Spotlight
March 17, 2025
Taking archviz from Twinmotion to UEFN (via Unreal Engine)
The way architects communicate building designs is evolving. Where once it was limited to pen and paper and physical models, now 3D renderings and VR walkthroughs are the industry standard. Today, there’s a new frontier for architectural visualization: the metaverse.
Pioneering visualization specialists are reimagining the way we experience architectural designs by bringing them into video game environments like Fortnite—creating hugely engaging and interactive ways to experience buildings before a single brick has been laid.
At Epic, we’ve been increasing the interoperability between the tools in our ecosystem. That makes it possible to block out a scene in Twinmotion, export it to Unreal Engine for further refinement, and then bring the environment into Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) so that it can be used in a gamified experience.
In this article, we’ll introduce some of the teams at the forefront of taking architectural designs from Twinmotion all the way into the video game realm.
Pioneering visualization specialists are reimagining the way we experience architectural designs by bringing them into video game environments like Fortnite—creating hugely engaging and interactive ways to experience buildings before a single brick has been laid.
At Epic, we’ve been increasing the interoperability between the tools in our ecosystem. That makes it possible to block out a scene in Twinmotion, export it to Unreal Engine for further refinement, and then bring the environment into Unreal Editor for Fortnite (UEFN) so that it can be used in a gamified experience.
In this article, we’ll introduce some of the teams at the forefront of taking architectural designs from Twinmotion all the way into the video game realm.
Heatherwick Studio and Little Island NYC
The Little Island NYC project saw Heatherwick Studio design a pavilion for a new pier off the southwest of Manhattan. While concepting ideas, the company saw an opportunity to rethink what a pier could be.
Starting not with the structure but with the experience for visitors, the team plugged into the excitement of being over the water, as well as the feeling of leaving the city behind and being immersed in greenery.
Heatherwick Studio and the Little Island team conducted a study after delivering the project to understand the park’s social impact. This culminated in a report filled with valuable insights about how the park influenced its visitors and the community.
However, conveying the transformative impact of Little Island NYC to a diverse audience—including real estate stakeholders, urban enthusiasts, and the wider public—posed a unique challenge.
How do you tell the story of an innovative, community-centric project like Little Island in a way that resonates across industries and generations?
“That’s when the idea of turning it into a game was born,” says Silvia Rueda, former Head of Immersive Media at Heatherwick Studio.
Instead of just a passive 3D walkthrough, Heatherwick wanted to create an interactive experience accessible from laptops, phones, and gaming consoles. Given that Fortnite is free to download and play, it was quickly identified as the perfect platform.
“UEFN had just launched, and it felt like the perfect moment to experiment,” says Silvia Rueda.
The path between Twinmotion and Unreal Engine is a well-trodden one. A firm of architects can start using Twinmotion and very quickly begin visualizing designs. Those visualizations can be passed on to Unreal Engine specialists to create more sophisticated content such as digital twins.
The Heatherwick team had already taken their original design files into Twinmotion and created a visualization project as part of their original brief to design Little Island. Here, they had refined the materials; added plants and foliage; and adjusted the overall atmosphere.
Starting not with the structure but with the experience for visitors, the team plugged into the excitement of being over the water, as well as the feeling of leaving the city behind and being immersed in greenery.
Heatherwick Studio and the Little Island team conducted a study after delivering the project to understand the park’s social impact. This culminated in a report filled with valuable insights about how the park influenced its visitors and the community.
However, conveying the transformative impact of Little Island NYC to a diverse audience—including real estate stakeholders, urban enthusiasts, and the wider public—posed a unique challenge.
How do you tell the story of an innovative, community-centric project like Little Island in a way that resonates across industries and generations?
“That’s when the idea of turning it into a game was born,” says Silvia Rueda, former Head of Immersive Media at Heatherwick Studio.
Instead of just a passive 3D walkthrough, Heatherwick wanted to create an interactive experience accessible from laptops, phones, and gaming consoles. Given that Fortnite is free to download and play, it was quickly identified as the perfect platform.
