Solo Unreal Engine Action Film on a 3070 Ti – Jakub Kuczynski｜AI Film Club Feb 2026

0:03Jakub uh is a friend of mine uh and I have said news to you buddy. Uh congratulations. Um uh Jakub has been playing around in Unreal Engine and VFX and animation for a long time. He's really dipped his toe uh just recently into generative pieces too while still keeping a healthy component in that uh Unreal Engine uh ecosphere. Um and we're here with him tonight because he showed me one of his latest clips that yes, he's done in Unreal Engine, but not only is the cinematography and the fight choreography just over the top, the sound design from a oneperson army is literally off the charts here. So, um, before we get into Hardcore, Jakub, do

0:52you want to tell us a little bit about it? >> Uh, sure. Yeah. Um, so Hardcore is, um, it's like a four to five minute action film that I, um, uh, made in Unreal Engine. Um, it just sort of started with, um, some experimentation. I was, um, uh, just playing around with some assets and, um, yeah, just doing some lighting tests and I just rigged up a character, you know, hiding behind a CN.

1:17Uh there's a bunch of uh enemy fire and I just thought, well, wouldn't it be cool if um you know, maybe there was a an attacker kind of like coming up from one side and another side and then, you know, one thing led to the one thing led to the other and um yeah, I just ended up kind of like just creating a whole bunch of shots and put them together and yeah, it's kind of a stream of consciousness. Yeah, it wasn't I didn't really uh you know, intend to make a whole thing, but it just kind of happened. So, this is it.

1:44>> Hey, there we go. All right, we'll see the fruits of your play here. Here we go. >> All right,

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5:31This is getting good.

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6:55Starts Friday at theaters everywhere. All right. Give it a hand to Jakub's Creations.

7:10>> All right, sir. >> Oh, >> there you are. We'll see you on a screen like that. Was nice. >> Right. It's It's amazing to just appreciate, you know, all the blood and sweat literally in your piece. Uh oh, >> sweat. There's a lot of blood >> on the big screen, right? Um you know, this film feels like playing a AAA video game. Uh was that intentional? Like walk us through uh kind of the beat of it, the inspiration of it, and particularly the sound design in it.

7:36>> Right. Yeah. Um no, it definitely was not uh intentional to make it feel, as you say, as a AAA game. Um no, definitely not. Um uh like I said, it was just kind of a stream of consciousness. I had a lot of um like I've always loved action films and um uh I think I just had a lot of like pent up energy that I wanted to action and it just a little bit. Um so you know Unreal Engine for me was was pretty um pretty remarkable. I mean I I taught myself the software a couple years ago and um no it's quite quite great what you could do. I mean, um, uh, I could kind of take what I'm seeing in

8:13my in my mind and and extrapolate it pretty not quite one to one, but but pretty damn close. Um, you know, and all with zero cost. Um, so yeah, but yeah, there's a lot of influences for sure. Um, quite a bit. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. A lot of training data like from stuff I grew up with. For sure.

8:31>> For sure. Um, tell us about how you approach the sound in particular. There is so much happening here and yet it all punches through. And when we were chatting about this piece, you know, you mentioned like how obsessive you were on the sound design, the clarity, getting that punch forward. Walk us through that pro process cuz it's both really aggressive and and clear-cut all at the same time.

8:53>> Yeah. Um, well, I think um sound has always been um Yeah. Like I mean I've always really appreciated uh very dense sound mixes but uh not dense in the way that they were very um um uh like incredibly busy and unclear but just that there's a lot of detail. So it's uh it's very dense but it's also very stripped down if that makes sense. So the mix itself is very very dense. Like I think at one point I had like a 100 tracks of audio before I started baking them into stems. I believe that. Um, but the thing is that with every shot when I was doing the mixdown, I was really conscientious of like what takes center

9:27stage. Um, and like even in a given shot, there's like a there's like a shot where the camera's uh pushing past um the character. There's explosions happening in the background. The guy's reloading his magazine, the camera pushes past. I mean, you barely hear the explosions. just hear these sort of high-ends like that really push the the highends, really bump the treble on those things of all the foley on the clothing, the the gun handling, the like zippers on the, you know, all that kind of stuff and not let that be lost in the mix and then you know it goes past and you hear like a little exhale. So, it's just kind of like having really really

9:59clear acoustic beats um you know as you go even though there's so much happening but like not getting greedy you know cuz then it's just like a big muff of nothing, right? So, yeah. >> Yeah. How do you how do you source your sounds? Is it more sort of uh sites that you pull from online? Do you have like a giant army hard drive now at this point?

10:19>> It's a giant army hard drive. Yeah. Yeah. It's like stuff I've been accumulating um for a really long time. And there's um uh and I just do a lot of um I guess stacking. Um so, a lot of layering. So, it's not like like the gun sounds for instance. um it's not just like one or two where there's like maybe seven or eight different pieces of gunfire kind of manipulated at different tempos. Um and uh yeah, just kind of like gives it a little bit more punch.

