Heatherwick Studio and Little Island NYC
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.
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.
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.”
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.