Unreal Engine's Chaos Physics
Credit: Epic GamesWe finally have a launch date for Fortnite Chapter 2, Season 2, after months of waiting. Chapter 2, Season 1 has been by far the longest season in Fortnite history, but it comes to and end on February 20, 2020 to make way for newer things. We’ll be getting an event in the meantime, as well as some new Overtime challenges.
That’s not the most interesting news, however. The most interesting news is that Fortnite will be moving over to Unreal Engine’s Chaos physics systemâ€"I’m not at headquarters working on the game, but it certainly sounds like this is one of the largest technical changes made to the game since launch, and so it’s understandable that it would take a lot of time. For a look at what the developer is talking about, let’s check out the Chaos demo from GDC 2019:
Having looked at that, we’ll need a caveat: the game is clearly not going to look like that. Fortnite got to where it is right now by running the same game, with cross-play included, on essentially every gaming device on earth, from smartphones on up to souped-up PCs. That’s not changing, and so we shouldn’t expect some massive, hardware-intensive physics system that radically changes how the game looks or works. Not only does this still need to be the same game before and after the switch, it needs to run on a massive variety of hardware.
What could we see, however? Currently when you destroy the supports for a structure everything above it just sort of dissapears, and I’d expect a little more physics-based flair for that particular animation going forward. I’d also expect a weapon or item at the beginning of Season 2 that shows off advanced physics effects in some way, shape or form: bouncing, ricochets, that sort of thing. We might also see some items in the game transition from pure scenery towards being more active, like trash cans that can be knocked over and roll.
Epic uses its games both as commercial products and as ways to test/develop and market the Unreal Engine, which remains a core business for the company. So part of this move is likely to put some cool new stuff in Fortnite for its own sake, and part of this move is likely about showing developers what you can do with Chaos physics even on lower-end machines. We’ll see what’s up with it soon.
0 Response to "‘Fortnite’ Chapter 2, Season 2: What To Make Of The Move To Unreal Engine’s Chaos Physics"
Post a Comment