Developing the Art of Fortnite 

Seeing this 2023 is such weird time capsule with how the IP has evolved

I actually really like the old concept of dark and scary for another game, even a battle royale style game. Imagine a battle royale in a silent hill world!

I love the cartoony look of Fortnite. The style makes it stand out from the countless realistic games.

What I really like about GDC is that they aren't promoting their games so they can talk freely about the problems they face and educate people about the art of game development

The art of this game is great, they took the time to design something that looks unique to that world. So glad it evolved away from that brown and grey shooter origin.

All this work, and now all the guns are meant to look as robust and tactical as possible with no flair and personality. Same with the skins with how much they're going to a different artstyle wuth more realistic faces and no cartoonish eyes etc

I really thought this would be boring but I was intrigued the whole time and didn't get bored once. This was so interesting and I love how much effort and hard work they've put into the games style and it definitely gives me more respect for save the world in itself. Everything about the design and the process was just so amazing, and I particularly loved the early game clip and its grungy, unfinished style. I would love to see that in some type of add-on in the future or something; I thought it was so cool.

The building system is a game changer, pun not intended...

3:30 "Concept of creatures that come out of the mist" So THATS why they are called mist monsters!

I am not a big fan of the Fortnite artstyle but this is one of the best talks on game art on youtube. One of few that is with complete information, really insightful. I loved it and it also made me appreaciate Fortnite a bit more.

Crazy how most of this doesnt apply to fortnite anymore they really butchered their own art style after chapter 2... chapter 3 seemed like a nice "back to the roots" but it barely lasted less than a year, now we are in the realistic 4k era with chapter 5... really sad...

really do think id prefer that 2011 build but more polished

One of the key take aways here is to keep iterating if you're not truly happy with something. Too many developers settle for "good enough" when trying to get something out the door.

Super interesting hearing about all the refinement and iteration for creating a character design language, knowing now what they could never have known then - that this style would have to work in a way that can be applied to nearly every IP in existence through crossover character skins

Excellent presentation from an excellent artist. Congrats on all the success!

Durrburger skin confirmed since 2011

This is a fantastic presentation thank you for sharing Peter.

I'm glad they made the game colorful. But it would be cool to see those creatures in action.

This is fascinating! Amazing to see how much the game has changed since its conception and how long it took to make a game that would change the world of gaming years later.

Does anyone else get reminded of The Sims, more The Urbz spinoff in terms of the art style? A lot of skins/costumes too

I admire the sincerity of admitting they completely ditched their aesthetic vision in exchange of success. Personally I don't like the cartoony artstyle but i do love colorful palettes.

This was an amazing journey..great talk!

the cartoony designs are perfect, it embraces the fantasy side of gaming where if it was more realistic you'd stress over the logic of quick onsite building

Modern save the world could really use the open world and darker nights...

I'm just pointing it out because he didn't really clarify, but I'm pretty sure that first and second Fortnite screenshot was of one of the warehouses next to loot lake outside Pleasant Park. That is one awesome fun fact honestly.

Great talk !! Thank you so much :D

I wonder if this guy is still on the development team and what his reaction might be to adding Ariana Grande and Peter Griffin to his carefully crafted class-based zombie shooter...

So much assets, really hope they get released to the UE4 asset store eventually, especially unused ones, would love to use them for playtesting reasons.

I would like to see there design process and ideas for some of the later battle royals events, like the cube and the rifts, maybe even some of the events like with the vault and the zero point

it's honestly sad to see how fortnite went from this cool horror experience, to a fun cartoony world, and then having all that evolution phased out and replaced with this soulless, boring "style" we have nowadays

amazing talk, amazing game

I am amazed at the ability to look at art that keeps getting better, and even after 5 years of development say "It's not quite right" and redo it.. Makes a lot of sense that the game blew up when the right game mode was applied to art so meticulously created.

CAN ANYONE PLEASE TELL ME: What are those arm straps (nearby the wrist) on characters? The red knight has it, but the screen is red, the default skins have them, but the screen is blue. The straps have 3 switches and one little twig on the front

The number of revisions you guys had to do sounds absolutely nightmarish. And yet, they all had to be done for Fortnite to become what it is today. Perfecting and daring to ditch the work is one of the two biggest takeaways for me from this video. The other one is to not stick to the style everywhere like you did with the characters. I've started to notice that tendency amongst professional illustrators too. I thank you very much, this was very interesting and useful. Good luck with your future endeavours!

It’s so interesting seeing how fortnite was originally meant to be and how it is now (chapter 2, Season 8) and how the battle Royale story has totally strayed away from how it was originally developed.

this is so inteesting daym ll

2:26 This, this right here, technically being the first ever "build" of Fortnite, is insane. I doubt this was even a playable game, just a bunch of assets thrown together in UE3

I remember watching this when It came out, so interesting

Do you know if EPic will ever release some of the unused assets from Fortnite into the UE4 marketpace?

what is stylized shape language, expressive shape language?? what is shape language at all?

i would like to play the original concept

@22:41 Doesn't he mean increase depth of field? Looks like more is in focus with the the new fortnite landscape.

Damn, my boy Jonesy was basically the genesis of Fortnite characters.