“UEFN had just launched, and it felt like the perfect moment to experiment,” says Silvia Rueda.
Twinmotion to Unreal Engine—A powerful cross-tool workflow
The path between Twinmotion and Unreal Engine is a well-trodden one. A firm of architects can start using Twinmotion and very quickly begin visualizing designs. Those visualizations can be passed on to Unreal Engine specialists to create more sophisticated content such as digital twins.
The Heatherwick team had already taken their original design files into Twinmotion and created a visualization project as part of their original brief to design Little Island. Here, they had refined the materials; added plants and foliage; and adjusted the overall atmosphere.
Little Island Project by Heatherwick Studio
Little Island Project by Heatherwick Studio
Little Island Project by Heatherwick Studio
Little Island Project by Heatherwick Studio
Little Island Project by Heatherwick Studio
Little Island Project by Heatherwick Studio
This environment was then turned over to immersive technologists SpaceForm, who had been enlisted to create a multi-user VR application in UE5 that would enable stakeholders to experience the park in an immersive way.
SpaceForm migrated the Twinmotion project into Unreal Engine using the Twinmotion to Unreal Engine plugin; this technology is now built into the products, and no plugin is required.
SpaceForm migrated the Twinmotion project into Unreal Engine using the Twinmotion to Unreal Engine plugin; this technology is now built into the products, and no plugin is required.
Little Island Project by Heatherwick Studio
Months later, SpaceForm was approached again by Heatherwick with an intriguing brief: to create a Little Island NYC game using UEFN.
“The idea of having to learn a new language like Verse in the timeframe of the project seemed like a great undertaking,” says Jan Maarten Heuff, Co-Founder and CEO at SpaceForm. “But after taking a look around and digging into some tutorials, we found that Verse was actually quite powerful while being relatively easy to use.”
Heuff believes that alongside UEFN’s powerful game development tools like Verse, the integrated nature of the Epic ecosystem was key to delivering on the Little Island video game project.
“The pathway from Twinmotion to Unreal to UEFN really helped us pull off this project in the timeframe we had,” he explains. “Without this workflow, it would have taken at least 30% longer and we may not have even chosen to give it a go.”
Unreal Engine to UEFN
While SpaceForm was adept at using Unreal Engine’s Blueprint visual scripting system and C++, they’d never worked in UEFN before or used Verse, a programming language in UEFN that you can use to create your own gameplay. Verse offers powerful customization capabilities such as manipulating or chaining together devices, as well as the ability to easily create new game logic.“The idea of having to learn a new language like Verse in the timeframe of the project seemed like a great undertaking,” says Jan Maarten Heuff, Co-Founder and CEO at SpaceForm. “But after taking a look around and digging into some tutorials, we found that Verse was actually quite powerful while being relatively easy to use.”
Heuff believes that alongside UEFN’s powerful game development tools like Verse, the integrated nature of the Epic ecosystem was key to delivering on the Little Island video game project.
“The pathway from Twinmotion to Unreal to UEFN really helped us pull off this project in the timeframe we had,” he explains. “Without this workflow, it would have taken at least 30% longer and we may not have even chosen to give it a go.”
Little Island Project by Heatherwick Studio
Ultimately this cross-tool workflow removed a lot of friction from the process and made it easier to try out UEFN with a few clicks, rather than having to import, materialize, and optimize everything completely from scratch.
“The fact that we—and the client—could have a run around the map before building out functionality was really compelling, and potentially one of the main reasons this project exists today,” says Heuff.
Heatherwick is not the only studio exploring the Twinmotion to Unreal Engine to UEFN workflow.
Tsuguto Nishiwaki is the president of WANIMATION—a company that produces movies and interactive content for the architecture industry and beyond.
He recently posted an intriguing video that saw him develop a residential house environment, from blocking out the scene in Twinmotion to refining it in UE5 and then bringing it into UEFN so it could be used in a game.
His objective in creating the video was to showcase how interactive content can be leveraged for uses as diverse as virtual home showings, real estate previews, and furniture placement studies.
