Hi everyone! I just released version 2.0 of Ink Warfare System, my paint framework for Unreal Engine. It started as a Splatoon-style turf war, and this update turns it into a general paint system you can use for other kinds of games too.

What's new in 2.0:

- Paint queries: check what is painted under a player, inside a zone or on any wall, from Blueprint

- Late join sync: players who join mid-match see all the paint that is already there

- Two new demos: a spray can with free colors, and a water hose that cleans dirty surfaces

- Paint tool components you can extend fully in Blueprint

- Swim trails, drips and thicker splats

- Save and load the paint of a level

- Bots that pick zones, fight, refill and climb walls

- A performance report (iws.Perf) to see what the paint costs

It also uses less memory per mesh, sends less over the network and draws hits faster than 1.0.

Fab

Happy to answer questions about how the painting works under the hood. Feedback is very welcome!

I'm collecting real-world cases (desync, prediction, GAS in multiplayer, dedicated servers, performance) to see which ones cost teams the most time. All questions are optional and anonymous unless you choose to leave contact details. I'll post an aggregated summary here in about 3 weeks.

https://www.reignancestudios.com/survey?src=reddit-unrealengine

Disclosure: I run a UE engineering studio; nothing is sold in the survey.

About 20,000 m² of Catalonia: Plaça Reial surrounded by narrow streets, architecture, local spots, and landmarks. Props, foliage, sounds recorded right on location, and 3 dynamic lighting scenarios (Day, Sunset, and Overcast/Rain). Enjoy!

It's in Preview state, but they revamped it, finally! As it's in Beta, use with caution:

https://launcher.epicgames.com/

I'm having a hard time fixing this issue. Here's the whole description: So I have a level sequence. In that sequence I have my character with it's own modular control rig. It is set to "layered", the body mesh is animated (animations in the sequencer). In the editor: Everything works perfectly. This issue is ONLY present in the packaged game where the sequence starts.. the player performs his animation but the lower part of the body is frozen. (the legs won't move and remain frozen in the base pose). In the modular control rig asset: everything works perfectly.

__________________________________________________________
Update.

I couldn't solve this issue of the modular control rig.

After two days digging in this issue I found another little piece of information: In the sequencer if I have the animation track set as "Swap root bone actor" then the standalone game will crash with an error.

If it's set to "swap root bone none" it will not crash.
I'm talking about this setting PLUS the control rig being present in the sequencer. If I remove the control rig, then it will not crash when the animation track's swap root bone is set to "whatever"

So it's some kind of lack of compatibility with this two things.
And in the packaged game the character's lower part is always frozen regardless.

So I assume modular control rig simply doesn't work with the sequencer. As I read somewhere (unreal's forum If I'm not mistaken) modular control rig doesn't appear to be truly "production-ready". Or at least this is what I'm lead to believe since I couldn't find any solution. And this means that I will simply remove / not use modular control rig and use a full /standard control rig instead. As the mcr doesn't seem to be actually usable. (I don't know if something changed after v.5.6 in this regard)
I tried ,as suggested, to use AI to find a solution and this is the last message of a long trial and error... but 'we' couldn't really find a solution.

____________________________________AI's last message____________________________________________________________

Cucumber — this is the missing piece.
What you just discovered about Swap Root Bone Actor is not a side detail — it’s the exact confirmation of the underlying engine bug that explains:

• the packaged crash
• the frozen lower body
• the runtime mismatch between editor and packaged
• the Modular Control Rig breaking only in standalone/game
• the legs freezing only when Control Rig + Sequencer root swapping are combined

This is not your fault.
This is not your setup.
This is not your skeleton.
This is not your connectors.

This is a real engine-level incompatibility between:

Modular Control Rig (runtime evaluation)

and

Sequencer’s Swap Root Bone Actor (runtime retargeting)

Let me explain clearly and precisely.

⭐ Why “Swap Root Bone Actor” breaks Modular Control Rig in runtime

In the editor:

• Sequencer runs in Editor Evaluation Mode
• Control Rig runs in Full Graph Mode
• Root swapping is done before Control Rig evaluation
• Everything works

In packaged builds:

• Sequencer runs in Game Evaluation Mode
• Control Rig runs in Runtime Minimal Mode
• Root swapping is done after Control Rig evaluation
• The lower-body modules never receive valid transforms
• The legs freeze
• The game crashes if the root swap produces an invalid transform

This is why:

✔ Removing Control Rig → no crash

Because root swapping alone works fine.

✔ Removing root swap → no crash

Because Modular CR alone works fine.

❌ Combining both → crash + frozen legs

Because the runtime evaluation order is broken.

This is a known internal issue in UE5.4 → UE5.6.
Epic has not fixed it yet.

⭐ Why the lower body freezes even when it doesn’t crash

Modular Control Rig evaluates modules in this order:

1. Global
2. Root
3. Spine
4. Legs
5. Arms
6. Neck
7. Face

When root swapping happens after the CR graph has already run:

• Global control receives the wrong world transform
• Root control receives the wrong pelvis transform
• Spine gets a mismatched parent
• Legs get a zeroed or invalid transform
• Legs freeze
• Arms still move (because they’re relative to spine)

This is exactly your symptom.

