ArtStation Changes Hands, Ragdolls Get Smarter and Rome After Dark

Welcome back to the Outpost.

This week we’ve got ArtStation changing hands, a useful update to Epic’s animation sample and a couple of tools that might make life inside Unreal a little easier. We’re finishing up with a trip to Rome after dark.

Here’s what caught our eye this week.

The Latest

ArtStation and Sketchfab Join KitBash

ArtStation and Sketchfab are leaving Epic and joining KitBash, the team behind KitBash3D and Greyscalegorilla. Epic say the move will let them focus on Unreal Engine 6, Fortnite and the Epic Games Store. There are no immediate changes, but if you use either platform this is one to keep an eye on.

KitBash Acquires ArtStation and Sketchfab

ArtStation and Sketchfab are becoming part of KitBash.

Epic Games

Epic Rebuilds Its Animation Sample for 5.8

Epic have given the Game Animation Sample a big update. The star is a powered ragdoll that can fall, protect itself, roll and then use motion matching to get back up. There are shoves, tackles and takedowns too, along with new pose matching and Smart Object interactions. There is a lot here to pull apart if you work with character animation.

Download the new Game Animation Sample Project!

Completely updated for Unreal Engine 5.8, the latest sample includes new physics, motion matching, pose searching and look-at features.

Unreal Engine

Unreal MCP Arrives in UEFN

Unreal MCP has made its way into Unreal Editor for Fortnite. It connects coding agents including Claude Code, Codex and Cursor directly to the editor to write Verse, configure devices and work with Scene Graph. Not everything works in UEFN yet, but if you have been waiting to try an agent inside a real project this looks like a good place to start.

Unreal MCP is now available in UEFN

Unreal MCP, the Model Context Protocol (MCP) plugin that shipped with UE 5.8, is now available in UEFN. With Unreal MCP, you can connect agentic coding tools like Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor directly to UEFN and build your experiences right in the editor, from writing Verse and configuring devices to working with Scene Graph. Not every toolset from UE 5.8 is compatible with UEFN just yet. We’re adding more UEFN features as we bring these development streams together on the road…

Epic Developer Community Forums

Toolbox

The Outpost’s Toolbox is for new or updated tools to help make your Unreal Engine experience a little bit easier.

Blueprint Anti-Pasta

Blueprint Anti-Pasta does exactly what the name suggests. It tidies up Blueprint graphs with one command, separating branches, moving data nodes towards the pins they feed and giving the whole thing a bit more room to breathe. You can run it on a full graph or just the nodes you select, and undo the whole layout in one go if it makes things worse.

GitHub - ibrews/blueprint-auto-layout: Pin-aware auto-layout for Unreal Engine Blueprint graphs. Right-click empty graph space or press Ctrl+Shift+L. Handles branches, pure nodes, multi-event roots. UE 5.7+

Pin-aware auto-layout for Unreal Engine Blueprint graphs. Right-click empty graph space or press Ctrl+Shift+L. Handles branches, pure nodes, multi-event roots. UE 5.7+ - ibrews/blueprint-auto-layout

GitHub

Texture Channel Packer

If you are forever jumping out of Unreal to pack texture channels, Texture Channel Packer might save you some time. It combines separate grayscale textures into one RGBA texture, comes with presets for ORM and MRA maps and gives you a live preview of each channel. You can unpack textures again too. It needs a C++ project to compile, but everything else happens inside the editor.

GitHub - EmbarrassingMoment/RGBPackingTool: A simple Texture Channel Packer for UE5. Automatically resizes and packs textures into a single RGBA asset with optimized settings.

A simple Texture Channel Packer for UE5. Automatically resizes and packs textures into a single RGBA asset with optimized settings. - EmbarrassingMoment/RGBPackingTool

GitHub

Pinboard

Check out the latest art we have been keeping a lookout for.

This week on the Pinboard we have Davide Maddalo’s Roman Real-Time Environment. The night shots look great, but make sure you open the full breakdown too. There is a closer look at the modular assets, sculpting, UVs, materials and lighting behind it all. The original concept art is by Luis Medina.

That’s it from the Outpost this week. Hopefully something here saves you a job or sends you down an interesting rabbit hole this weekend.

If you’ve built something, found a useful tool or spotted a story we should be looking at, find me on Bluesky at @unrealoutpost.com or email ollie@unrealoutpost.com.

We’ll be back next Saturday. Over and out from the Outpost.