Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney recently talked to South Korean outlet Inven Global about how UE6 will indirectly help new multiplayer games attract players.
Epic shared plans for “portable content, codes and economies” between UE-developed games, with Fortnite slated to be the first real proof of concept. In Fortnite’s case, portability will allow cosmetics obtained or purchased in-game to be used in other UE games and vice versa. Additionally, UE6’s cross-game social link feature will allow players to be connected to one game, but voice chat with people playing another.
The first part seems like a new concept we haven’t seen in other games. Buy one skin, use it everywhere. I bet they’re going to fuck it up with their greed somehow, but it’s a neat concept and provides more value to people who buy skins.
The second part, and last sentence, is basically just discord, team speak, etc. I don’t buy or use Epic’s stuff, but if I understand it correctly, some dumbass thought it was a good idea to only allow voice channels for people playing the same game 🤣🤣🤣
That’s how they tried to sell NFTs in games to us iirc. Buy a gun skin or obtain a specific gun in CoD and use it in another game. I dunno how that was supposed to work, but I remember that marketing spin when they were trying to make them a thing.
It’s a technical nightmare. It requires exponential levels of labor for every cosmetic and legal agreements with disparate game owners. Sure, I make an asset in my game for a skin the player bought in your game, who keeps the money?
It’s probably my lack of understanding of UR, but how do you have the same skin in multiple games for different character or items models? Are they going to update every game when there is a new skin released or is this somehow done dynamically?
I will start by saying that I have no idea what their plans are and I am not a game or game engine dev.
how do you have the same skin in multiple games for different character or items models?
I think what we’ll see is the model and mesh of the skins will be loadable by the game via the engine. I’m assuming they’ll have a standard that contains the hitbox and model/mesh to put on the character. Then the game dev could tweak gobally the scaling (as an example) to make all skins fit nicely into their game. Same for guns and such. But game devs who want to opt in[1] to this will have to use the engine API to make it work.
Are they going to update every game when there is a new skin released
I would assume that the game itself won’t need to be recompiled or updated but rather the engine will download the newest skins in some common and reusable place. And then the engine swaps one model for another.
[1] my suspicion is that the tech will be licensed to the game makers. Especially if they plan on allowing copyright characters (like Marvel characters).
And again, please take everything I said with some salty grains or something as I am only speculating.
All of that sounds like it makes sense. I’m wondering how do you say buy a fortnite skin for a specific shaped character, then use it in a game where the character model is wildly different. I know very little about game game dev and even less so about how character art is made and turned into a 3d model. It just seems like the skins would have to be individually created for each game. That may not be too bad at first, but the bigger the game catalog, the more maintenance.
I’m very much not the demo for this kind of thing, but the tech behind it sounds interesting. I’m just waiting for them to say they’re doing it with AI to take my distaste for Epic and multiplying it tenfold.
There were automation demos by ue If I remember correctly showing different size and types of bodies wearing the same outfits, mightve been reallusion or something else, either way AAA devs would have access to the tools/knowledge to remodel the clothes to fit manually for their game.
The first part seems like a new concept we haven’t seen in other games. Buy one skin, use it everywhere. I bet they’re going to fuck it up with their greed somehow, but it’s a neat concept and provides more value to people who buy skins.
The second part, and last sentence, is basically just discord, team speak, etc. I don’t buy or use Epic’s stuff, but if I understand it correctly, some dumbass thought it was a good idea to only allow voice channels for people playing the same game 🤣🤣🤣
That’s how they tried to sell NFTs in games to us iirc. Buy a gun skin or obtain a specific gun in CoD and use it in another game. I dunno how that was supposed to work, but I remember that marketing spin when they were trying to make them a thing.
It’s a technical nightmare. It requires exponential levels of labor for every cosmetic and legal agreements with disparate game owners. Sure, I make an asset in my game for a skin the player bought in your game, who keeps the money?
It’s probably my lack of understanding of UR, but how do you have the same skin in multiple games for different character or items models? Are they going to update every game when there is a new skin released or is this somehow done dynamically?
I will start by saying that I have no idea what their plans are and I am not a game or game engine dev.
I think what we’ll see is the model and mesh of the skins will be loadable by the game via the engine. I’m assuming they’ll have a standard that contains the hitbox and model/mesh to put on the character. Then the game dev could tweak gobally the scaling (as an example) to make all skins fit nicely into their game. Same for guns and such. But game devs who want to opt in[1] to this will have to use the engine API to make it work.
I would assume that the game itself won’t need to be recompiled or updated but rather the engine will download the newest skins in some common and reusable place. And then the engine swaps one model for another.
[1] my suspicion is that the tech will be licensed to the game makers. Especially if they plan on allowing copyright characters (like Marvel characters).
And again, please take everything I said with some salty grains or something as I am only speculating.
All of that sounds like it makes sense. I’m wondering how do you say buy a fortnite skin for a specific shaped character, then use it in a game where the character model is wildly different. I know very little about game game dev and even less so about how character art is made and turned into a 3d model. It just seems like the skins would have to be individually created for each game. That may not be too bad at first, but the bigger the game catalog, the more maintenance.
I’m very much not the demo for this kind of thing, but the tech behind it sounds interesting. I’m just waiting for them to say they’re doing it with AI to take my distaste for Epic and multiplying it tenfold.
There were automation demos by ue If I remember correctly showing different size and types of bodies wearing the same outfits, mightve been reallusion or something else, either way AAA devs would have access to the tools/knowledge to remodel the clothes to fit manually for their game.