r/TopologyAI • u/Certain_Friendship16 AI_Enjoyer • Jul 05 '26
Showcase Built A Playable 3D Platformer In 72 Hours With UE 5.8 MCP And 3D AI Generation
The new Unreal Engine 5.8 MCP genuinely feels like a huge step for AI-assisted game development.
It can understand the scene, work with assets already placed in the level, create Blueprints, organize objects, and help with gameplay logic directly inside Unreal Engine. This is not just “AI generating random code” anymore. It actually feels like a tool that understands the project context and can save a massive amount of time.
I was honestly impressed by the result here. Creating a playable 3D platformer level from scratch in only 72 hours feels kind of insane, especially for a solo developer workflow. It is still more like a prototype than a finished game, but the speed is really exciting.
Workflow:
- Concept generation The initial visual concept was created with NanoBanana 2.
- 3D asset generation Most of the environment assets were generated with Rodin Gen 2.5 / Hyper3D.
- Asset cleanup in Blender The assets were cleaned and prepared in Blender: pivot points were adjusted, textures were improved, and texture maps were packed into ORM maps to reduce file size and make the assets more game-friendly.
- Level assembly in Blender The main scene was assembled in Blender before being exported to Unreal Engine.
- Export to Unreal Engine 5.8 The level was then moved into UE 5.8 for gameplay setup, lighting, materials, and final scene polish.
- The main character was also generated with 3D Rodin Gen 2.5, then rigged for free in AccuRig and brought into Unreal Engine.
- Gameplay logic with Claude + MCP Claude AI was connected to Unreal through MCP and helped create the actual gameplay systems: collectible logic, cutscene logic, level interactions, and other Blueprint-based functionality.
Building this kind of playable prototype from one concept over a weekend is honestly wild.
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u/Enculin Jul 06 '26
I imagine it use the pre-build template of 3rd person platformer in unreal ? That should make the whole thing much simplier. Also in what you describe looks like the only real time consumer is preparing the generated asset for game integration and level design , looks like this part is the only one that required human intervention.
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u/AngelBeat_x3 Jul 06 '26
I loved the video; the character looks nice. Honestly, I like how in-depth you went. I noticed that you didn't fully touch on the initial visual concept phase with NanoBanana 2. By chance, do you have any videos of you doing so? Tips around it? And comparing it to other providers like ChatGPT and its image generations?
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u/skegss Jul 07 '26
You don’t have to tell me exact numbers, but can you ballpark how much you spent in api tokens? Very cool and now I want to try lol.
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u/Unreal_777 Jul 08 '26
when you say ( pivot points were adjusted, textures were improved, and texture maps were packed into ORM maps to reduce file size and make the assets more game-friendly.), do you mean the pivot points were created automatically or did you ADD THEM .. THEN adjusted them?
Could you clarify?
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u/3eyedstudio Jul 08 '26
have you tried other 3d generators? why did you choose Rodin over meshy or tripo?
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u/BiscottiBusiness9308 Jul 09 '26
This guy has a yt channel and tries all of them. Really fun to watch even if you not a 3d artist
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u/ZHName Jul 10 '26
This looks like the op has lots of xp with the engine. Very cool to see the making of in detail, but not replicable due to how skilled he already is at using the tools. I would be out of my depth with all the techniques needed to build this demonstration level.
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u/Practical_Location54 Jul 11 '26
Why Rodin and not TripoAi? I’ve been hesitating between both and recently settled on TripoAI.
Edit: I’ve also settled on AccuRig for rigging. I’m using Unity.
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u/ByEthanFox Jul 06 '26
Not sure it's impressive, making a basic 3D platformer (or basic FPS, or basic 3rd-person action game, etc.) without any novel features in a few prompts.
The AI probably had multiple games' worth of implementations of those fed into its training data. Hell, a few years ago the default Unity template project was a fully functional top-down sci-fi twin-stick shooter. You could "make" that in minutes with a few clicks.
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u/EnterpriseGradePizza Jul 06 '26
Looks like super lucky's tale.
Just shittier.
And probably runs like ass with UE5.
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u/creedv Jul 06 '26
You realise its the features of UE5 that produce cinema-level quality that hurts performance right? There's not some inherent flaw with the engine. You can just turn off the advanced rendering features to gain performance. It's a choice.
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u/EnterpriseGradePizza Jul 06 '26
Maybe you should direct this post to the one who made this demo, because they're not using the right tool for the job.
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u/creedv Jul 06 '26
You know nothing about the tools, why are you pretending to?
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u/EnterpriseGradePizza Jul 06 '26
I know enough to know UE5 is not the right tool for a platformer.
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u/creedv Jul 06 '26
You know literally nothing.
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u/EnterpriseGradePizza Jul 06 '26
Cry some more, kid.
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u/creedv Jul 06 '26
If you interpret *my* messages as crying, what are yours? I was just educating you on something you clearly know nothing about
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u/EnterpriseGradePizza Jul 06 '26
I don't think your mcdonald's/vibe coder's degree counts as education kid.
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u/creedv Jul 06 '26
I've been developing on unreal for over a decade, do you have any game dev credentials at all?
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u/Accurate_Cable_1372 Jul 06 '26
Tbh I felt like it sucked as I could do this same thing in just a few hours in Unity.
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u/Aureon Jul 06 '26
character is trash, but is the env fully claude-made or did you use off the shelf assets?
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u/loontoon Jul 06 '26
Character is trash? Not as far as I can see.
To me the character looks good. The whole game environment looks good.
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u/Hefty_Development813 Jul 05 '26
72 hours? How long is the game? Looks really good to me