name

driving-unreal

description

Use when driving an Unreal Engine 5.x editor through the unreal-ai-connection MCP tools — building or populating a level, spawning/transforming actors, authoring materials and material instances, setting up lighting and atmosphere, reconstructing a scene from a reference photo, setting up a sequencer/cinematic shot, taking viewport or off-screen renders, auditing or compiling blueprints, or doing asset hygiene (find/move/rename/delete/fix-up redirectors). Teaches which tools to chain, in what order, the verification checkpoints, and the UE 5.x traps that silently no-op or corrupt state. Routes through the MCP server named "unreal-ai-connection" (tools are exposed as mcp__unreal-ai-connection__<tool>; confirm with list_tools). Trigger phrases: "Unreal", "Unreal Engine", "UE5", "UE 5.7", "build a level", "populate the level", "spawn an actor", "place actors", "apply a material", "material instance", "set up a sequencer shot", "cinematic", "screenshot the viewport", "render the scene", "photo to Unreal", "compile the blueprints", "audit blueprint status", "clean up assets", "fix up redirectors", "in the editor".

Driving Unreal Engine via the unreal-ai-connection MCP tools

This skill is the know-how layer for the unreal-ai-connection plugin. The plugin exposes ~105 UE editor-automation tools; this file tells you how to operate them — the chaining order, the verification checkpoints, and the failure modes. Deep step-by-step recipes and the full UE-quirk table live in reference.md; read it when executing a specific workflow.

Tools are called as mcp__unreal-ai-connection__<name>. Below, names are written bare for brevity.

Before you touch any tool

Confirm the bridge is live. The UE plugin binds 127.0.0.1:18888. A cold editor launch takes ~2 minutes to bind; warm is seconds. Call list_tools first — if it returns the catalog, you are connected. Do not assume a tool exists; the live list_tools output is the source of truth.
Establish a clean baseline. For anything that places actors, plan an idempotent re-run: prefix your actor labels (e.g. Test_*) and start the workflow by deleting that prefix via find_actors_by_class + delete_actor, so repeated attempts don't pile up duplicates.

Cross-cutting operating patterns (apply to every workflow)

These rules matter more than any single recipe. Internalize them.

Actor targeting is hybrid. Actor-targeting tools accept either a display label or an FName. Label is tried first. If a label is ambiguous you get an ambiguous_actor error listing candidate FNames — retry with a specific FName. Don't guess; read the candidates back.
Verify visually, and pick the right capture tool. Three ways to capture, with different trade-offs:
- render_camera_to_png — off-screen render to a render target. Deterministic; use this for headless/automated verification. Provide an absolute output path whose parent exists.
- get_viewport_screenshot / take_high_res_screenshot — capture the active viewport. Can return a frozen frame if the editor window is backgrounded (the viewport stops pumping render frames). Keep the editor foreground if you rely on these.
- screenshot_actor — convenience wrapper that frames and renders a single actor. After any structural step (placement, material apply, lighting), capture and look before adding detail. Don't build blind.
Async events: never block the game thread. Use bridge-side waits, not editor sleeps. Pattern: register_subscription → poll with poll_events / poll_subscription, or use wait_for_events to wrap the polling loop. The sequence cursor is inclusive (return events with seq >= since). If a response has dropped: true, the buffer overflowed — unsubscribe and re-register. (There is no start_event_subscription tool; the real entry point is register_subscription.)
Bulk ops share one envelope. bulk_* tools take a paths list plus continue_on_error (default true) and return a per-path result {path, ok, error?}. Path validation rejects .. segments and NUL bytes. Inspect the per-path ok flags — a top-level success does not mean every path succeeded.
Read back and verify after mutating assets. After create/duplicate/move/rename, call inspect_asset / inspect_material_instance, and use compare_assets after batch renames, to catch silent reference loss before continuing.
Persist before any restart. Spawned actors and edits are unsaved and revert on editor restart. Run save_dirty_assets before pausing, restarting, or when verification depends on state surviving.
execute_unreal_python is the escape hatch. When a typed tool genuinely can't express something (e.g. non-transform sequencer channels), drop to execute_unreal_python. Note: set_actor_property already accepts JSON-array values for TArray/TSet props (e.g. OverrideMaterials), so those need no fallback. To get a result back, emit a UUID-tagged marker via unreal.log("__UCMCP__<uuid>__<json>__END__") and read it with get_log_lines. Two struct traps when building Python: unreal.Rotator positional args are (roll, pitch, yaw) and unreal.Color is BGRA — never construct positionally; build an empty struct and assign by property name (r = unreal.Rotator(); r.pitch = ...; r.yaw = ...; r.roll = ...).

