrid-casual business models to prioritize long-term profitability and improved player retention.
Building a Creator-Focused 3D Engine with Hiber
Hiber aims to democratize 3D world creation by providing a lightweight, browser-based engine that removes the technical barriers associated with traditional game development.
- Hiber has scaled to 6.5 million user-generated worlds and 1.2 million creators by utilizing a lightweight, browser-based engine that removes the need for large downloads or complex coding.
- The platform enables a direct-to-consumer model by allowing brands to embed 3D experiences directly into their own websites, bypassing high revenue commissions typically charged by major app stores.
- Hiber’s user base is evenly split between the United States and emerging markets, with a primary demographic of users aged 13 to 18.
Inside Stormgate with Tim Morten: In-Depth Live Review & Gameplay with Insights
Frost Giant Studios is positioning Stormgate as a modern successor to the classic real-time strategy genre, specifically targeting the legacy of Blizzard titles like StarCraft and Warcraft.
- Frost Giant Studios is developing Stormgate as a free-to-play real-time strategy game using Unreal Engine and proprietary SnowPlay technology to manage high unit counts and network complexity.
- The monetization model rejects pay-to-win mechanics in favor of à la carte purchases for campaign expansions, cooperative commanders, and cosmetic items.
- The studio maintains creative independence through a combination of private investment and crowdfunding, bypassing traditional publishing deals to avoid KPI-heavy mobile gaming metrics.
3D Toon Rendering in 'Hi-Fi RUSH'
Hi-Fi RUSH achieves a distinct, 2D-inspired aesthetic within Unreal Engine 4 by utilizing a custom deferred toon renderer that decouples shading from geometry.
- Tango Gameworks achieved a consistent 2D toon aesthetic for both characters and environments in 'Hi-Fi RUSH' by customizing Unreal Engine 4 to decouple toon rendering from standard geometry rendering.
- To maintain a rock-solid 60fps required for rhythm-based gameplay, the team integrated deferred lighting and toon post-processing into a single, performance-optimized deferred toon rendering pass.
- The developers utilized a 'comic shader' that applies half-tone dots and hatching lines to surfaces, using world-space UVs to ensure these textures appear printed on polygonal surfaces rather than floating in screen space.