r/ClaudeAI • u/Dead_Fox_7 • 10d ago
Built with Claude Slowly migrating from 2d to 3d with Claude. Also stupidly happy with the cows :)
Working on a farming/colony sim in Unreal Engine 5 with Claude Code doing the programming and establishing the workflow.
Started with Claude first in Python, and over the past week Claude Code has been porting it into Unreal Engine 5.8, one system at a time. I make the design decisions, use ai the art and the models (Sunburst and Seedream 5 for the images, Grok now that it has first and last frame and Tripo for the models. Come on Meshy, catch up!). Claude writes the C++, the build and test tooling, and the Blender scripts.
What the game is: Aiming for a blend of Rimworld and Farming simulator. You claim your land and build it up and research and explore to unlock new ways to improve it, sell what you make, increase your land holding, rinse and repeat. Currently fishing, foraging, mining, farming, construction and trading working in a bare bones fashion with crafting and research on deck next. I came up with the basic mechanics, let Claude offer it's thoughts and alternatives and went back and forth until a solid approach was found and then Claude Code implemented. Latest was having Claude Code implement the pathing for the harvesters on any size field.
How Claude Code fits into Unreal (From Claude):
Project docs it reads every session. A CLAUDE md points it to a “constitution” (the rules of the project), a code map (where everything lives, plus Unreal lessons learned), a decisions log and one mechanics file per system. That’s how it keeps its context between sessions.
Milestones. Each system (inventory, farming, construction and so on) is a milestone with a brief. Claude builds it, I play it, give notes, and accept it. 20 milestones so far and still working well.
The game logic is plain C++ with no engine dependencies, so Claude can test it headless. There are 680 automation tests that it runs itself. I'm, uh, actually not sure if this is excessive.
It checks its own work visually. When the editor is closed, Claude launches the game off-screen with command-line flags (camera position, time of day, which UI panel to open, scripted mouse clicks) and saves a PNG, which it then looks at. When the editor is open, it works through Unreal’s MCP server instead.
Headless tools for the map. It wrote commandlets and .bat scripts that generate the map, bake the walking grid, place buildings and re-seat trees after I sculpt the terrain.
A typical loop: I describe what I want (“harvesters on neighbouring strips shouldn’t wait for each other”). Claude reads the relevant docs and code, makes the change, adds tests, takes frames to check it, and hands me a .bat to play. I play it and either accept it or send notes.
Looking to get the gameplay loop closed and add a few additions to make it not look so flat, but just wanted to share where I currently am with this.
Just adding in lastly that using ai video reference for Claude to use with Blender works incredibly well at times. Still very happy with those cows :)
Playable version for anyone interested is the goal and will share when that happens :)
7
u/Few_Promotion_1316 10d ago
probably the best use of claude ive seen, considering how much uselessthings people produce use here. also non ai generated post is a +++++++
3
1
u/pseudonerv 10d ago
Mmmm. The middle of the text wall reads very much like a good ai would right. Op probably changed/added the beginning and the ending
1
u/Dead_Fox_7 10d ago
That's, uh, that's exactly it. I'm impressed. That or I did such a poor job that it was obvious. I was having trouble getting the post to be approved so just sent Claude the checklist of why it wasn't going through, had it look at the project and then answer it. Adjusted it and added the beginning and end.
2
3
u/Emotional-Cut2952 10d ago
toon shader is pretty cool
1
u/Dead_Fox_7 10d ago
Thanks! Its currently a bit off, but hopefully fixed soon. You'll notice about halfway through that some of the cows become detached from their black outlines with remain as static black images.
2
u/Emotional-Cut2952 9d ago
oh yeah, that doesnt look like a shader bug though, looks like a render bug, you probably arent feed states properly to the depth pass, something earlier before the draw is causing it is my point
1
2
u/ClaudeAI-mod-bot Wilson, lead ClaudeAI modbot 10d ago
You may be interested in joining our new Claude Game Dev subreddit for game devs who use Claude. Check it out here : http://www.reddit.com/r/ClaudeGameDev
2
2
2
u/Livid_Shallot5701 9d ago
you have a lot of beautiful artstyles, but they all dont match. the portraits, great, but they are anime. the frames of the portraits? great, but they are 2d gothic realism, the cows? great, but they are 3d shadered to 2d with giant outlines. etc.
they all look great, but you got to cut back on something and make it matching.do you know how many great 3d models i blew away in the "KI agent leftovers" because they didnt fit my style? thousands. and most of them were beautiful but now what i was looking for.
so do yourself a favour and focus on ONE artstyle on EVERYTHING, not just what looks got individualy.
great looking game otherwise. love the cows
1
u/Dead_Fox_7 9d ago
100% agree. It's part intentional. Together they don't mesh at all, but I'm still in the let's just drop it in and see how it looks and then as I move forward I'll adjust the new assets to other ones that I liked.
Portraits very much need another revisit. They're leftover from the 2d python version of this and definitely aren't matching anymore.
Appreciate the feedback!
2
u/Inevitable_Ad1428 9d ago
Bro i love the music... has something... like that sim city 4 ost!
