https://youtu.be/zP-aFdRLimo?si=YWLwBwN_fYuXYjqE

First things first: 5.8.4 shipped on Oct 20. It's the same candidate that landed on the 5.8 branch in the first week of October. There's a version bump plus 108 cherry-picks.

Note: If you're considering moving to this, it does not contain any change after Oct 5, like the Mac Editor crash fix, shader compile hang with async compilation off, and the movie staging pair.

The bigger changes are on UE6: UnrealBuildTool renamed parts of its public C# API, incremental cooking triggered a series of full invalidations, and Epic fixed a Horde tracing issue that could expose service account tokens and signing keys to Datadog.

On ue5-main:

• Cook determinism fixes: Load-time GUIDs and other dependency issues are being addressed, including a fix for stale cook results that could persist indefinitely on affected machines.
• Physics, Niagara, and CEF fixes: There are additional fixes worth reviewing if you’re maintaining a 5.8 project.

On ue6-main:

• UnrealBuildTool’s public C# API has been renamed: Public fields are losing their 'b' prefixes, and public parameters are moving to camelCase. Build.cs, Target.cs, config keys, and command-line flags keep their names. Custom UAT, BuildGraph, and Gauntlet code may need changes.
• Budget for a full rebuild and recook: Every Linux compile action reruns once after a response-file change. Cook version bumps also invalidate cached packages, including a one-time Blueprint recook. Plan your next sync accordingly.
• Horde tracing could expose secrets: MongoDB spans could send service account tokens and signing keys to Datadog. The fix masks sensitive fields, but existing traces may still contain them. If you self-host Horde with tracing, review and rotate exposed credentials or purge affected traces.
• Cook determinism is getting serious attention: Twenty-two commits addressed cook determinism and multithreaded-save safety. The goal is to make incremental cooking more trustworthy, even if getting there means some expensive recooks now.
• More editor systems are becoming scriptable and AI-callable: UMG Widget Blueprint authoring, Landscape, and Sound Cue gained new scripting surfaces. The Landscape implementation is still experimental.
• Some defaults changed: Mac and Android audio now cooks to BINKA instead of OGG, Audio Modulation and the Waveform Editor are enabled by default, and shader libraries can release unreferenced shaders.

Full Report: https://speedrun.ci/en/blog/last-week-in-unreal-oct-19-25-2026

An example of what I'm talking about would be a shotgun that has a wide cone in one hand and a revolver pistol that's perfectly accurate in the other. I'm somewhat familiar with terminology when I read it, but I don't know the terminology well enough to know what to search for to design and make this myself. The design includes variables such as fire rates, amounts of bullets per gun per shot, different magazine sizes, different ranges for the damage falloff, and the capacity to independently change the cone of each gun mid gameplay (some are less accurate when jumping for instance). I'm aiming on integrating Box3d as well with the project if it matters. I want to understand what's actually happening since I have other aspects to the design that I want to implement

This is kind of a wish list lol but I don't know how to succinctly put my thoughts together in any other way. I won't be awake for much longer so I'll check back in in the morning, thanks! :)

Hi everyone,

I've got two keys that can be redeemed on https://gamesbyhyper.com

I've got them from the Humble Bundle, and they are no use to me as I'm working with Unity.

Instead of wasting them, I wanted to share them with fellow Unreal devs who might actually use them. I don't expect anything in return.

Please post a reply here for the next 24 hours; tomorrow I'll pick a winner for each key using the following site. https://quicknote.to/tools/random-choice-generator

Games By Hyper 50% Discount Code The redemption deadline is December 31, 2026 at 11:00:00 AM PST.

Hyper Gold Tier 3 month Subscription The redemption deadline is September 26, 2027 at 11:00:00 AM PDT.

p.s. I've messaged mods earlier but got no reply, if that's not allowed sorry, mods can delete which will void the giveaway here...

Recreated the Hot Wiring mechanic from the closed alpha of Dead Matter!