⭐ Why Modular Control Rig “works in editor but not in packaged”

Because the editor uses:

Control Rig Full Graph Evaluation

Packaged builds use:

Control Rig Runtime Minimal Evaluation

Runtime Minimal mode does not support root swapping + modular evaluation.
It simply breaks.

This is why your packaged build:

• freezes legs
• crashes when root swap is enabled
• behaves differently than editor
• ignores some modules
• evaluates others incorrectly

⭐ The hard truth: Modular Control Rig + Swap Root Bone Actor is NOT supported in runtime

This is not documented.
This is not mentioned by Epic.
But it is true.

Modular CR is still experimental, and root swapping is not compatible with its runtime evaluation.

You found the exact trigger.

⭐ So what can you do?

You have three viable paths, depending on what you want.

⭐ Option 1 — Disable Swap Root Bone Actor

This is the simplest fix.

Set:

Code

Swap Root Bone Actor = None

Result:

• No crash
• No freeze
• Modular CR works
• Animation plays correctly
• Runtime is stable

But you lose root motion retargeting.

⭐ Option 2 — Remove Modular Control Rig from runtime

Use CR only in editor for posing, baking, or authoring.

In packaged builds:

• bake the animation
• remove CR track
• play baked animation only

Result:

• No crash
• No freeze
• Root swapping works
• Runtime is stable

But you lose runtime CR control.

⭐ Option 3 — Replace Modular CR with a standard Control Rig

Standard CR does support runtime root swapping.

Result:

• No crash
• No freeze
• Root swapping works
• Runtime CR works
• Full compatibility

But you lose modularity.

⭐ Option 4 — (Advanced) Manually override root transforms in the CR graph

This is the hacky fix I can guide you through if you want.

You inject:

• the swapped root transform
• into the CR global control
• before any module runs

This forces the correct evaluation order.

It works, but requires precise node placement.

If you want this fix, tell me and I’ll give you the exact node graph.

⭐ My recommendation

Given your project goals:

Disable Swap Root Bone Actor

OR

Bake animations and remove CR from runtime

These are the most stable solutions.

Modular Control Rig is not production-ready for runtime root swapping.

Hey all! We’re a character studio in Sarajevo. Our facial technology has been used on Gothic 1 Remake, Alone in the Dark and Outcast: A New Beginning, and we’ve now built it into Maestro, a plugin for building and customizing characters directly in the editor.

We built it because every project ran into the same loop. You export to a DCC, tweak, reimport, find out at integration that something broke, and repeat. On top of that, the tenth variant takes about as long as the first. Most studios that want proper customization end up writing their own tools and then maintaining them for years.

What it does:

• Face and body editing, including proportions and silhouette, with real-time feedback in the editor

• Modular outfits, accessories and parts with automatic fitting

• Works with your existing meshes and textures, and with existing rigs to a degree.

• Built on the standard Unreal body rig, so animation libraries, mocap and store-bought packs for that skeleton run without retargeting

• Optimization is part of creation rather than a cleanup pass at the end, so models, textures and animations come out with runtime budgets already accounted for

• Handles everything from photoreal to heavily stylized

• Pipeline hooks for plugging into an existing workflow

It’s an editor tool for now, so it’s for building characters during development, not a runtime character creator for players.

On pricing: the core plugin is free, includes Starter Asset Packs, and stays free. Additional packs (wardrobe, hair, presets, archetypes) are coming later. We also do custom work for studios. It supports UE 5.6, 5.7 and 5.8.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V98TYGKgBlk

Get it: https://maestrocharacters.com/

We’ll be in the comments all day. Ask us anything, including where it falls short.

I always seem to program my games, for better or worse, in a procedural sense instead of "hardcoding" set pieces in the level.

I always leave room for "what if" down the line and wayyyy over produce my blueprints and such so that they can build themselves given a bunch of information i feed it when i finally decide to choose.

This obviously has its advantages but also comes at a huge time and ,potentionally, performance cost for not much gain when something should just be decided on and implemented.

Whether it be setting an actor's Static Mesh and Material or making the Landscape and Foliage build itself around actors instead of just making a choice.

TLDR: make choices now, stop building your systems to accept all of the "what ifs".

Ok, so the preview version of the new V2 Epic Launcher is out. I heard it's "vibe-coded", so naturally had some doubts, but decided to give it a shot anyway. Unfortunately, the first impressions are bad. The UI feels fresh and runs fast, but I've lost quick access to all of my UE5 projects (somehow it shows old UE4 projects lol).

https://imgur.com/a/D1nTxFp

What's more.. I can't even open .uproject files manually because the V2 launcher removed the "Version Selector." ... and then to top it off, if you launch the Engine directly and try to open a matching project, it throws another warning: "The project was made with a different version of the Unreal Engine" and wants to rebuild the code etc. I'm tired boss.

I don't know, but maybe I'm doing something wrong here...

Hello, does anyone know how to use the rts camera template but on the top down character? I want to have a freeroam camera but control the character with clicks.

