Might 26, 9:05am PDT: Epic Games has clarified to PCGamesN that the art work was equipped by Porsche, and that the imagery was not utilized in Fortnite or the configurator, however was purely created as an example the configurator concept.
Hey, it’s me, the man that yammers on about how terrible gen AI art is all the time. Properly, I am again, and this time Porsche has fallen foul of the controversial apply. Lately, Porsche teamed up with Epic Games to carry a Fortnite-themed background to its on-site automobile configurator, which runs on Unreal Engine. It is really a fairly enjoyable collab, and it actually is not the first gaming crossover Porsche has been part of. There’s only one teeny tiny challenge although: the concept art is clearly AI-generated.
The Unreal Engine X account shared a breakdown of the process, which in itself is a neat peek behind the curtain of what improvement utilizing the engine for Fortnite seems to be like. Seeing the battle royale recreation, or any recreation for that matter, featured on a legacy automobile maker’s web page is cool as heck. It is all very fairly, however there’s an elephant in the room.
The crisp lighting of Lumen and rendering oomph of Nanite have, sadly, been eclipsed by the spurious concept art provided up by the Porsche workforce. Beneath, you possibly can clearly see that the Porsche logo has taken a correct beating. Its copy is throughout the place, and its iconic pony seems to be like it’s taken a untimely journey to the glue manufacturing unit.
Bizarrely, the concept shot additionally options League of Legends maker Riot Games’ logo. On the scorching air balloon, you possibly can clearly see the MOBA recreation studio’s clenched fist. I’ll exit on a limb and say this is some form of leftover ghost in the machine from Porsche’s current collaboration with Wild Rift, which noticed it carry skins primarily based on the sporty 911 GT3, in addition to an in-game occasion, to LoL’s cell sibling. Regardless, it’s by no means advisable to characteristic Coca-Cola in a Pepsi advert.
“We depend on a longtime workflow for creating and implementing backgrounds in Unreal Engine,” the submit accompanying the picture reads. “After we aligned on the general concept, inside a number of weeks, we may end and implement the new background.” Luckily, the whole lot seems to be to be much more human on the web site itself, so fortunately it appears AI has solely been used throughout conceptualization… solely.
Porsche has actually expanded its digital footprint lately, notably inside gaming. Alongside the aforementioned Wild Rift collab, this 12 months’s already introduced with it the Cayenne Turbo GT to Resident Evil Requiem, and the 918 Spyder to Neverness to Everness. In 2024, Blizzard added Porsche-themed skins to Overwatch, as a part of a team-up that culminated with a D.Va-liveried Macan pulling up at Gamescom 2024. I nonetheless fondly keep in mind 2000’s Want for Pace: Porsche Unleashed, so to see a serious gaming advocate using gen AI is greater than somewhat disappointing.