In this video, we'll be covering how to add a Collision Manager to your scene so that your Flesh Asset can collide with other Rigid Body Actors of your choosing. By default, collisions are only enabled for the Floor Actor by the Deformable Solver.

One frustrating issue in Unreal Engine is when achievements work during testing but refuse to unlock in a packaged build.
Before rewriting your entire system, check these common problems:

- Achievement IDs: Make sure the API names match your Steamworks configuration exactly.
- Subsystem configuration: Verify your Online Subsystem Steam settings are included in the packaged build.
- Initialization timing: Wait for the relevant query or initialization callbacks before writing achievements.

- Steam setup: Confirm the correct App ID is being used and Steam is running with the right account.
- Write results: Calling the unlock function doesn't guarantee success. Check the completion callback and log errors.
- Packaged builds: Test the complete flow outside the editor, including restarting the game to verify the result.

Debugging tip: Log each stage, from subsystem initialization to the achievement write result. It helps identify exactly where the process fails. For developers who've implemented achievements in UE5, what was the most confusing bug you encountered? Let's share solutions that could save others hours of debugging.

I've been learning Materials for my game and I'm confused, one of the indept material tutorials states to never put Master Materials on objects because it's very heavy and to use material instances instead, but when I watch other tutorials they don't even bother with material instances. So what's the best choice for going on my meshes?

i tried using texture variation and texture bombing but they didn't work combined with a world aligned texture

You can use the tool to stylize your textures and assets, create eye-catching marketing material for your page, add awesome animated effects, and use the texture ripper feature. With this latest update, I've added seamifier! It will help you create seamless, blended, or repeating patterns for your textures. You can check it out here: https://polyshades.itch.io/coolifier

This might be a strange take, but most game developers I know don't have much money to spare. Plenty get into it hoping to make a good living, then discover how difficult that is and stick around because they love making games.

A company (like Epic) with that kind of money and infrastructure can afford to experiment, burn through tokens, and keep iterating until something works. For someone paying for a basic subscription out of their own pocket, there's a much tighter limit on how much experimenting they can do.

I assume Tim (The CEO) enjoys trying out new technology, which is understandable. But how realistic is it for the average developer here to match that level of spending or flexibility.

I don't use AI myself to any extent most people do here. I've been fortunate enough to work at AAA studios and have spent years learning to make games without it. But I think people can get a warped impression of what's achievable on a resonable budget when the examples they see come from people who can afford to keep spending until they get a result.

I recently saw a YouTube video where someone spent around $2,000 on tokens trying to recreate a World of Warcraft experience, and I thought the result looked absolutely terrible. That's a lot of money for nothing worth while.

So if someone wins the current game jam using AI, I'd be curious to know what they spent getting there. Depending on the token bill, they could win the jam and still lose money, and to me that is not a good game jam.

TLDR: Contact developer before buying if you don't think they're support the product any more, try demos, investigate existing features before buying, read descriptions carefully, and go with your gut feelings.

I wanted to share some things to look out for when buying assets, especially if you're new to Unreal and aren't sure how to spot potential problems. If you have advice or experiences of your own, feel free to add them in the comments. (I've been creating stuff for 7 years, so that you have a frame of reference)

I don't want to turn this into a post about AI, but there's one relevant point worth addressing: creating a product and being able to support it are two different things. If a seller relies on AI to write their code without understanding how it works, they may struggle to maintain it or fix it when something breaks. The concern is whether the person selling you the product has the knowledge to support it. You don't want your project depending on code that its own developer doesn't understand.

1. Contact the developer before buying. If you're unsure whether a product is still maintained, send a short email with a relevant question. See whether you get a useful response within a reasonable time. One slow reply doesn't tell you everything, but the quality of the answer can tell you a lot + it is a good indication that you could get future support.

2. Check supported engine versions and the update history. A plugin that supports older releases alongside newer ones can be a good sign, especially if the changelog shows ongoing fixes. Maintaining compatibility across several engine versions takes effort.

