Best Artificial Intelligence Tools to assist in Unreal Engine Development for Indie Titles

[MarathonGuy1337]

Hi I'm looking into developing a Indie Game (kinda preliminary early alpha stuff) and was wondering what are the most recommended Artificial Intelligence tools and software that other developers familiar would recommend. Currently the team only consists of myself and one other individual and I figure AI would be a great way to speed the development of the game, considering how advanced the software's and programs having been rapidly developing over the past couple of years.

The game itself is a Role Playing Game (duh) and whilst I'm not gonna over share any of the major details I've kinda wanted it to be a hybrid of turn based tactical games and more classic computer role playing games so think Arcanum and Fallout meets Xcom or Jagger Alliance though we are currently still discussing other ideas and influences from KOTOR to Valkyrie Chronicles as I really like the third person aspects of the games and how they help the player feel closer to the action, not to mention the more real time aspects of the two titles that make the games feel less like turn based games.

AI Tools I'm Looking For;

AI Tools For Coding (For the essential game code and speed along development of the Alpha)
AI Tools For 3D Modeling (Mainly for the random generation of Terrain like some of those blender tools)
AI Tools for 2D Art Generation (Mainly to help come up with rouge ideas for concept art)

Alright I'll have to disappear again.

 

[puur prutswerk]

Yeah, I think you are overestimating the current abilities of A.I. just a little bit there.

For coding I don't know, you could ask Chatgpt or whatever to help you with coding, but otherwise you will just need to learn it yourself as far as I know. The Blueprint stuff in Unreal Engine is a lot more accessible than actual coding and it kind of fun.

For random terrain generation I know a few assets on the unreal marketplace (wtf is A.I. even? Just code, nothing more) that help with that.

There is Procedural Terrain Generator v2 that I have used previously which is able to do planes, cubes and spheres with water and random mesh/actor placement. What it creates are NOT unreal landscapes though, so you can not edit them with the landscape editor or use automaterials with those meshes.
There is also TerrainMagic which I think is able to randomly generate landscapes with noise although I don't think I ever tried it. It is NOT compatible with Unreal engine 5.3 yet.
Right now Biome Generator PCG is featured by Epic, but I don't have that one, so I don't know exactly what it does.

I guess A.I. tools for 2D art generation are available lots of places, I hardly know about them.

 

[MarathonGuy1337]

Yeah, I think you are overestimating the current abilities of A.I. just a little bit there.

For coding I don't know, you could ask Chatgpt or whatever to help you with coding, but otherwise you will just need to learn it yourself as far as I know. The Blueprint stuff in Unreal Engine is a lot more accessible than actual coding and it kind of fun.

For random terrain generation I know a few assets on the unreal marketplace (wtf is A.I. even? Just code, nothing more) that help with that.

There is Procedural Terrain Generator v2 that I have used previously which is able to do planes, cubes and spheres with water and random mesh/actor placement. What it creates are NOT unreal landscapes though, so you can not edit them with the landscape editor or use automaterials with those meshes.
There is also TerrainMagic which I think is able to randomly generate landscapes with noise although I don't think I ever tried it. It is NOT compatible with Unreal engine 5.3 yet.
Right now Biome Generator PCG is featured by Epic, but I don't have that one, so I don't know exactly what it does.

I guess A.I. tools for 2D art generation are available lots of places, I hardly know about them.

Yeah Procedural Terrain Generator V2, Biome Generator PCG and TerrainMagic would be useful to help environmental sculpturing.

So Chatgpt is the go to to ask for coding difficulties, do you type in prompts and it gives you the code, which you then entre into the current game project.

 

[puur prutswerk]

Yeah, I think you are overestimating the current abilities of A.I. just a little bit there.

For coding I don't know, you could ask Chatgpt or whatever to help you with coding, but otherwise you will just need to learn it yourself as far as I know. The Blueprint stuff in Unreal Engine is a lot more accessible than actual coding and it kind of fun.

For random terrain generation I know a few assets on the unreal marketplace (wtf is A.I. even? Just code, nothing more) that help with that.

There is Procedural Terrain Generator v2 that I have used previously which is able to do planes, cubes and spheres with water and random mesh/actor placement. What it creates are NOT unreal landscapes though, so you can not edit them with the landscape editor or use automaterials with those meshes.
There is also TerrainMagic which I think is able to randomly generate landscapes with noise although I don't think I ever tried it. It is NOT compatible with Unreal engine 5.3 yet.
Right now Biome Generator PCG is featured by Epic, but I don't have that one, so I don't know exactly what it does.

