first quick one minute scan test with @SpAItial_AI ! this is the google happy hour today after Insider Day. Particularly impressed by the keyplan in the bottom right it made

I realized this morning I was going to spend hundreds of dollars this week hiring cars to get around Mountain View, so rented a bike instead.

Hey everyone, there’s been some questions going on around here about Epic’s use of AI in Unreal Engine development. I’ve answered some questions from the good folks at This Week in Videogames. TLDR: Yes we are using AI in UE development (as we actually mentioned back at Unreal Fest) and it’s helping with pretty much everything.
thisweekinvideogames.com/news/epic-game…

I accidentally broke Claude by feeding it raw Unreal Blueprint code.

I kno this is part of why Epic Games is dropping BPs, but I really like them (especially for teaching) so wanted to see if there was a way to streamline ingestion.

Introducing the aptly named Blueprint Reader:

Try out Blueprint Reader! It's also a great teaching tool because it helps you understand what a BP is doing:
ibrews.github.io/ue5-mcp/

I built a tool that converts static mesh trees into Nanite skeletal trees with Dynamic Wind, in one click, inside Unreal.

Foliage Toolkit Plus is out on Fab 🌳🧵

The newly released OpenXR Spatial Container extensions standardize system-managed spaces for volumetric 3D apps, similar to how traditional systems place 2D content in desktop windows.

Details here: uploadvr.com/openxr-spatial…

Benefit of being at Google's office today is sitting next to the developer of the Unreal Engine AndroidXR vendor plugin and having them poke me when they push an update:
github.com/android-xr/and…

Today, we're launching Echo-3, our world model for reconstructing real spaces.

Key idea: treat reconstruction as conditional generation. The outputs are photorealistic 3DGS, point clouds, and meshes at metric scale -- only from a short iPhone video.

We believe this is an important step for physical AI, which is bottlenecked by real-world 3D data. When any phone can produce a metric digital twin, capture scales with phones rather than expensive scanning rigs, for robotics as much as for construction and real estate.

Echo-3 is also available via API: photos or video in, 3D worlds out. Check it out!

I love the little shake

This morning I saw a post by @DanFessler. It was so damn awesome that I had to start working on this literally while still lying in bed.

Finally it is working. It actually makes a difference and keeps things clean in UE5.

The past month: SF, Atlanta, Rome, NYC … and now I’m back in SF ! Tomorrow is Android Insiders Day followed by the Android Dev Summit.

Big thanks to Google for covering my travel as a Google Developer Expert.

Let’s go AndroidXR !

i used to be the person who explained why ai cost what it cost.

then i started seeing usage we couldn't explain.

since then i've seen people steal inference for personal use, for distillation, and for offensive security.

inference is valuable. someone pays for every request. steal access and someone else pays for yours.

but i think the appeal goes beyond free compute. using someone else's account puts distance between you and the activity. the account owner is visible. the person behind the requests can be harder to identify.

my research points to a billion dollars in lost revenue.

i've found sophisticated operations with their own payment systems, gateways, account theft operations and marketing. some have 100+ employees.

shell companies in the uk and the virgin islands. servers in russia and china. operators in the us and elsewhere. some advertise openly on x and other platforms. some have vc funding.

that's where trying to explain an ai bill took me: researching the businesses behind stolen inference.

who is actually using the inference you're paying for?

give me a follow if you want to learn how to secure yours. i'll share practical tips on protecting it from llm hacking, key theft, session theft, subscription piggybacking and more.

Unreal Engine has become such a headache to use. It really is a motivation killer.

I spent most of my time correcting the engines mess ups of imports, scale issues and other crap that seems half implemented.

Honestly ready to just drop this engine at this point.

I couldn’t bring my wife to Rome on this trip but I did build her app idea for setting off fireworks and that made her happy.

Test flight!
testflight.apple.com/join/yzzSv7Yj

I reverse engineered candy crush

If Unreal is vibecoded, then no point in using & pay roaylities to Epic. Just ask AI to generate you an entire new Engine (youtube prove it kinda works), and don't forget to ask Claude to "inspire" from UE5. This way you've your own free Unreal-like!
scr: x.com/TimSweeneyEpic…

> But what worries me is that people can become so satisfied with the work itself that they start mistaking that satisfaction for having created something good.

The largest peril in Game Development. Some of the best games I've made weren't "fun" to make.

A lot of folks ask me how my wife & kids feel about me traveling so much for @AgileLens. It can be hard! When possible I try to bundle trips together. I’m always home for important moments. I try to be useful around the house.

And KEY: support my wife having her own adventures !

Memories.

We love doing things, because we just love the process of creating it. We love putting in the effort, going through the pain, and seeing the result of it being built in realtime.

When I opened UDK about 16-17 years ago, this was the rush of feeling I had. It was are we now but in a joyless world rushing to create content for sake of content, making machines make more content so you can do nothing but be a mannequin at the end of the day - lifeless, joyless and idle.

No artist or creator will want to give away that process of making art or creating. Let them who wants to pop pills and claim skills do so. Let them who wants to stand on shoulders of giants and call themselves tall do so. Nobody will care because nobody will want soul-less experiences.