Firstly, the game still uses the original game engine as the base, it sideloads Unreal Engine just for the Rendering afaik. (This has been widely discussed and was mentioned in the reveal).
But with that being said, who said Unreal Engine is unmoddable? If it weren't for the Creation Kit that Bethesda released then the original game would also be "almost completely unmoddable" but thankfully, because we have that tool (Which still works for this remaster, btw) we can mod it.
Likewise, Unreal Engine games CAN release a modkit engine build. ARK and Connan did this and those games are so moddable you could use that engine build to literally create a new game if you wanted to. Unreal Engine can not only be very easily moddable, it can be totally moddable because you can download the entire game engine and modify it.
The UE games that aren't moddable are like that because the devs never released their engine builds, but they totally could if they wanted to just like Bethesda did. (I wish more devs would embrace modding, but that's been an issue long before UE4/5 came around)
PS: I know how to use Unreal Engine so I actually wish this remake WAS 100% in Unreal Engine (combined with a released dev kit) that way I could mod more easily. Fortunately I do have at least some experience with the creation kit..
PPS: I can't wait for someone to make a guide on the exact process though, surely Unreal Engine is used at some point in order to get the shaders right and all that? Furthermore, I wonder how one goes about modifying some of the Unreal Assets/Rendering features. Instead of using a reshade to make the world more green I'd like to tweak the volumetric fog itself and potentially the sun light source itself. But I know there are scattering color values on that volumetric fog which is why it's so brown.
UE does not handle only rendering. This mod was done entirely in UE5, without using any of Bethesdas tools. Unreal based games are always fun to mod, with or without an official SDK, but that's just me. There will be tutorials soon.
I agree with the others, who ever told you UE games are almost completely unmoddable, doesnt know what thier talking about. i have a ton of Unreal Engine games in my Library and most of them are very moddable. VERY.
There has been so much miss information regarding UE an modding capability its nuts.
I have experience in unreal but am having a hell of a time figuring out how to open the game files in unreal to even edit them, patiently waiting for tutorials.
UE does not handle only rendering. This mod was done entirely in UE5, without using any of Bethesdas tools. Unreal based games are always fun to mod, with or without an official SDK, but that's just me. There will be tutorials soon.
UE does only handle rendering as far as I know. There is something handling communication between unreal and creation, creation is the brain and unreal is the body is the analogy that the devs are saying on the stream.
Creation is doing everything it always did even its graphics calls, and then a translation layer catches those calls, and provides some commands to unreal. So in this case the game wants to render horse, graphics call is caught, the translation layer does it magic and an unreal equivalent graphics call is invoked but it says "the game wanted to use Asset Y (vanilla asset) that means use Asset X (new asset), and it then uses that inplace of Asset Y (vanilla asset)
Your mod replaces the Asset X. A simplification at parts but for the most part I'm pretty sure this is fairly accurate, if it's not I'd love for it to be properly explained.
I don't see how else it'd work to be honest, what else would UE be handling? how else is communication between them happening? It's a combination of driver hooking and software
Also the fact you did it all in unreal further drives it home as the case, because if you did this mod only in unreal, without having to edit or change any of the .esp or game data with bethesda tools (which you cant do with unreal tools) then clearly you only changed the graphical data that unreal will be called to return when asked and not any game data or anything outside of rendering
Meshes and collisions is the only other thing I could feasibly see it handling but that's being a bit disingenuous if trying to say that UE isn't only handling rendering with the implication its handling the game its self when it never is.
By no means I don’t think its a big crime to say that UE handles only the rendering. From a technical standpoint its just a funny oversimplification of a complicated matter.
Its too soon to point simple examples (though I believe the infamous gender slider mod was done via UE, which also encapsulates localization data), since we’re still in the fog of war - but its slowly lifting, and modders will have to adapt to the situation and dust off those Unreal cookbooks
Funny! We have a mod that turns a horse into a donkey before we have mods that make female and male NPCs truly naked when they're naked. I fear that humanity is heading towards extinction.
And so, another age begins, thus begins a new dawn, of insane modability! Woweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
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But with that being said, who said Unreal Engine is unmoddable? If it weren't for the Creation Kit that Bethesda released then the original game would also be "almost completely unmoddable" but thankfully, because we have that tool (Which still works for this remaster, btw) we can mod it.
Likewise, Unreal Engine games CAN release a modkit engine build. ARK and Connan did this and those games are so moddable you could use that engine build to literally create a new game if you wanted to. Unreal Engine can not only be very easily moddable, it can be totally moddable because you can download the entire game engine and modify it.
The UE games that aren't moddable are like that because the devs never released their engine builds, but they totally could if they wanted to just like Bethesda did. (I wish more devs would embrace modding, but that's been an issue long before UE4/5 came around)
PS: I know how to use Unreal Engine so I actually wish this remake WAS 100% in Unreal Engine (combined with a released dev kit) that way I could mod more easily. Fortunately I do have at least some experience with the creation kit..
PPS: I can't wait for someone to make a guide on the exact process though, surely Unreal Engine is used at some point in order to get the shaders right and all that? Furthermore, I wonder how one goes about modifying some of the Unreal Assets/Rendering features. Instead of using a reshade to make the world more green I'd like to tweak the volumetric fog itself and potentially the sun light source itself. But I know there are scattering color values on that volumetric fog which is why it's so brown.
Unreal based games are always fun to mod, with or without an official SDK, but that's just me.
There will be tutorials soon.
There has been so much miss information regarding UE an modding capability its nuts.
UE does only handle rendering as far as I know. There is something handling communication between unreal and creation, creation is the brain and unreal is the body is the analogy that the devs are saying on the stream.
Creation is doing everything it always did even its graphics calls, and then a translation layer catches those calls, and provides some commands to unreal. So in this case the game wants to render horse, graphics call is caught, the translation layer does it magic and an unreal equivalent graphics call is invoked but it says "the game wanted to use Asset Y (vanilla asset) that means use Asset X (new asset), and it then uses that inplace of Asset Y (vanilla asset)
Your mod replaces the Asset X. A simplification at parts but for the most part I'm pretty sure this is fairly accurate, if it's not I'd love for it to be properly explained.
I don't see how else it'd work to be honest, what else would UE be handling? how else is communication between them happening?
It's a combination of driver hooking and software
Its too soon to point simple examples (though I believe the infamous gender slider mod was done via UE, which also encapsulates localization data), since we’re still in the fog of war - but its slowly lifting, and modders will have to adapt to the situation and dust off those Unreal cookbooks