I guess A.I. tools for 2D art generation are available lots of places, I hardly know about them.

Yeah Procedural Terrain Generator V2, Biome Generator PCG and TerrainMagic would be useful to help environmental sculpturing.

So Chatgpt is the go to to ask for coding difficulties, do you type in prompts and it gives you the code, which you then entre into the current game project.

I don't know, I have only talked to Chatgpt twice and the second time I asked it if it could help me with blueprints in Unreal Engine and Chatgpt said sure it is able to.

I think the first thing to do is to download Unreal Engine and get to work. In my very, very limited experience with game development it mostly revolves around solving the problems you encounter while coming to terms with the fact that your original plan needs tweaking because it is just not really within the realm of possibilities right now.

 

[MarathonGuy1337]

Yeah, I think you are overestimating the current abilities of A.I. just a little bit there.

For coding I don't know, you could ask Chatgpt or whatever to help you with coding, but otherwise you will just need to learn it yourself as far as I know. The Blueprint stuff in Unreal Engine is a lot more accessible than actual coding and it kind of fun.

For random terrain generation I know a few assets on the unreal marketplace (wtf is A.I. even? Just code, nothing more) that help with that.

There is Procedural Terrain Generator v2 that I have used previously which is able to do planes, cubes and spheres with water and random mesh/actor placement. What it creates are NOT unreal landscapes though, so you can not edit them with the landscape editor or use automaterials with those meshes.
There is also TerrainMagic which I think is able to randomly generate landscapes with noise although I don't think I ever tried it. It is NOT compatible with Unreal engine 5.3 yet.
Right now Biome Generator PCG is featured by Epic, but I don't have that one, so I don't know exactly what it does.

I guess A.I. tools for 2D art generation are available lots of places, I hardly know about them.

Yeah Procedural Terrain Generator V2, Biome Generator PCG and TerrainMagic would be useful to help environmental sculpturing.

So Chatgpt is the go to to ask for coding difficulties, do you type in prompts and it gives you the code, which you then entre into the current game project.

I don't know, I have only talked to Chatgpt twice and the second time I asked it if it could help me with blueprints in Unreal Engine and Chatgpt said sure it is able to.

I think the first thing to do is to download Unreal Engine and get to work. In my very, very limited experience with game development it mostly revolves around solving the problems you encounter while coming to terms with the fact that your original plan needs tweaking because it is just not really within the realm of possibilities right now.

Yeah I already have UE and did a game design course thou I specialized into other aspects like 3D and Concept Art, I'm really just trying to give the other guy on the project, my brother, any tools to help him out as he's primarily doing the coding for the game. Plus if I'm able to help him in anyway that be a plus.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

Hi I'm looking into developing a Indie Game (kinda preliminary early alpha stuff) and was wondering what are the most recommended Artificial Intelligence tools and software that other developers familiar would recommend. Currently the team only consists of myself and one other individual and I figure AI would be a great way to speed the development of the game, considering how advanced the software's and programs having been rapidly developing over the past couple of years.

The game itself is a Role Playing Game (duh) and whilst I'm not gonna over share any of the major details I've kinda wanted it to be a hybrid of turn based tactical games and more classic computer role playing games so think Arcanum and Fallout meets Xcom or Jagger Alliance though we are currently still discussing other ideas and influences from KOTOR to Valkyrie Chronicles as I really like the third person aspects of the games and how they help the player feel closer to the action, not to mention the more real time aspects of the two titles that make the games feel less like turn based games.

AI Tools I'm Looking For;

AI Tools For Coding (For the essential game code and speed along development of the Alpha)
AI Tools For 3D Modeling (Mainly for the random generation of Terrain like some of those blender tools)
AI Tools for 2D Art Generation (Mainly to help come up with rouge ideas for concept art)

Alright I'll have to disappear again.

 

[MarathonGuy1337]

Hi I'm looking into developing a Indie Game (kinda preliminary early alpha stuff) and was wondering what are the most recommended Artificial Intelligence tools and software that other developers familiar would recommend. Currently the team only consists of myself and one other individual and I figure AI would be a great way to speed the development of the game, considering how advanced the software's and programs having been rapidly developing over the past couple of years.