I do not believe that nobody asked this question !! What are your best practices for improving performance when creating your assets? Like sharing material between assets ...

They should add some of the old character models as heroes in STW

*Who designed The ...* ~~Default Dance~~ ?

Awesome!!!!!

Early stages look a lot like Zombie Playground from Kickstarter. What happened to that game?

I'd say about half of the games utilise similar style in their games since about 2013

very dope

Can they work on this too because this looks like the coolest game I don’t really like save the world much

Wait this is actually super interesting!

is there a name to this art style?

Wonder why they never released all those survivor models :?

"How do you feel about being in charge, right now, of what the Battle Royale genre means to gaming?"

Nice, I really enjoy hearing GDC talks on game art design and aesthetic direction.

Really cool to see how the game developed into what it is today, but their original game idea looks really cool and since they now have ALL the money, they should go back and make it :D But still, it's almost always the stylized art that makes a good game stand out from the crowd, and simultaneously makes it timeless. Even 10-20 years later, TF2 still looks great, Crash Bandicoot still looks great, Spyro Still looks Great, Kingdom Hearts still looks great.Yes, they added some more polys and higher res textures to the older games, but their distinctive art style will ensure that even in another 10-20 years, they will look great, and Fortnite will join that crowd.

I dont rly play fortnite, but this was very interesting

For some reason I forgot you can fight zombie in fortnite

its kinda sad seeing that now fortnite isn't doing this cartoon style anymore they are doing them more realistic not funky and cartoony even do that style is what made it differentek I like here 19:15 look at those boxes they are not just plain square like now they are funky like the point was he even said it to make them look interesting to look at not all boring,i really wonder why they stop doing this type pf art style the color Is still there but its not the same

What is that 4th material at 20:10 ? Did it come ingame?Cause would be cool to have a unbreakable material ^^

i need a glass of water after hearing this guy talk for 12 seconds

Now abandon ALL that and just worry about building dances for battle royal

Man you are Epic ;)

I was expecting this video, I WANTED to see this video

22:04 to 22:06 “ah fuck” What every game developer metaphorically says.

I'm so glad they fully developed the art style. That ancient sizzle reel was not it.

I’m glad fortnite doesn’t have any blood in it thanks to all the style directors cus they made it so fortnite has no blood and is kid friendly (Kind of)

"We really liked that Durr Burger head" Beef Boss

cool

"One of our guys came up with this amazing piece of art..." Sooo...that guy has no name? He gets no credit? Does he still work there?

33:40 Interesting that the stuff they pulled back from in this chart, the planar faces, small wide-set eyes, and somewhat less-attractive faces, all became hallmarks of Sea of Thieves' character designs. Also, wannabe character artists take note; that chart is a goldmine.

15:43

T POSE? MORE LIKE *A POSE*

So we seem to have a kindergarten visit here in the comments eh

Now make it where people like me with 16gb ram and a 970gtx can play this on epic without shitty fps drops.

I freakin' love the art style of this game. This is gonna be good!

oh right, i completely forgot that fortnite used to be kind of a tower defense game.

Man they really wanted to change gears a lot and then turned into a free game for 10 year olds

The thing that makes the art style strange isn't the way it looks, it's who's making it. Unreal engine is like the leading game engine. Without a more realistic art style, their biggest game isn't really allowed to shine graphically and showcase their engine. Specifically Fortnite can't use the latest innovations in Unreal. Specifically thinking of MetaHuman. Even when ray-tracing the graphics can never shine because everything looks like plastic and rubber, even when it isn't.

38:05

28:36 Tfue

55:21 Dont waste the guys time with a generic management question!!!

55:00 "...getting all the crap and building a cool fort.." _..building a cool fort.._ *click oh yeah, FORTnite. I get it now

Penny thicc tho

Fortnite was a pretty bad game design, but they adapted very well.

Something something, colour and style is for children therefore game is bad, I want muddy graphics and can't let go of CoD 4's art style. This game also has stupid mechanics, because they are new, and I don't understand them. There's about 1/4 of the comments summed up in one easy post. Enjoy.

Took me 2 minutes into the video to remember that Fortnite in itself is zombie tower defense game lol

So fortnite was supposed to be horror?

and sad the kids to "pros" don't give a rats ass on this aspect to the original idea of the game i remember the trailer for the save the world to forgot about it like the rest did to the ideas and passion that went into the game to over updating of the game we all can agree is too much to this update breaks a thing to another has to fix it to man they dumbed down the game as if kids don't play GTA and pop a cap in NPC's like it's nothing lol

I'm the only one who finds it kinda annoying how he makes this weird noises when he stops talking.

Fortnite is a really good game through and through.

Save the world is better than battle royale

Speaker: Has anyone played fortnite?? Me: Sadly...

So sad to see that Fortnite especially Fortnite Battle Royale run away from this art style

35:15 I want that skin tho.... Anyone else?

`we

people in this comments section really think they can insult the art of fortnite lol..... have you seen how successful it is???? success with 12 year olds is still success lmao

*DURRRRRRRRBURGER!*

You should talk about how you stole millions from the black community by stealing our dances and not giving any credit.