New video is now live over on ​YouTube​!

This week we take a close look at William Faucher's latest EasyPlugin for Unreal Engine 5.6 that simplifies a lot of the repetitive tasks (and wasted time) when creating our worlds using Unreal.

But first here's the weekly roundup of changes in tools and technology that are shaping the future of worldbuilding and creative work.

NEW TECH UPDATES

Weekly Roundup

1. Microsoft Releases Trellis 2

• Adobe MAX Sneaks. Each year Adobe Max gives us a look at the future tech they're working on in the R&D labs. As expected, AI featured in every update, though interestingly with a number of 3D applications (largely within photo editing for now).

• Adobe Project Surface Swap. Project Surface Swap uses AI-powered texture recognition to select and swap materials seamlessly, keeping lighting and perspective intact. Instantly change the look of any surface or material, from a sofa’s upholstery to a wood floor, right from a photo.

• Adobe Project Scene It. A Sneaks R&D demo that builds a mesh/scene from one image, lets you tag objects with references, and then move them in 3D while keeping their look coherent, useful for quick blockouts, camera tests, and paintover bases before Substance/UE.

• Adobe Project Graph. A Sneaks R&D demo of a node-based tool for building workflows and editing pipelines across apps like Photoshop and Firefly. You can drop in new images and instantly run them through multi-app sequences, while each workflow step stays editable within its original app for maximum flexibility.

• Affinity Studio goes free. The consolidated Affinity app (Photo/Designer/Publisher) is now free. For those of you looking to lighten the subscription load on your quick edits, concepts, UI's, and layouts this might be great news.

• Weavy.AI gets acquired by Figma. For those unfamiliar, Weavy sits one level above ComfyUI accessibility wise and allows you to access all AI models and professional editing tools in one node based platform (that actually gives you back control).

My takeaways: MAX made it clear Adobe’s goal is pushing past “prompt roulette” toward repeatable, wired workflows for working creatives.

Over the next 6–12 months, I expect node-based "orchestration" inside first-party platforms to take off in a big way (e.g., Figma Weave after its Weavy acquisition, and Adobe’s Project Graph with Firefly Custom Models).

This will likely begin to collapse today’s fragmented, subscription-gated tools and murky T&Cs into single, controllable pipelines, meaning you can route multiple models and their respective strengths through one predictable graph.

THIS WEEK’S HIGHLIGHT
Meet EasyToolbag

EasyToolbag just dropped over on ​Fab​ and after testing it this week it's quickly becoming one of the most practical time-savers I've found in my Unreal workflow.

Look, I love UE5 and it's far better than most tools out of the box... but sometimes it feels like I'm spending more time in menus, settings, and the interface than I actually do working inside my scene.

And that's what William Faucher is starting to solve with EasyToolbag.

The tool is split into three panels: Create, Viewport Helpers, and Easy Suite.

Create includes a handful of 1-click-bundlings of actions that used to take a dozen of clicks. For example:

• Post-process volumes now get placed in your scene directly in front of your viewport camera, with the right settings ALREADY applied.

• New sequences get created with a camera already attached while placing cinecameras already have you piloting them directly where you are in the scene

• Your environment light mixer has been pulled from your menus and grouped into a single action. Meaning each time you create a new level you can 1-click your Sky Atmosphere, Volumetric Clouds, Height Fog, Directional Light, and Skylight directly into your scene

Viewport Helpers

• Limits the framerate to the desired amount. Helpful for reducing GPU temps/energy consumption.

• Quick & Easy Screen Percentage Adjustment

• Viewport Exposure Compensation

• As of Unreal Engine 5.6, major changes were made to the viewport UI. This toggle allows you to switch back to the old version if preferred, or both.

• Toggle the AA method used in the viewport. Useful for getting high quality screenshots, especially when oversampling your viewport with Screen Percentage.

EasySuite

• You also now have access to all of William's EasySuite of products (EasySnow, EasyAtmos, EasyRain, EasyFog) directly in this panel with one click.

• That means no more hopping back and forth between subfolders in your content browser,

• Assets conveniently get spawned directly in front of your camera view rather than at origin or wherever your cursor dropped them.

Now, it's no surprise that William introduced one of the first practically useful plugins of this kind for Unreal but I have a feeling we might be seeing more follow in his footsteps now that it's becoming easier to start creating your own In-Editor workflows with Editor Utilities that Epic previewed ​last year at GDC​!

You can catch my full feature overview of EasyToolbag on YouTube where I also explore why tools like this might matter more than we think in a rapidly advancing industry that is always asking us to do more, with less time and resources → ​Watch it here​!