10:47And it's funny because once I start working on the highend stuff like the explosions and and that kind of stuff and then you know working on the you know the footsteps and the foli it's like okay well I got to crank that up because then everything is lost. So like one kind of drives the other as you go.

11:02So, and until you kind of have like a nice um uh like so nothing necessarily is neglected in the mix. Like you have uh yeah, everything has its own um uh power and especially like the Foley and like the clicks and the gun handling. I don't know. I I like that kind of stuff a lot. Just that the crystal clarity of that.

11:19>> You're a detailed guy. That's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. So, your final fight piece that we saw just after um that was generative and it's it's a bit of an older engine now, but you hit a cultural touch point cuz this went properly viral. Tell us a bit about that. >> Yeah, that was interesting. So, that was like circa uh must have been I think I was experimenting in like February of 2024. Um so, it was when like models were first well I guess they were really starting to become popular and so I was curious um just to play around and I had this idea in my mind. Um, I had always wanted to see since I was a kid. Um, you

11:54know, this this game I grew up with and I was always curious, well, if that IP was theoretically picked up like way back in the day by like a really like low-level sleazy distributor production company like a Canon films or something. Um, you know, and it was it was released to the public, what what would it what would a theoretical like 30-cond TV ad look like? And uh so yeah, I was just kind of like, okay, well, this is kind of a cool idea to maybe experiment with the tools. And um I was using Leonardo at the time. I think it was Leonardo.

12:23Yeah. And um yeah, Leonardo was interesting. I just kind of I was looking around to see what was available and what was decent. And they were pretty good at the time. Um >> they, if I recall, um they had a control net at the time, which was pretty cool. So you could like have like seven to eight different I guess nodes of influence and you could control the weights. So I was able to really um kind of dial that stuff in and um yeah >> and those were extremely early days to have that kind of control especially on an online platform.

12:57>> Absolutely. Super early. And I think uh I think it was nerfed at like 4 seconds of output and it was super slow. So I, you know, I just like double the speed of everything to even get something, you know, semi like, but it's all, if you see it, it's all super slow. So, >> but it worked okay for a like a, you know, TV spot concept. So, >> well, it worked so well. It got over a million views, right?

13:20>> Yeah. You know, was funny. And that like again, I thought like, oh yeah, maybe like there'll be like, you know, a couple a couple people that that, you know, may remember the game or have some nostalgia and apparently, you know, it caught on. So, that was cool. But >> yeah, >> it was not the uh it was definitely not the driving force. I just wanted to I always wanted to see it. So, and apparently a lot of other people did too. So, >> yeah. No doubt. No doubt. It's a fertile playground. So, so now you you know you've you've covered a lot in in Unreal Engine. Um you're you've dabbled a bit in generative stuff. Um if you were to

13:51redo the action piece we saw in generative, how would you tackle that? >> Uh yeah. Um, >> would you still hold on to like uh using Unreal to like block things out? >> No. No. I I think um like for me personally, if I was doing it, I would still do it in the game engine like 100%. Um uh but what I would do differently is I would um I would definitely use like a service like Quick Magic or like Mesh Capade. I don't know if Yeah. So, it it allows you to do suitless motion capture. And while it's not perfect, um, you know, and and not even close, let's say, to like if you

14:26had like a $20,000 accent suit, um, it's still kind of cool. So, you could, I mean, I've done experiments. In fact, the project I'm working on right now, um, I'm incorporating just that. Um, so I'm able to take um a lot of like single source footage and um have the AI analyze it and then um uh change that into um mocap data that I could pipe into Unreal into the skeletons. Uh and it's actually like quite remarkable what's possible now. It's like really really cool from from like a single source. I think that's yeah that I would but I think I would still stick in the game engine. I just uh I just love tinkering with uh lights and c like in,

15:07you know, in real time until we could do that, you know. Yeah. >> Yeah. Well, I I think we're getting dangerously close to that with some of these releases. That's super cool. If you were to impart any kind of advice to folks that are looking to get something with the this, you know, an a super heavy action sequence >> and where to really dial in like how to get that big big sound that you've achieved. What would that be?

15:30Um, I I think I I would just say um um I mean at least what I do is um I just uh I I don't neglect anything like for me like forget forget something like bombast like this like if you had a scene of someone walking into a kitchen like opening the refrigerator and like pouring a glass of water there's so much interesting acoustic information in that right there and like and and that could be as interesting as all this gunfire and explosion stuff. So I I would just say like don't neglect any of it. And um yeah uh just yeah make it all um treat it all the same I guess.

16:05>> Super cool. >> Yeah. >> All right. Any questions for Jakub >> Kush?

