Feeling like we're all standing on the edge of a creative cliff, this episode dives into the wild world of AI’s impact on our beloved Unreal Engine. As we grapple with this identity crisis in our toolset, we’re not just pondering our past methods of making art but questioning if we’ll ever have to learn all those complex technical skills again. You know, the endless cycles of blueprints, UV mapping, and bug squashing? Yeah, they’re making us scratch our heads a bit. It’s all about finding that sweet spot between harnessing AI to streamline our processes and keeping our creativity intact without getting bogged down in the nitty-gritty. So grab your headphones and let’s chat about how we can embrace this shift and still get our stories told without losing our minds—or our wallets—in the process. Navigating the wild world of Unreal Engine and the seismic shifts brought by AI is no small feat, and boy, do we dive deep into that rabbit hole! There's a palpable sense of confusion and excitement as we explore the identity crisis many creators are feeling in the face of these rapid technological changes. It’s almost like we’re collectively scratching our heads and wondering, 'What’s next?' The conversation kicks off with a candid reflection on the struggles of getting this very episode out—the recording process has been a roller coaster of starts and stops, much like the journey of learning new tools in Unreal Engine. The speaker shares their personal experience with AI video generation tools, which while powerful, come with a hefty price tag that’s hard to swallow, especially if you're currently job hunting. We touch on the divide between traditional game design and cinematic creation, emphasizing how AI is reshaping the landscape and making us question whether we need to master the nitty-gritty technical aspects of content creation or if we can let the machines do the heavy lifting. It’s a fascinating discussion that ultimately leads to pondering the future of creativity in an increasingly automated world—can we keep the spark alive without becoming overwhelmed by the tech?

Takeaways:

• In the ever-evolving landscape of digital creation, we're all feeling a bit lost amidst the AI-driven changes.
• With AI stepping into the creative space, there's a big question on whether traditional skills will become obsolete.
• The balance of complexity and usability is crucial; we want powerful tools that aren't a headache to use.
• Let's face it, we all want to create without getting bogged down in the technical nitty-gritty of software.

Hey, everybody.

Welcome back.

Welcome.

It's really great to have you here once again.

I've been trying to record this episode many times today, and each single time I've been just stopping, deleting, and starting over.

This creates very uncomfortable confusion because I really just don't know if I said something in this take or in one of the takes before.

So I'm a little bit baffled, confused, and tired at this point, I'm using the privilege of having this little window of time when I'm on my own and I get to talk to the microphone.

So I want this to be my last take.

It might not be the perfect one, but I want to take this time to share with you my latest from Unreal Engine.

All right, so first thing that comes to my mind is this obvious identity crisis.

I don't think I'm alone with this.

I feel like we are all sensing that there's a big shakeup in the tool set that we are going to use.

Moving forward, I know some of you are more into game design, some of you are more into cinematics.

AI is stepping in, and it's changing things forever.

I feel like what I'm looking at, and I think you might be on the same page.

There'll be a big distinction between how things used to be made versus how things are going to made in the future.

And the division is made even deeper because of the price of admission.

So let's put it straight and simple.

AI video generation.

All right?

I keep my tabs open on See Dance release.

It's still not fully open.

I guess maybe it is.

I've seen it being made available on different platforms.

It's super expensive.

It's about 50 bucks a month.

And you get limits, you get quality limit, duration limit.

But the tool itself is quite powerful.

Look, I'm unemployed right now.

I'm not gonna pay 50 bucks a month to produce a test, right?

I just don't know what to do with this.

I mean, I know what to do with this, but I'm confused because I can see what it takes to create seat dance 2.0 footage.

You need to fill in the form.

You basically are filling in the form and you make your request and you wait a moment and you get a footage.

Now, in Unreal Engine, you need to learn all of those techniques, all of different layers when it comes to models, level design, styling, lights, sound.

And then, of course, along the way, there are bugs, there are optimizations, there are tweaks.

It's a lot of work.

Now, is it worth the Effort, the time, the money, are we going to care about this?

I really wonder because if all we want to do is to create a story, if we want to create our own device that communicates a message, do we really need to learn all the technical aspects of creating something visually appealing?

Do we need to learn blueprints?

Do we need to learn UV mapping and software optimizations?

Or should we just talk to the software and should we be just getting things done more easily?

3D aside, since I'm unemployed for the last 3 weeks I've been finally working my portfolio and I've been vibe coding it.

I've been using coarser, I'm paying 20 bucks a month, it's one of the more expensive subscriptions.

Yeah, I know you can pay up to 200amonth for cloud code, but I'm being cost sensitive right now.

Corso with the basic plan is just, it's very affordable and very powerful.

I'm very happy with that.

I'm getting my website vibe coded.

I'm not touching the code at all.

It's like I don't care about it at all.

I'm just looking at the output, the web page and I'm just having conversation with AI.

More than that, I'm using voice, I'm not typing even.

I'm using microphone to communicate with computer and computer creates website for me.

I'm feeding it with visual references and I have some parallel agents doing research checks for me.

I feel like I'm working with the team.

It's incredible.

Now I'm willing to do the same with a footage with a video.

The problem is it's quite expensive and the price will come down in the price.

But we are getting there and I feel like there'll be atrophy of skills.

You see, I was working on this webpage and I think I was around there around the peak of usage and Courser said, oh, I cannot do this for you right now.