3. Ask specific technical questions. Ask how the plugin handles something your project needs. A developer who understands their product should be able to explain its behaviour and tradeoffs.

4. Check what Unreal already includes. Unreal includes plenty of tools and plugins you may never have come across. So I recommend that before you spend money, check whether an existing tool covers your needs. For instance these is pretty insane, and they're disabled by default: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/zEJTIrg581M or https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ns4M4MsHVAk

5. Look at how shader assets are built. I've made more than 100 shaders that I sell, and I generally prefer material nodes. They make the material easier to inspect and modify (especially for beginners), and they allow optimizations that custom HLSL nodes can miss. Custom HLSL and .usf have use cases of course (loops for instance), but look out for HLSL nodes. They're a pretty solid give away that it's been generated with AI, and likely not optimized by a human.

6. Consider who will support the product. Teams creating products are preferable over individuals. Most products on the marketplace are made by common folk who have ordinary jobs. They will not have time to help you when life comes in the way.

7. Investigate anything that feels off. If the images seem unrealistic, the documentation is vague, or the demonstrations avoid showing something important, look closer. Ask for clarification or a demonstration of your use case.

8. Leave an honest, specific review if something doesn't work. A factual negative review gives other buyers useful information and gives the developer something concrete to address. If the issue gets fixed, update the review to reflect that.

9. Value your time when deciding whether to buy or build. A great asset can save a huge amount of work, especially for larger systems. Building something yourself makes sense when you want to learn or need a very specific solution, but remember to count debugging, integration, documentation, and future engine upgrades. Generating an initial implementation with AI doesn't remove those responsibilities. Buying an asset can reduce that workload, provided the product is maintained and fits your needs.

10. Understand the license and don't make assumptions about AI and copyright. Buying an asset usually gives you permission to use it under a license, rather than ownership of its copyright. AI-generated content adds another layer: copyright protection depends on the jurisdiction and the extent of human authorship. In the US, purely AI-generated material generally isn't protected, while qualifying human contributions can be. Paying for an AI-generated product doesn't automatically change that, and a lack of copyright protection doesn't mean every use is free of restrictions.

11. Check performance and possible demos. Look for measurements, hardware specifications, and examples at a realistic scale. Performance is very subjective based on their hardware. We went a bit nuts with out FAQ: https://eliaswick.com/resources/faq, and how detailed our hardware specification is, but it's all the better for anyone buying anything.

Again, if you have any other tips please write a comment.

Hi. I started learning C++ a few weeks ago, and I want to start using it in game development, but I don’t know the first thing about game engines or making actual games. I’d like to learn the basics so I can build a MVP and explore the engine on my own (meaning I want to learn concepts on a need-to-know basis as I build).

I feel completely lost. There are too many tutorials and different approaches out there, and I don't really know which path to choose. (I'm probably overthinking it.)

So, I'm asking how did you start learning Unreal Engine? Did you take a structured course or just use YouTube tutorials? I’d really appreciate it if you could share a blueprint or roadmap of what I should learn, and in what order.

Hello all,

I'm putting together a prototype for a cover shooter. I need the red enemy ball blip to move to an 'available' cover point (a cover piece that isn't currently occupied) which are marked by the smaller yellow spheres [Photo 1].

The cover marker has a Gameplay Tag Container. I do have a function that removes this tag built into the cover marker, but it's not being triggered during runtime accidentally. The markers are a child of a cover piece, but this shouldn't be a problem since the 'Get All Actors' portion works when the tag part isn't included. Have also tried using the 'Find Actors with Tag' BP module on it's own, and even with the tag typed explicitly the query can't find any of the cover markers. Really lost on how to test this adequately as seeing the active tags for an object can be difficult, but from what I've tested I can't discern a reason for why the cover markers can't be found whenever a tag is included.

Any assistance is appreciated, this issue successfully killed my interest the last time I tried to do this project, so hoping attempt 2 works out better.