Workflow index (full recipes in reference.md)

Workflow	Maturity	Use it to
Build-a-level	PROVEN	Construct a scene from primitives + materials + lighting + camera
Material-instance customization	PROVEN	Create tinted/variant material instances and apply them
Asset hygiene	MATURE	Find/move/rename/delete assets safely; fix up redirectors
Round-trip authoring	PROVEN	Author → configure → verify → compile → save an asset safely
Photo → Unreal scene	FLAGSHIP	Reconstruct a faithful blockout + atmosphere from a reference image
Sequencer shot	EXPERIMENTAL	Scaffold a Level Sequence; keyframe via execute_unreal_python
Widget / UMG authoring	MATURE	Build/mutate a WidgetBlueprint or EUW tree; set properties; compile once
PIE validation loop	PROVEN	Start/observe/stop a Play-In-Editor session to validate live behavior
Component authoring	PROVEN	Attach + configure a component on an existing actor
Console variable management	PROVEN	Discover, read, write, and restore CVars; run one-off console commands
Blender → Unreal asset	PROVEN	Ingest a Blender-authored mesh (free) via import_mesh; verify, place, light, render

Open reference.md for the ordered tool sequences, verification checkpoints, and the UE 5.x gotcha table before running any of these.

Driving Unreal Engine via the unreal-ai-connection MCP tools

Tools are called as mcp__unreal-ai-connection__<name>. Below, names are written bare for brevity.

Before you touch any tool

Confirm the bridge is live. The UE plugin binds 127.0.0.1:18888. A cold editor launch takes ~2 minutes to bind; warm is seconds. Call list_tools first — if it returns the catalog, you are connected. Do not assume a tool exists; the live list_tools output is the source of truth.

Establish a clean baseline. For anything that places actors, plan an idempotent re-run: prefix your actor labels (e.g. Test_*) and start the workflow by deleting that prefix via find_actors_by_class + delete_actor, so repeated attempts don't pile up duplicates.

Cross-cutting operating patterns (apply to every workflow)

These rules matter more than any single recipe. Internalize them.

Actor targeting is hybrid. Actor-targeting tools accept either a display label or an FName. Label is tried first. If a label is ambiguous you get an ambiguous_actor error listing candidate FNames — retry with a specific FName. Don't guess; read the candidates back.

Verify visually, and pick the right capture tool. Three ways to capture, with different trade-offs:

render_camera_to_png — off-screen render to a render target. Deterministic; use this for headless/automated verification. Provide an absolute output path whose parent exists.
get_viewport_screenshot / take_high_res_screenshot — capture the active viewport. Can return a frozen frame if the editor window is backgrounded (the viewport stops pumping render frames). Keep the editor foreground if you rely on these.
screenshot_actor — convenience wrapper that frames and renders a single actor. After any structural step (placement, material apply, lighting), capture and look before adding detail. Don't build blind.

Async events: never block the game thread. Use bridge-side waits, not editor sleeps. Pattern: register_subscription → poll with poll_events / poll_subscription, or use wait_for_events to wrap the polling loop. The sequence cursor is inclusive (return events with seq >= since). If a response has dropped: true, the buffer overflowed — unsubscribe and re-register. (There is no start_event_subscription tool; the real entry point is register_subscription.)

Bulk ops share one envelope. bulk_* tools take a paths list plus continue_on_error (default true) and return a per-path result {path, ok, error?}. Path validation rejects .. segments and NUL bytes. Inspect the per-path ok flags — a top-level success does not mean every path succeeded.

Read back and verify after mutating assets. After create/duplicate/move/rename, call inspect_asset / inspect_material_instance, and use compare_assets after batch renames, to catch silent reference loss before continuing.

Persist before any restart. Spawned actors and edits are unsaved and revert on editor restart. Run save_dirty_assets before pausing, restarting, or when verification depends on state surviving.

execute_unreal_python is the escape hatch. When a typed tool genuinely can't express something (e.g. non-transform sequencer channels), drop to execute_unreal_python. Note: set_actor_property already accepts JSON-array values for TArray/TSet props (e.g. OverrideMaterials), so those need no fallback. To get a result back, emit a UUID-tagged marker via unreal.log("__UCMCP__<uuid>__<json>__END__") and read it with get_log_lines. Two struct traps when building Python: unreal.Rotator positional args are (roll, pitch, yaw) and unreal.Color is BGRA — never construct positionally; build an empty struct and assign by property name (r = unreal.Rotator(); r.pitch = ...; r.yaw = ...; r.roll = ...).

Workflow index (full recipes in reference.md)

Workflow

Maturity

Use it to

Build-a-level

PROVEN

Construct a scene from primitives + materials + lighting + camera

Material-instance customization

PROVEN

Create tinted/variant material instances and apply them

Asset hygiene

MATURE

Find/move/rename/delete assets safely; fix up redirectors

Round-trip authoring

PROVEN

Author → configure → verify → compile → save an asset safely

Photo → Unreal scene

FLAGSHIP

Reconstruct a faithful blockout + atmosphere from a reference image

Sequencer shot

EXPERIMENTAL

Scaffold a Level Sequence; keyframe via execute_unreal_python

Widget / UMG authoring

MATURE

Build/mutate a WidgetBlueprint or EUW tree; set properties; compile once

PIE validation loop

PROVEN

Start/observe/stop a Play-In-Editor session to validate live behavior

Component authoring

PROVEN

Attach + configure a component on an existing actor

Console variable management

PROVEN

Discover, read, write, and restore CVars; run one-off console commands

Blender → Unreal asset

PROVEN

Ingest a Blender-authored mesh (free) via import_mesh; verify, place, light, render

Open reference.md for the ordered tool sequences, verification checkpoints, and the UE 5.x gotcha table before running any of these.