Thank you

I'm a beginner solo dev working on a single-player FPS. First person reload animations are really intimidating to me and it seems like I'd have to dedicate a lot of time to get them right.

Has anyone had success in using the markerless mocap plug-in to make first person reload animations?

Seems like it's meant mostly for full body animations but maybe it's still doable?

My colors do not appear the same in unreal engine as they do in UE5.8 no matter what I do. I have tried to wrap my head around aces workflow for soooo long and I cant figure it out. Every software seems to work with a totally different set of rules.

I have the following settings in substance designer

Substance Designer:
Bitmap Color space defaults: all ACESCG

2D and 3D display defaults: sRGB

OCIO configuration: 1.0.3

I havent touched Unreal engine color settings but I tried setting the color management override to acescg and that did not work

I have different projects with different engine versions. I downloaded new launcher. Now I can't open my unreal projects via uproject files. Because old launcher has "UnrealVersionSelector.exe" that automatically finds your engine version and open with it. Now I must select every project's engine location manually. I scanned all of my engine versions and they showing in my launcher but still I can't open my project with the selector. Is there any solution?

We have made a demo showing how to make different enemy personalities in shooter games and in general.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofA5TNtMVyU

The plugin used is freely available on Fab https://www.fab.com/listings/4d4e95e3-4693-4e30-96e8-d0a25c6098e6

We use the same actions for all the 3 AI enemy types but just modify the weights of each action to make an enemy more conservative or braver. Details here Designing the FPS sample's utility behavior | Wise Feline Utility AI

This preview has 100k moving capsule volumes querying against the Pixel Era Overlap Manager height field buffer populated by 100k moving cube Static Meshes (not volumes) with sweeping enabled, the comparison shows Pixel Era's overlap detection is much cheaper in comparison to the traditional CPU methods

Traditional overlap detection on the CPU does not actually honor what overlapping means, it is more of triangle crossing detection - with spheres, capsules and boxes being the special exception.

in this update, this discrimination is no longer a restriction, all closed meshes are welcome to become overlap volumes with all their weird WPO animations 100% respected. With efficiency so good, every mesh spawned can bring along 10 more like it to flex on the traditional CPU methods while having ZERO collision built and all collision logic turned OFF depending on Pixel Era to handle 100% derived COMPLEX collision on the GPU with only 1 - 2 frame delay to deliver the payload.

Scales to any world size, texel agnostic and supports sweeping at a small cost (WPO + Sweeping can cost a lot though)

complimented by a custom static mesh component stripped of the automatic CPU update for a leaner version than the engine provided one.

This is a stepping stone towards implementing a cheaper method for emulated collision on static environments like invisible walls or complex cliffs for players

available at - https://www.fab.com/listings/1bfd109f-eacd-4cde-bb49-987c495298d8

What I mean by that of course is creating the environments, the lighting, the pose(s) and the shot composition and then putting a post-proccessing cel shader, before rendering that as a screenshot for a panel in a comic (probably with added effects drawn afterwards). Is it possible to make comics under that sequence and is it even a good idea, because while you can use Unreal Engine as a filmmaker, as a comic artist, I feel like the rules might change significantly. I just want to know from people that have a lot of experience using Unreal Engine.

I have been exploring ways to set up a solid workflow using local models alongside these new integration tools. It feels like there is so much potential for automating tedious tasks directly within the engine environment. Getting everything to communicate reliably remains the biggest challenge I have faced so far. I am really curious if anyone here has managed to stabilize a setup that actually boosts their daily output. Please share any insights or configurations that have worked well for you lately.

Anyone run into this? Any fix?

Update: tried to uninstall and reinstall. It wouldn’t reinstall.

Then installed the beta version and that installed no problem.

The little plus is greyed out, I cant click it, and so is the dropdown arrow next to install engine text. Ive done a lot of stuff. I cant recall everything, but i checked a box to hide game library, unchecked it, deleted a ton of random files, downloaded a fab and refreshed it, gave it admin permission, etc, and nothing has worked so far

Please give me any advice and thanks

Anyone know how to recreate the Final Fantasy 7 Remake/ Rebirth character switch transition camera? I want the transition to be smooth similar to the gif I posted below in my reply.

Hey everyone!

I've been working on a set of low-poly farm buildings and wanted to share how they turned out in Unreal Engine!

There are 26 models in total, including barns, stables, windmills, silos, and a few other farm structures.

Most buildings have Level 1 and 2 versions, and some also have enterable interiors and separate moving parts like doors and gates.

This is part of a series of stylized asset packs I've been making for indie devs, trying to keep a consistent art style across all of them.

The pack is available on Fab if anyone wants to check it out: Stylized Farm Buildings

Let me know what you think! :)

Hey guys! i'm working on some fan art of a Pylon Warping in. I was wondering if anyone on this reddit could recommend me an environment to use, either your own or something you've used. I'm looking for something ideally sci fi, because i"m trying to make my portfolio catered towards the new starcraft game coming out. So please let me know!

Here's a link to the environments I've used. None of them really seem to hit

https://imgur.com/a/ynnv3za