Getting replaced by a script is one thing. Having it happen while navigating private life is another — it’s the kind of timing that forces a hard look at what actually matters.

I’m currently caught between two worlds: the deliberate, manual craft of building in Unreal Engine and the "magic trick" of AI generation. There’s a massive psychological difference between creating something and just overseeing a generation. With Epic Games snapping up AI mocap tech Meshcapade, the technical barriers are evaporating, but it feels like the "joy of the build" is evaporating with them. I’m trying to figure out if we’re still artists or if we’ve just been demoted to curators of machine output. If you’re also feeling like a ghost in the machine, I want to hear about it.

The Breakdown:

1. The Double Hit: Navigating a layoff and family health scares simultaneously, and how that kills the "hustle" mentality.
2. Craft vs. Prompt: Why spending hours in Unreal Engine feels more meaningful than getting a perfect AI result in seconds.
3. Epic’s Power Move: What their acquisition of AI motion capture means for the future of "human" performance in digital spaces. Meshcapade .
4. The Quality Pivot: Why the only way to survive is focusing on the specific, messy human outcomes that AI still can’t quite fake.

Get in touch: cmonkxxx@gmail.com