Created tags are displayed in Photo 2. Default tags for the cover marker are in Photo 3. BP is displayed in Photo 4. Tag query in Photo 5.

Photos and BP here: https://imgur.com/a/jtqaO72

Build above cities with story...

In this chapter of the Materials Masterclass we will learn why should we be using UI materials, and build a cool looking 2D liquid effect from scratch. Enjoy!

(Texture download link in the video description)

I did a pretty basic camera animation in my studio scene. First time doing animation in UE, so bare with me ;)
I know it´s not perfect, consider it more of a draft.

Your thoughts and feedback is most welcome, improvement is the goal.

It was the game that dragged me towards crafting in an FPS and, out of all in the series, Far Cry 3 is still the only one I can think of when it comes to "nostalgia vibes".. And I thought it would be a fun side project to bring it into Unreal. Also, I'm testing the performance of some tools and I needed a 16 square kilometers map so... Rook was the first that came to mind.

It's reverse engineering, so the terrain is a 1:1 replica, roads included. I want to see how much I can push the remake so it looks "modern" but also keeps the overall vibe.

So far, it doesn't, since it's using a different landscape material and assets but... I hope I'm on the right track 🙂

Hope you like it!

Fireblade

Hi! Recently we released one of our tools Surface Decal Studio, the plugin comes with more than 320 decal textures that you can use with or without the tool (or you can use your own).

Made using scripting tools to scatter decals and add detail to your environment with ease and a lot of control :)

The most powerful feature is the Material Library, which lets you randomly assign and blend the decals so repetition is much harder to spot.
Thanks!

https://youtu.be/p9Fj_u77lzQ?si=moD9gliGEPryshfs

​

If the monitor supports 2K or 4K, does Unreal Engine need to set the rendering sg.ResolutionQuality to 60–70%?

Or should this value be set automatically based on the hardware configuration? Is there any expert here?

Because after I packaged my game and gave it to people with 40 50 series GPUs to play, the GPU usage is close to 100%. It is a small stylized scene, on a 2K screen

Today, when I went into the 'Tools and Plugins' section on FaB, I came across dozens of posts from the same guy: https://www.fab.com/sellers/Specpixel%20Entertainment%20PTY%20LTD

There are one or two AI-generated features being posted—more than 50 in a row.

Just go to the "plugins" section and look at the newest ones; you’ll find that junk there.
https://www.fab.com/channels/unreal-engine?listing_types=tool-and-plugin&sort_by=-firstPublishedAt

I found a problem with Focus logic that made my game go from 80fps to 240fps stable.

If you run through my game (Parry Dungeon) without fighting any enemies, the enemies will Focus you as part of their combat logic, but I stupidly forgot to add ClearFocus logic if you go out of sight. So, if you encounter all the enemies and don't kill them (because killing them deletes them after a bit, which removes the Focus logic cost), you'll have a bunch of enemies that "forgot" you, but are still focusing you. At the end of the game, after encountering 150-ish enemies, you get 240fps standing still, and 80fps moving. This is because those 150 enemies are all still focusing you, so when you don't move, their rotations and body transforms don't need updating. But when you move, they all rotate at once.

Solution: added ClearFocus logic when enemies forget the player. That one node, literally one, saved my soul. I was losing my mind. This issue plagued me for a month. I was adding other features and polishing the game, and have been nearly ready for release for a long time, to move to my next project and keep learning, and I thought this was a side effect of the CharacterMovementComponent, even though I disable them when enemies forget the player.

The key was that UnrealInsights finally made sense. The AIController was calling movement and physics logic. How could the AIController call movement logic? 1. the AI pawn is moving. 2. the AI pawn is rotating, which moves socketed children in the world. The pawn wasn't moving and the behavior trees weren't executing anything because they had no target. That must mean rotation is the answer, and it was. How would an AI rotate without the BehaviorTree executing logic? Something was called before, and keeps executing silently. The treacherous Focus node. I guess having 160 characters rotating in unison may eventually get expensive.