The game itself is a Role Playing Game (duh) and whilst I'm not gonna over share any of the major details I've kinda wanted it to be a hybrid of turn based tactical games and more classic computer role playing games so think Arcanum and Fallout meets Xcom or Jagger Alliance though we are currently still discussing other ideas and influences from KOTOR to Valkyrie Chronicles as I really like the third person aspects of the games and how they help the player feel closer to the action, not to mention the more real time aspects of the two titles that make the games feel less like turn based games.

AI Tools I'm Looking For;

AI Tools For Coding (For the essential game code and speed along development of the Alpha)
AI Tools For 3D Modeling (Mainly for the random generation of Terrain like some of those blender tools)
AI Tools for 2D Art Generation (Mainly to help come up with rouge ideas for concept art)

Alright I'll have to disappear again.

I take it I was being to hopeful with the current AI technology...

But i got three good suggestions out of it XD

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

Hi I'm looking into developing a Indie Game (kinda preliminary early alpha stuff) and was wondering what are the most recommended Artificial Intelligence tools and software that other developers familiar would recommend. Currently the team only consists of myself and one other individual and I figure AI would be a great way to speed the development of the game, considering how advanced the software's and programs having been rapidly developing over the past couple of years.

The game itself is a Role Playing Game (duh) and whilst I'm not gonna over share any of the major details I've kinda wanted it to be a hybrid of turn based tactical games and more classic computer role playing games so think Arcanum and Fallout meets Xcom or Jagger Alliance though we are currently still discussing other ideas and influences from KOTOR to Valkyrie Chronicles as I really like the third person aspects of the games and how they help the player feel closer to the action, not to mention the more real time aspects of the two titles that make the games feel less like turn based games.

AI Tools I'm Looking For;

AI Tools For Coding (For the essential game code and speed along development of the Alpha)
AI Tools For 3D Modeling (Mainly for the random generation of Terrain like some of those blender tools)
AI Tools for 2D Art Generation (Mainly to help come up with rouge ideas for concept art)

Alright I'll have to disappear again.

I take it I was being to hopeful with the current AI technology...

But i got three good suggestions out of it XD

I have yet a better suggestion.

You appear to not know anything about crafting games. This is akin to a 12 year old undertaking their first engineering project to be a hovercraft.

So forget making anything complex. Start really small and simple.
Try to make something fun yet simple.

Further to that I would suggest, do not use Unreal Engine.
Pick something else, preferably some game llibrary, SDL something like that.

 

[MarathonGuy1337]

Hi I'm looking into developing a Indie Game (kinda preliminary early alpha stuff) and was wondering what are the most recommended Artificial Intelligence tools and software that other developers familiar would recommend. Currently the team only consists of myself and one other individual and I figure AI would be a great way to speed the development of the game, considering how advanced the software's and programs having been rapidly developing over the past couple of years.

The game itself is a Role Playing Game (duh) and whilst I'm not gonna over share any of the major details I've kinda wanted it to be a hybrid of turn based tactical games and more classic computer role playing games so think Arcanum and Fallout meets Xcom or Jagger Alliance though we are currently still discussing other ideas and influences from KOTOR to Valkyrie Chronicles as I really like the third person aspects of the games and how they help the player feel closer to the action, not to mention the more real time aspects of the two titles that make the games feel less like turn based games.

AI Tools I'm Looking For;

AI Tools For Coding (For the essential game code and speed along development of the Alpha)
AI Tools For 3D Modeling (Mainly for the random generation of Terrain like some of those blender tools)
AI Tools for 2D Art Generation (Mainly to help come up with rouge ideas for concept art)

Alright I'll have to disappear again.

I take it I was being to hopeful with the current AI technology...

But i got three good suggestions out of it XD

I have yet a better suggestion.

You appear to not know anything about crafting games. This is akin to a 12 year old undertaking their first engineering project to be a hovercraft.

So forget making anything complex. Start really small and simple.
Try to make something fun yet simple.

Further to that I would suggest, do not use Unreal Engine.
Pick something else, preferably some game llibrary, SDL something like that.

I think you misunderstood I do have some knowledge in games design, I have a BA in the subject. Granted I'm not the primary coder that job is ultimately my brother's who is a much better coder than me I was only looking into AI tools as a means of streamlining especially since I saw a post on the AI is the future of Indie RPGs? thread with some one highlighting the indie game Zarathustra and from this got interest led how we could use the current artificial intelligence technology to help streamline the game development process.

Sorry for any confusion I should have made that clear l.

 

[Tyranicon]

There's a common saying in certain AI circles: if something isn't fit for practical use yet, check again in six months.

 

[MarathonGuy1337]

There's a common saying in certain AI circles: if something isn't fit for practical use yet, check again in six months.

