010: What is Ratshaker? OpenUSD in Unreal and Last Minute Black Friday Deals
This week from the Outpost: Epic is not leaning into PlayStation's new tech, a new Unreal build tool, and a beautiful art breakdown.
It's the start of the holidays, so this week we have some longer watches, some deals, and another interesting indie game to keep you occupied while you work off that food coma.
Have a great weekend. You can find us on Bluesky if you have made the jump.
The Latest
Unreal Engine starts to play nice with Universal Scene Description
USD (Universal Scene Description), pioneered by Pixar, has been pushing for a unified format between 3D applications. USD has been slowly making progress across a number of different applications, but has never been treated as a first-class citizen in Unreal Engine. This talk from Unreal Fest Seattle digs into how to get your scenes into Unreal. It isn't a perfect workflow, but if you're already working with USD or want to dip your toes in, it's worth digging into.
Epic Steers Clear of PSSR on PS5 Pro
With the PS5 Pro comes a series of new technologies and power for developers to play with. This profile from Digital Foundry gives us a little insight into how Epic will be approaching the console.
One interesting piece of information was that Epic is sticking with their own TSR tech over the new PlayStation pipeline of PSSR. With the issues surrounding Alan Wake and Silent Hill 2, this might be for the best while Sony updates their tools. Time will tell.
Toolbox
The Unreal Engine Tool
UET (Unreal Engine Tool) is a new Swiss Army knife for automating Unreal Engine development, replacing the now-deprecated Unreal Engine Scripts. While building and testing Unreal projects has traditionally been fairly complex, UET streamlines the process with a straightforward command-line interface. The beauty of UET lies in its flexibility - you can start with simple builds using just a single command like uet build, or scale up to complex multi-platform deployments with BuildConfig.json files. It handles everything from BuildGraph distribution to remote automation testing, and even manages version control of itself across your team through the UETVersion property. Though still a work-in-progress, it's already making life easier for developers who need to automate their Unreal Engine workflows.
RedpointGames
Black Friday Deals
Just a couple of picks from me from the bunch of Black Friday deals. Two of my favorite Node and Blueprint tools are on sale. If you've been on the lookout for a discount, it's worth heading over to Fab this weekend.
Electric Nodes - $12.99 > 9.09
Blueprint Assist - $19.99 > 9.99
Pinboard
Barber Shop Breakdown - Kevin J Coulman
This is hands down one of the best breakdowns I've seen on ArtStation. Head over to Kevin's - Barber Shop Breakdown for a beautiful walkthrough that mimics a coffee table art book. From notes and references to lighting considerations, it's a great look at the full process.
Ratshaker
This quirky indie game passed the desk of the Outpost this week. With a certain sense of humor, a horror element, and a unique art style, this should be an easy pick-up if you're looking for something to play this weekend. It's currently sitting at Overwhelmingly Positive on Steam.
That’s it from the outpost this week, we’ll be back with more from the horizon next weekend.
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