Unreal Engine Integration

[GENERAL] Summarize your solution to the problem.

Develop a Professional, Community Driven, & Easy to Use Unreal Engine Plugin powered by Blockfrost.

[GENERAL] Summarize your relevant experience.

• 10 years Unreal Experience
• Top Seller on Unreal Marketplace, in-tune with Developer Community
• Creator of VisAI; an AI framework sponsored by Epic Games in January 2022. Nearing 100,000 users & growing fast.
• Created & Growing an active Developer Community
• Blockfrost API experience

[GENERAL] Requested funds in USD.

[IMPACT] Please describe your proposed solution.

As shown in the graphic above, there are three key elements for integrating Unreal with Cardano.

Blockchain Querying 

Verifying wallets, accessing asset inventory, and more. 

Blockfrost's API fulfills these requirements, this proposal will expose the API to Unreal Engine.

IPFS / Storage Solution 

Storing & retrieving asset (NFT) media. 

Exposing Blockfrost's API to Unreal Engine will provide access to IPFS. Other storage solutions in the future may be needed and could be easily integrated.

Wallet Functionality 

In-game user interaction via blockchain. Not to be mistaken for wallet querying 

Wallet functionality is required for games with in-game blockchain interaction, so not technically a requirement for some game-types, but for full integration it is absolutely necessary.

Example game: Users are rewarded with an NFT every day they log in.

They have two choices:

Wallet Functionality (X transactions by user)

Require users to sign a transaction to prove their login & receive the NFT.

No Wallet Functionality (1 transaction by user)

Users sign a transaction out of game for wallet verification to associate their account. Anytime the account logs in, their wallet receives the NFT.

Overview 

The proposal would bring 2/3 key elements of Unreal Engine Integration to completion.

Most importantly, all Unreal Engine developers would finally have easy, open source access to Cardano.

The last 1/3 could be implemented by anyone, even the developer themselves. I do have plans to implement this in the future with another developer, unsure if it will involve Catalyst. At this point it's looking like if we did return, it would be after a v1 release; for further app improvements. There's a cross-platform proof of concept available here. More information below.

[IMPACT] Please describe how your proposed solution will address the Challenge that you have submitted it in.

Blockfrost has many SDKs, but sadly is missing Unreal Engine 😥

By completing this proposal, more developers will learn about & use Blockfrost! We'll also bring developers to the Cardano community as a whole.

When I reached out to the team at Blockfrost, they were hyped!

[IMPACT] What are the main risks that could prevent you from delivering the project successfully and please explain how you will mitigate each risk?

• Blockfrost API does the heavy lifting
• Work is straightforward & specific
• Minimal Workload altogether
• Growing interest in this technology

I see minimal risk if proper precautions for project planning are taken.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed plan, including timeline and key milestones for delivering your proposal.

Project Timeline

This is the Public Favro Board, a page shows a breakdown of the project scope. This is the best resource for understanding the plan.

You can also see core features planned for this Proposal in the image here:

As shown in the picture, I'll be implementing:

• Blockfrost Authentication
• Blockfrost Cardano Endpoints
• Blockfrost IPFS Endpoints
• Blockfrost Health & Metrics
• I'll also be adding a simple Secrets Management system for the API keys to make it easier for users who aren't used to working with them.

Other Proposals

I am proposing 2 separate (3 total), limited scope projects with aligned interests: Onboarding Unreal Developers & Nurturing Interest in Cardano development.

• This Proposal
• Unreal Engine on Cardano Community
• Discord Community Manager - Open source tool to empower Communities with functionality like wallet verification & reward users for other on-chain interactions.

As stated above, these are limited scope & can easily be done simultaneously. After completion they are designed for continuous improvement via community contributions.

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide a detailed budget breakdown.

You can find a detailed breakdown here.

This is a screenshot of the Budget Overview

[FEASIBILITY] Please provide details of the people who will work on the project.

Being a straightforward project, I'll be completing the project myself:

Notable Projects & Roles

• Unreal Marketplace
• VisAI - Community
• VisAI - Companion
• VisGM - Team Deathmatch
• VisGM - Deathmatch
• Open Source - Simple Blueprint Game Example for Unreal
• Open Source - Media Manager Social Media management tool.
• Previous Instructor Partner at Virtus Learning

Social

• LinkedIn
• Personal GitHub
• Business GitHub
• Discord Community
• Twitter
• More

[FEASIBILITY] If you are funded, will you return to Catalyst in a later round for further funding? Please explain why / why not.

As stated before, this Proposal covers 2/3 integration steps. Though this is enough for certain games, it doesn't cover all scenarios.

A developer at CardanoSharp has been working on a cross-platform light-wallet specifically meant for games. I'll be working with them in the future to bring this to production ready status.

As far as Catalyst goes, at this point it's uncertain. A proof of concept was made, so at this point we can likely finish the base functionality ourselves. I have yet to do a full scope though, and a community, documentation, tutorials, etc. may be desirable to increase adoption.

No further proposals are planned for the Blockfrost integration. This could change if new features are released or Milkomeda integration is desired.

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or any member of your team working on any other proposals in this Fund9?

[FEASIBILITY] Are you or your team working on any other proposals from previous Funds?

[AUDITABILITY] Please describe what you will measure to track your project's progress, and how will you measure these?

I will use Favro's task management system alongside a synced GitHub project.

Users can easily keep up to date via the GitHub repository or the Favro board.

[AUDITABILITY] What does success for this project look like?

It's actually very simple:

1. Design finalized
2. Project Complete
3. Project Polished
4. Project Provided to Blockfrost, hosted on their GitHub
5. Working with Blockfrost team to create an Unreal Marketplace page.

If after number 5, I'm helping answer incoming questions; I'll consider this a success!

[AUDITABILITY] Please provide information on whether this proposal is a continuation of a previously funded project in Catalyst or an entirely new one.

Entirely new