Fortnite Festival

Fortnite Festival is a music-based rhythm experience in Fortnite that includes two main experiences; Main Stage and Jam Stage. My role part of the Festival team was to support the Modeling and Animation team to implement Instrument and "Bandplay" specific assets to UE5.

Mesh Implementation

I was responsible for implementing over 200+ instrument cosmetics in-game. This consisted of rigging, skinning, and exporting meshes to the engine, ensuring proper LOD and mesh settings were applied, and visual standards being met when instrument cosmetics are held in the character's hands as an Instrument, Pickaxe, or Backbling.

Physics Implementation

Several unique Instrument cosmetics have a mix of organic and non-organic moving elements that benefited from physic based simulation or anim-bp driven movement. This usually involved custom rig creation to support moving these elements. A few examples can be seen below.

Drumkit Rig Update & Maintenance

I overhauled the Drumkit rig repurposing and extending the existing rig to improve drum piece articulation and animator control accessibility. Since the Main Stage game mode had already shipped with dozens of animations built on the original, additional work included retargeting all existing Drumkit animations to the updated rig and updating pre-existing Animation Blueprints with these new retargeted animations in-engine to ensure a clean 1-to-1 transition.

Jam Traversal - Cymbal Physics

Jam Traversal is a new feature that allows players to move freely within an active "Jam Circle" with their instrument equipped while jamming. I was responsible for implementing cymbal physics for the Drumkit which activate across all equippable Drumkits when players enter this game state.