Intuit or upgrade to the highest plan where you get priority.

You need to wait.

No, I cannot wait.

It's my whatever Saturday morning.

I want to work for the next two hours on my website.

What's going on?

Oh no, you need to wait.

Look, not that long time ago there would be nothing stopping me.

I could just do things manually and get them done.

I would not rely on some entity telling me that it's not a viable right now.

And maybe that's the advantage of Unreal Engine.

You can always open it even if you're not online.

You can kind of make an exception.

I Think you don't need to log into EPIC every single time.

But yeah, it's kind of offline tool and you get to create whatever you want.

Right.

But you need to be this nerd.

You need to be kind of a generalist to get something done on your own.

It's so complex when you compare it with writing in the form what kind of footage you need.

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to what EPIC will come up with with the next Unreal Engine release.

We know this is coming very soon.

I know there was an announcement in.

Was it YouTube comment and was it June or May?

I think it's May.

The next Unreal Engine release will be coming.

Should we look into that?

Maybe there are some release notes, something we can get excited about.

What I really want is Vibe coding within Unreal Engine.

I know I've been talking about it before.

I think we need to get it sooner than later.

Because many of us, enthusiasts, amateurs, non professionals who just want this tool to help them with creative expression, we just want this to work.

We need human to machine simple connection interface without all the tediousness.

Let's look at the release notes.

Let's see what EPIC is going to do about where the human software interaction is going.

Okay, there is no public roadmap.

I mean there is public roadmap, but there is no specific selection of what we can expect.

Look, I'm looking at the official roadmap and I'm looking at forward looking section.

There's a lot of exciting stuff.

Don't get me wrong, I'm looking at this heterogeneous volumes deferred rendering.

There is an animated GIF with explosion that looks incredible.

It beats AI at this point.

I don't know what does it take to create this.

But that's my wish list.

I want every feature to be super simple from UX perspective.

I don't want to follow some tedious tasks.

I don't want to follow very proprietary ui.

You know how that's the way how it is right now.

You kind of need to learn by heart where things are depending on what blueprints asset you're in.

Sorry.

Yeah, yeah, I said right.

It seems like every workflow you go deep into.

There are some unique ways to remember.

I hate that they need to abandon this.

They cannot expect people to, especially generalists to memorize all of this stuff.

I'm a UX designer.

I'm hypersensitive about this and I'm commenting on this because I know there's better way.

I feel like Ux Good UX will be the saving grace when it comes to abundance of features and power.

You know, we are very limited as humans.

We can do a lot, but we have cognitive limitations.

We need good user experience to grasp, to remember, to be in control, in charge of things.

We get to have access to.

I really would like companies such as Epic to commit more into ux.

I know it's technically software development, like what we do as ux, as Unreal Engine developers.

I know it's meant to be complex.

I know it requires certain mindset and way of thinking, way of feeling.

But if, on the other hand, we've got ease of access that interaction with AI offers, we need traditional software environments to follow.

Things need to get more simpler because they don't need to be so complicated.

Yes, we need sophistication of control, we need access to all those tools, but the complexity should be optional.

Complexity should be optional.

The focus should be on getting things done.

And it's always better to know more, but the pursuit of knowing more can be a huge deterrent to actually getting things done.

We want to create things.

We don't want to be scholars, we don't want to be academics.

We want to be making things.

And when you interact with AI and when you vibe code something, when you see how easy things can be, you can get that point of view that you expect to have on projects in Unreal Engine.

I feel, okay, I'm going to leave with that.

I'm still waiting for Seed Dance to get cheaper.

I'm waiting for some alternatives that I can run locally.

It is an expensive model.

I'm unemployed right now.

I'm not getting any donations for this podcast.

I don't think I will be.

Or maybe I should.

Should I set about Tip Jar or something and look for donations towards sit downs and should I make some tests?

Video podcasting is getting bigger and bigger.

Maybe I need AI generated video for this feed.

Another thing, my mind is really unsettled on some fundamental things, like the name of this podcast.

I called it Unreal Engine Diaries.

And I was thinking, what if I move away from Unreal?

What if I, you know, broaden my toolkit to the point where it's majority AI?

So I'm considering changing the name to Unreal Engines, you know, to turn the name into something more general than specific.

It's not an official announcement, but I feel like most likely I will change the name of this venture.

So if you like what I'm doing, make sure to subscribe to this feed because podcast feed will not disappear, will not change.

So basically, make sure to listen to this podcast on the podcast listening application.

Subscribe to it and just don't be surprised if the name changes.

All right, I will go now.

I want to do some actual work.

And yes, I'll be moving meshes and I'll be moving light objects and I'll be working a little bit with blueprints today because I really enjoy it.

But I'm also very excited about working with AI in order to get my visual storytelling done that way.

I hope you're doing well.

Write to me.

As always, big, big push for communication with you listeners.

Tell me your story.

Tell me what you're up to.

What do you do in Unreal Engine?

What are your hopes for Unreal Engine?

What are your expectations for integration of AI into the Unreal Engine workflow?

My email is in the podcast description.

Write me.

We can chat, we can call, I can read your email, or I can just keep it to myself.

But yeah, I'd love to hear from you.

Be well.

Stay positive.

And yeah, don't let AI to take your job.

Darn it.

Take care.