Well I guess I'll have to check back later in sud months

 

[Cheesedragon117]

There's no substitute for hard work, kid. Welcome to game development, here's your shovel.


That being said, chatbots can easily help you with the preliminary and even intermediate stages of the programming of your game. Not only is it something they're good at, it's one of their very few legit use cases. I have a techie friend that was able to put together a simple render in UE5 using almost nothing but chunks of code generated by ChatGPT. It's worth a shot.

 

[The_Sloth_Sleeps]

There's no substitute for hard work, kid. Welcome to game development, here's your shovel.


That being said, chatbots can easily help you with the preliminary and even intermediate stages of the programming of your game. Not only is it something they're good at, it's one of their very few legit use cases. I have a techie friend that was able to put together a simple render in UE5 using almost nothing but chunks of code generated by ChatGPT. It's worth a shot.

Exactly. Theres no short cuts. Even if you are using a chatbot you really have to know what you are doing.
I got one to help me write a shader. And some UI code.
I had to know when it was getting off track and I cant imagine just using it if you dont know what your doing.

 

[MarathonGuy1337]

There's no substitute for hard work, kid. Welcome to game development, here's your shovel.


That being said, chatbots can easily help you with the preliminary and even intermediate stages of the programming of your game. Not only is it something they're good at, it's one of their very few legit use cases. I have a techie friend that was able to put together a simple render in UE5 using almost nothing but chunks of code generated by ChatGPT. It's worth a shot.

Yeah I'm only looking for a way to streamline development with the current day tools that we have available, a friend at my work also recommended ChatGPT he used it to create a few programs and recommended it so its definitely worth checking out.

There's no substitute for hard work, kid. Welcome to game development, here's your shovel.


That being said, chatbots can easily help you with the preliminary and even intermediate stages of the programming of your game. Not only is it something they're good at, it's one of their very few legit use cases. I have a techie friend that was able to put together a simple render in UE5 using almost nothing but chunks of code generated by ChatGPT. It's worth a shot.

Exactly. Theres no short cuts. Even if you are using a chatbot you really have to know what you are doing.
I got one to help me write a shader. And some UI code.
I had to know when it was getting off track and I cant imagine just using it if you dont know what your doing.

Yeah personal knowledge is essential in the field and whilst I did do a game design course I'm not egotistical enough to think I'm the "Best Programmer/Coder" thankfully my teammate is a much better programmer than me and I'm sure hes gonna find these suggestions useful, we had a really cool build a while back with a dynamic camera, quest system, dialogue system and leveling system with functional experience points rewards though exploration, quest completion and son on.

Most of which was work on his part so I'm confident he can us these tools and software to help streamline production which also allows me to focus on the 3D modelling for the level geometry and character models and concept art.

And now in anticipation for your insight on the future...

 

[tritosine2k]

You want to hit some kind of performance target you set out to yourself. 2D is good because ultra stable framerate with many enemies on screen like in starcraft brood war. Except indies usually can't use this to their advantage because theres no complexity. AI stuff is like 3D was in 1985 they dont even have their Pixar moment yet.

FYI "votoms" works (better than gundam for now bc the network appears mistrained with gunpla) as a prompt if you want sunrise animation style concept. But don't use it with blank img gen rather image to image you can manipulate and keep the seed #. Like fal.ai dynamic.

 

[MarathonGuy1337]

You want to hit some kind of performance target you set out to yourself. 2D is good because ultra stable framerate with many enemies on screen like in starcraft brood war. Except indies usually can't use this to their advantage because theres no complexity. AI stuff is like 3D was in 1985 they dont even have their Pixar moment yet.

FYI "votoms" works (better than gundam for now bc the network appears mistrained with gunpla) as a prompt if you want sunrise animation style concept. But don't use it with blank img gen rather image to image you can manipulate and keep the seed #. Like fal.ai dynamic.

I suppose with how much I post retro anime gifs someone was bound to work out perhaps the artstyle I'll aim for, to be honest the game is gonna have a 1980s anime vibe to it, and probably take influence from like Mobile Suit Gundam, LOTGH and VOTOMs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvheUQRjuFk&ab_channel=TimRachor

As for AI I do have to agree though perhaps Zarathustra is the closet to the pixar moment, it seems very well made from what I've seen and heard off it, got it downloaded so gonna want to give it a try at some point

 

[tritosine2k]

This stuff doesn't mix with unreal. There's hardly any coherence to match it with 3D at all. I think a good mix would be starcraft talking portraits and wireframe stuff, thats stylish. O3DE looks cool to me now. Maybe it can do something like D2 resurrected with 2D background process but mostly 2D gfx thatd even run on TV stick grade hw.

