From concept to game
01 Gameplay Captured in Unreal, play in editor 02 The arena From one concept image, built by script 03 The Warden Concept, sheet, head, then 3D 04 The robots Three sheets, three models 05 The weapons Two sheets to 3D, no typical guns 06 The rig Before and after, and the rig skill
One image first
The key art set the look: the coral sky, travertine terraces, cypresses and the giant head. Walls, stairs, arches and dressing were then placed by Python scripts sent through the Unreal MCP and rebuilt after every change. The stone is GPT Image 2.5 swatches made seamless; the floor slabs come from Ideogram tiling.
Sheet to 3D
The front, side and back of one
turnaround sheetOne image showing a character from several sides, in the same pose, so a 3D model can be built from it. ,
cut into separate views, became one textured mesh with Tripo P2
multiview3D from several views of the same design at once, instead of a single picture. .
The head was rebuilt on its own from a clean render, then reduced to 8,000 triangles keeping its textures. One change from the key art: the long cape became a short, stiff tabard.
Rigid parts
Each robot was drawn twice by GPT Image 2.5 with the key art as reference, and one design of each went to 3D. Every part follows a single bone, like a toy, so Unreal's mannequin clips play on them unchanged. The drone's tentacles also sway in its material.
No typical guns
The brief ruled out ordinary guns. The Warden's Halo Caster fires spinning rings and the Guard's Pulse Brick fires bursts, both from one sheet. The Prism Lance on that sheet never made it into the game: the Sentinel got a cannon built into its arm, drawn on its own.
Three rigs, one clip
Left. Quinn, Unreal's own mannequin, the skeleton every Unreal animation is made for.
Middle, before. The automatic rig, made in Blender from Quinn's skeleton, Unreal's mannequin. Its bones sat where Quinn's are, not where the Warden's body is: shoulders inside the chest, and the hand joints badly misplaced, so the gloves and fingers stretched.
Right, after. Improved by a Claude skill: each joint moved into the middle of its body part, the fingers fitted, the skin weights redone. A few joints were then moved by hand. Same bones, so every Unreal animation still plays.
The skill gives an automatic rig a slight improvement. It is not a full fix: check the joints by hand afterwards.
Download the rig skill Slightly improves an auto rig. Agent skill, ZIP
Final results only
2,346 CU
For the 12 images and 9
3D modelsMeshes made by Tripo P2 from GPT Image 2.5 design sheets: the Warden's body and head, three robots, three weapons and the giant head.
in the game. Redos and tests not counted.