“The fact that we—and the client—could have a run around the map before building out functionality was really compelling, and potentially one of the main reasons this project exists today,” says Heuff.
Experimentation in the Epic ecosystem
Heatherwick is not the only studio exploring the Twinmotion to Unreal Engine to UEFN workflow. Tsuguto Nishiwaki is the president of WANIMATION—a company that produces movies and interactive content for the architecture industry and beyond.
He recently posted an intriguing video that saw him develop a residential house environment, from blocking out the scene in Twinmotion to refining it in UE5 and then bringing it into UEFN so it could be used in a game.
His objective in creating the video was to showcase how interactive content can be leveraged for uses as diverse as virtual home showings, real estate previews, and furniture placement studies.
@wanimation2910
Going from Twinmotion to UEFN
Nishiwaki started out in Twinmotion, setting up assets, materials, and lighting. He then brought the scene into UE5 using the Datasmith workflow, where he prepared it for export into UEFN by deleting unwanted Actors or objects, adjusting the level of detail (LOD) for the Twinmotion assets, and enabling Nanite support for meshes. He also optimized the model’s textures for UEFN, keeping texture sizes to within 2K.@wanimation2910
In UEFN, Nishiwaki set up basic lighting settings such as the sun position and skylights. “Materials and other assets do not need to be modified in UEFN as long as they are well set up in UE5,” explains Nishiwaki.
In UEFN, Nishiwaki made use of the Input Trigger Device to implement zoom function and DOF; the Orbit Camera Device to switch between first and third person in the experience; the Chair Device to make the character sit; and the Cinematic Sequence Device to play videos in the experience.
In UEFN, Nishiwaki made use of the Input Trigger Device to implement zoom function and DOF; the Orbit Camera Device to switch between first and third person in the experience; the Chair Device to make the character sit; and the Cinematic Sequence Device to play videos in the experience.
@wanimation2910
Nishiwaki is also looking forward to using UEFN’s Scene Graph in future projects. “We anticipate that these will be a very important feature in architectural projects,” he says.
The experience of creating the house project has left Nishiwaki in no doubt as to the benefit of leveraging the Epic ecosystem for architectural firms. “I am convinced that the connection between Twinmotion, UE5, and UEFN will expand the possibilities for architectural visualization,” he says.
The experience of creating the house project has left Nishiwaki in no doubt as to the benefit of leveraging the Epic ecosystem for architectural firms. “I am convinced that the connection between Twinmotion, UE5, and UEFN will expand the possibilities for architectural visualization,” he says.
New possibilities thanks to seamless integration
Silvia Rueda strongly believes that the ability to take designs all the way from Twinmotion to UEFN has enormous potential for architectural visualization—even beyond parks and public spaces.“Traditionally, game development is complex but UEFN lowers the barrier to entry with a simplified scripting language (Verse), making it more accessible to non-coders,” she says.
Silvia Rueda points out that UEFN offers full customization of the game experience, enabling architects to remove traditional Fortnite elements (like battle mechanics) and replace them with bespoke interactions tailored for architecture.
“For example, if we could use a game to teach players about Little Island’s social impact study, why couldn’t real estate developers create gameplay experiences where potential buyers explore and test different materials, layouts, and finishes in their future homes?” Silvia Rueda says. “That could be a gamechanger for the industry.”
Little Island Project by Heatherwick Studio
Little Island Project by Heatherwick Studio
Little Island Project by Heatherwick Studio
Little Island Project by Heatherwick Studio
Little Island Project by Heatherwick Studio
Little Island Project by Heatherwick Studio
Architects are already using Twinmotion and Unreal Engine to showcase designs in real time. Integrating UEFN takes things a step further by enabling interactive experiences rather than just visual walkthroughs.
“This pathway opens exciting new possibilities for architecture, bridging the gap between design, storytelling, and interactive technology,” Silvia Rueda says.
“This pathway opens exciting new possibilities for architecture, bridging the gap between design, storytelling, and interactive technology,” Silvia Rueda says.