16:17Mic check. Perfect. Um uh awesome film. Wow. Uh incredible. Uh I'm from like sort of background Unreal and old school sort of VFX stuff. So seeing that in a game engine that camera work and and the mocap is incredible like like especially as one person. So I'm curious about the actual work involved in that like did you mocap all the cameras? Did you mo cap all the characters that were there?

16:41Uh how much was it like assets downloaded? I'm sure the characters themselves were like >> Yeah. Um, so the uh the mocap, so like as I was saying before, like if I was doing it now, I would just do all the mocap stuff myself like per or get some people and um you know, run that through Meshcapade or QuickMagic. Um the mocap data in this, it was a mixture. So I plucked a whole bunch of like generic animations of like idle poses from games and um um yeah, like people running. Uh and uh in Unreal Engine in the sequencer, what you could do is you could um mix and rettime and like blend.

17:15So you could essentially almost like mold um the animations with other pieces. And then over top of that, I did a lot of additive hand animation um for specific things or if I wanted the characters to handle the weapons a certain way. Um so uh so yeah, there's that. And then um in terms of the camera, it's funny. I I was at one point I remember being so stoked because uh one of the cool things you could do in Unreal Engine is you could use um uh your phone as a virtual camera for the environment. So I mean yeah you could just um um you could walk around your scene theoretically and uh just get

17:50coverage that way and then all the the XYZ values get piped into the data in the sequencer and then you you know you just have like a but the thing I found is um because I was so clear what I wanted anyways I could get those results way quicker just key frame animating. It was all just key frame animated cameras.

18:05And because I shot so much before, I could I could just put in all those little quirks and imperfections, you know, when you're shoot like the character to the camera. Like, you know, if you're you're shooting, it's especially if there's like really kinetic stuff and you're on the ground, it would never be quite perfect, but it's that interesting blend of having things kind of adding those imperfections, but at the same time having it uh perfect, if that makes sense. Yeah. I'm not probably explaining that right, but just it's a lot of human quirks >> um to make it um uh to make it feel more grounded, I guess. Yeah.

18:37>> Well, one of the features that's that's coming up in Cance 2, you know, you can have up to 12 inputs on it uh across video, across audio, across still images, and one of the features that it's being really touted as right now, and correct me if I'm wrong, people have used this. Um, but you're able to use the cinematography, like the camera work of an input video and have that it drive, you know, the the model output, uh, which is already proving itself to be like a pretty spectacular for some of the action sequences that we're starting to see lead that. Yeah.

19:07>> All the power to it. That's great. Absolutely. >> More camera control, the better. That's the It's my favorite part. It's my favorite part. I love it. >> We're getting into the granular bits for sure. Uh, any other questions, folks? >> Yeah. Um, so I definitely want to talk with you later cuz I have a background in Unreal like as well and CGI. Uh, but basically I wonder as well with the whole AI and with the the Unreal and the game engines, how do you see integrating more and I think of course there's going to be more research done, but I have also seen some interesting plugins for Unreal now where you can basically kind

19:42of procedurally create stuff and graphically Yeah. or like or like foliage and stuff like that, but then also maybe like even photoggramometry is becoming more common now. Like how do you see that being integrated into your pipeline with like AI and generating content in like CG and 3D? Uh because I've seen some and played around with various like 3D to AI softwares. So >> yeah. Um yeah, absolutely. Um I so I haven't played around that much myself with that. Um, so like I said before, I would definitely incorporate the the suitless motion capture. Um, but like as you're saying, the photoggramometry stuff. Yeah. Like I've seen examples of people doing some really cool stuff.

20:23They take photoggramometry and they u bring it into their level and they're able to maneuver around the scene through essentially build their scene and light it. Um, so yeah, and uh crowd sims of course that's that's pretty cool. Um, so yeah, there's a there's a lot of um interesting tools um that can enhance the um the workflow. Um but yeah, I have I have yet to explore more of that stuff. So yeah.

20:48>> Oh, I should say, by the way, uh this is all rendered on an RTX 3070 Ti somehow. >> I'm just saying done. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't think I I didn't optimize the textures very much either, but um yeah, it was um I'm kind of surprised. I've I've recently uh I I hit a wall. Um 3070 Ti only has 8 gigs of VRAM. So uh but I I hit a wall recently.

21:13So I had to go to the to the fives, you know. >> Yes. Yes. And did you get it before everything spiked or >> what was that? >> Did you get it before all the prices spiked? >> Oh, um well, not necessarily. Let's see. I I did the big purchase in uh Novemberish. I think the prices were >> Yeah. Yeah. be worse now.

21:34>> Oh, it is >> for the GPU. The GPUs are worse. I know RAM's crazy, but >> yeah. No, GPUs if you get it the wrong spot. Oh, boy. Yeah, >> absolutely. >> GPUs are our backbone in in anything film related. So, um definitely hit Jakub up um online and hit him up with questions afterwards. Thank you so much, sir. Pleasure. Amazing work. Thank you.

21:55Thank you. Thank you.