There were some actual innovative games in x360 era where loading screen time was used for lightmap texture generation. Maybe O3DE can do that with sprites instead.

 

[MarathonGuy1337]

This stuff doesn't mix with unreal. There's hardly any coherence to match it with 3D at all. I think a good mix would be starcraft talking portraits and wireframe stuff, thats stylish. O3DE looks cool to me now. Maybe it can do something like D2 resurrected with 2D background process but mostly 2D gfx thatd even run on TV stick grade hw.

My plan was to develop most of the characters with 3D meshes but then use a pixel processing affect kinda like this video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERA7-I5nPAU&ab_channel=t3ssel8r

Which I saw first on t3ssel8r YouTube channel

https://www.youtube.com/@t3ssel8r

and before that had seen something similar with the game "The Last Night" which used a blend of 3D and Pixel art.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4IPBiB7SF4&ab_channel=Xbox

Which I saw in college and though looked really cool and interesting as you get the best of 3D with the style of Pixel Art

 

[tritosine2k]

Theres stuff like that all the time. Don't get caught up it's just "outnerding". (Flashy cloud shadows in first video totally disconnected from weather lol) . Adobe had it on show too*. Ultimately,
tech will decide artist stuff and performance target will decide technology.

If this looked like D2: resurrected noone would care about nerdy artist stuff

*

 

[MarathonGuy1337]

Theres stuff like that all the time. Don't get caught up it's just "outnerding". (Flashy cloud shadows in first video totally disconnected from weather lol) . Adobe had it on show too*. Ultimately,
tech will decide artist stuff and performance target will decide technology.

If this looked like D2: resurrected noone would care about nerdy artist stuff

*

Thats probably true but I would like their to be dynamic lighting and shadows, in away I want a game that feels sought true to Fallout and Arcanum but is able to do new stuff with technology those games couldn't have gotten away with.

In terms of design philosophy I have a similar one to https://www.youtube.com/@Legend64Project and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV8uCS_eVnU&ab_channel=FireDragon04 which whilst inspired by classic adventure games of the late-90s I think they both mentioned Zelda Ocarina of Time but also want to use the new technology be it lightning or particle systems to help elevate their indie projects.

 

[tritosine2k]

dynamic lighting and shadows

A sunlight is always dominant light source vs. ingame stuff and dynamic shadows are implausible at best * and usually lights don't/few cast shadows in current realtime rendering paradigm.

Correctly implemented weather is faar more important and you can mix and match sprites. I thought along these lines when I said indie games lack complexity.

*You can also do the nearly same for 2d top down with proxy geometry.

 

[Viata]

AI Tools For Coding (For the essential game code and speed along development of the Alpha)
AI Tools For 3D Modeling (Mainly for the random generation of Terrain like some of those blender tools)
AI Tools for 2D Art Generation (Mainly to help come up with rouge ideas for concept art)

If you find this, you gotta wonder why should I buy your game if I can just use the same tools to make my own game instead.

 

[Tyranicon]

AI Tools For Coding (For the essential game code and speed along development of the Alpha)
AI Tools For 3D Modeling (Mainly for the random generation of Terrain like some of those blender tools)
AI Tools for 2D Art Generation (Mainly to help come up with rouge ideas for concept art)

If you find this, you gotta wonder why should I buy your game if I can just use the same tools to make my own game instead.

Theoretically, its a huge barrier reduction for

• Programmers who want to make cool new game mechanics but are bad at art
• Artists who want to make a game but can't program
• Writers who actually want to be useful for something besides fanfic

Of course nothing in the near future will actually beat a living human for any of these, but consider the following: large teams suck ass and I'd much rather see more solodevs than yet another drama-filled incompetent indie team.

Disregard the haters. Be an ubermensh, use all the tools that are available to you. Make the best game you can.

 

[Viata]

I'd much rather see more solodevs

Same here. But no AI, thank you. That is, I have no problem with people using AI for helping with code problems (stack overflow sucks now and search engine are all horrible at this point) and even use AI drawing to help with concept art. But when the plot was done with the help of AI, maybe character dialogues, and the art and music has AI all over it, then I have 0 interest in that.

 

[Viata]

I already hate how many games use procedural generation to create maps, levels, etc.