The Making of ‘Moontopia’ for ‘Fortnite’ HaZimation explains how they used C4D, Unreal and more to create a game that pits players against a hostile lunar environment.

Created by the team at Hazimation led by filmmaker, director and producer Hasraf “HaZ” Dulull, the “Fortnite” game “Moontopia” has an action-packed story, cinematic style and edge-of-the-seat action. It’s the first game his studio, HaZimation has developed for Fortnite, and it encapsulates everything that inspired HaZ’s career, from science fiction and horror movies to arcade gameplay.

Inspired by the release of Unreal Editor for “Fortnite” (UEFN), HaZ and his team leapt at the opportunity to create an “island” for Fortnite’s 500-million-plus user base. Adopting a transmedia approach, they built the game utilizing teaser trailer assets created in Cinema 4D, Maya, ZBrush, Kitbash and Unreal Engine 5.

With VFX and directing credits on a raft of award-winning blockbuster movies and independent IP for film and TV, HaZ is adept at navigating the challenges and demands of developing original IP and creating and promoting science-fiction features “The Beyond” and “2036 Origins Unknown” as part of his production company HaZ Film.

He first used Unreal Engine for previz in 2019 and quickly grasped the power and potential at his fingertips. So he cofounded HaZimation with Paula Crickard around a proprietary Unreal Engine pipeline that has enabled the studio to move away from traditional VFX or animation workflows and be more agile and software agnostic.

The “Fortnite” opportunity opened up for HaZ when Epic Games announced UEFN at the Game Developers Conference 2023 in San Francisco, HaZ recalls. “I realized we could apply all our experience of using UE 5 for game dev and cinematics to create a “Fortnite” island,” so he spent the flight from San Francisco to London thinking about a compelling concept.

“To create IP from the ground up takes time, so I looked at various projects we had in development and realized that our animated TV series “Moontopia,” complete with a teaser trailer created entirely in Unreal Engine 5, was perfect for a “Fortnite” experience.”

The story revolves around a crash landing on the moon that forces the crew to traverse alien-and-monster-infested lunar terrain in a race to find the nearest moon base to board a shuttle to Earth.

HaZ began by reviewing the original teaser trailer assets, variously created using Cinema 4D, Maya, ZBrush, and Kitbash3D libraries before being piped into Unreal Engine for layout, animation, camera, lighting and FX. “I made a selective migration of the assets from UE5 into UEFN. After that the actual creative process was very explorative, because we were learning how to use UEFN whilst making the game.”

To maintain cinematic fidelity, some assets needed reworking. Lead Animator and CG Generalist Myles Low took on the job using Cinema 4D because he likes the way it works with Unreal. After bringing the astronaut assets into C4D to adjust the base model mesh, he tweaked the UV map to align with the newly adjusted mesh in UV edit mode before taking them into Reallusion iClone for rigging and animation. Watch the behind-the-scenes video.

Other assets were created from scratch to embellish UEFN’s standard library, and level designer Sam Rebelo used the Fortnite military base asset pack to create the initial layout of the “Moontopia” base. “To add life to the buildings, we created additional 3D elements in Cinema 4D, including animated signage and props, using standard modeling tools and cubed UV maps created with the Wand tool in paint,” Low explains. The assets were then exported into UE5 for additional shader work before moving into UEFN.

As it is with most projects, there were a few challenges and surprises along the way. Because UEFN was in its beta, most of the blueprints and particles FX from the teaser broke during migration into UEFN, leaving the team with mostly art assets. “Our dev, Ernesto Argüello, had to learn UEFN’s programming language VERSE to create our own meteorite system that could be flexible to our needs yet not drain memory like particles do,” HaZ explains.

There was also a 400 MB limit on the entire game, which was unexpected. “It was not only tight,” HaZ recalls, “it forced us to be super smart in how we retained the cinematic fidelity within that memory limit with the reuse of textures and meshes while also keeping the sizes small and tileable. Our dev Ryan Fleming really pushed UEFN when it came to optimization and smart use of “Fortnite” devices.

In the end, all of their hard work paid off because what makes “Moontopia” stand out from many other “Fortnite” games is its cinematic feel, tension and pacing. “I didn’t want explainer text to disrupt the game flow, so Cinematics Artist Mark Cheng and I created the opening sequence to feel like an opening to a movie, setting up the plot but keeping it short to allow players to get on with the game,” HaZ says.

As “Moontopia” gathers momentum on “Fortnite,” HaZ is already planning to evolve it, and he’s excited to see how players react to each update. “I think we are going to see more creative opportunities present themselves to anyone with an idea and an appetite for experimentation,” he says, adding that with UEFN artists now have the opportunity to get game ideas in front of large audiences. “And it doesn’t need to be complex, just fun!”

“Moontopia” is available on PC and all Consoles, Nintendo Switch and Android by booting up Fortnite and accessing it via the Discover Tab and then Island Code: 3538-0241-3570.