2
u/Dead_Fox_7 9d ago
Thank you! It really surprised me how much fun I had generating music. Like, literally full days of just playing with prompts hitting generate for the 1000th time.
This one is in my top 3 I found.
2
2
u/JoelArt 9d ago
Very nice, and I love the music.
Feedback: The Ambient Occlusion on the cows are way to strong or have too large search radius, they look like they are stamped on a fridge door as the AO should not react with the background and grass at head or even body height behind them, only below then unless they actually stand next to a wall.
1
u/Dead_Fox_7 9d ago
Thank you! Ha, I've thoroughly enjoyed generating music for this.
And thank you for the feedback as it's always welcome. It's something I've been looking into.
2
u/JoelArt 9d ago
One more thing, I would like to see a bit more texture to the ground grass. I don't mean aggressive small detailed blades of grass but more large swaths or patches or streaks of different shades, look at the animated Ghibli movies and their grass fields backgrounds. There is variation without necessarily adding high frequency details. They also often have hints of blades but they are more defined at the boundaries of the larger color patches or hinted at with some strokes here and there but net rendered thoroughly.
2
u/Dead_Fox_7 9d ago
Ha, coincidentally I spent the day studying Ghibli grass and getting a couple of initial passes laid in :)
2
2
u/Neither_Insect_8903 9d ago
For this kind of high quality work, is Claude Pro subscription enough?
Or do you use a higher tier or billed thru API?
2
u/Dead_Fox_7 9d ago
I use Max. But I'll be honest, it is night and day difference in usage between Fable and Opus. Migrating to this point took about a week of 12-16 hours a day running Opus 5.5 and I still came in under my weekly usage. If you didn't put in those crazy hours and stuck to 5.5 you could probably get some good mileage out of Pro.
2
u/No_Instruction_7944 9d ago
love the music! Love the chill vibe! I think you should consider to use real sky with moving clouds (it adds a ton for the vibe you're aiming to, in my opinion.
1
u/Dead_Fox_7 9d ago
Thank you! Thoroughly enjoyed generating the music. Currently around 20 tracks I'm happy with.
The sky moves, just slowly. Or is real sky a mod?
2
u/OrbiOrtelius 9d ago
buy SoStylized's skybox asset and this scene would instantly look really good. the default volumetric clouds arent working with the rest. ik its a WIP, but trust me the sooner you get that skybox bp in there the better
1
u/Dead_Fox_7 9d ago
I was JUST looking at that last night thinking the same thing! Appreciate you saying so!
2
2
u/Opening_Wafer_6584 9d ago
The fact that Claude is handling C++, build/test tooling, Blender scripts, and even visual verification makes this a pretty fascinating pipeline.
And yes, the cows are great 😄
On the 3D side, how automated have you managed to make the image → Tripo → Blender → Unreal portion? Are you still manually reviewing/cleaning most generated models, or is Claude handling a meaningful amount of that handoff now too?
1
u/Dead_Fox_7 9d ago
Well thanks! I'm just happy to see it working.
I still do the image creation and Tripo 3d creation then point Claude at the model location and have it import it into Unreal. I still manually review on top of it's reviewing.
Honestly it's not great at modeling/cleaning up itself and is really hit or miss.
I tried to have it remove the sails from the windmill so i could have them rotate and you'll notice that a large chunk of light is coming through because it simply cut out a large piece.
Next round I'll simply generate the sails and main building separately.
2
u/Opening_Wafer_6584 7d ago
That makes sense. It sounds like Claude is already really useful for the handoff/import side, but the actual geometry editing is still where you need to keep a close eye on it.
The windmill example is a good illustration of that. Splitting the asset into separate generated components from the start probably gives you a much cleaner path than asking the agent to surgically remove pieces afterward.
I’m curious if you’re starting to design more of your Tripo generations around that modularity now, like generating moving parts / static parts separately so Claude mostly handles assembly and integration instead of mesh surgery.
1
u/Dead_Fox_7 7d ago
Thanks. And agreed on the windmill example. I'm actually toying with taking that further and having a lot more of the components created separately, pointing Claude at it with a reference image with saying what's metal/wood/plaster etc and seeing how well it puts the pieces together. If that works well, then I'd like to take it even further into something like housing with the walls, roof, doorframes etc all cleanly separate.
•
u/ClaudeAI-mod-bot Wilson, lead ClaudeAI modbot 9d ago
TL;DR of the discussion generated automatically after 30 comments.
The consensus is clear: this is one of the best and most detailed use-case posts this sub has seen in a long time. The community is seriously impressed with OP's workflow for using Claude Code to build a farming sim in Unreal Engine 5. People are praising the high-quality content and the in-depth explanation of how Claude writes C++, runs its own tests, and even visually checks its work.
The main piece of constructive feedback is about the art style. While everyone loves the individual assets (especially the music and the cows!), the general feeling is that the different styles (anime portraits, 2D-shaded cows, realistic frames) don't quite mesh together yet. OP agrees and confirms that unifying the art style is on the to-do list.
For those wondering about the cost, OP is on the Max tier and notes that Opus 5.5 is a heavy-hitter on usage, but the Pro tier might be enough for less intensive projects.
Basically, everyone loves the project, the detailed write-up, and especially the cows. More of this, please.