Shading and Material Creation in Unreal Engine

A 6-week course where students will learn how to work within Node Based Shader systems, apply modular thinking when authoring Material Shaders, and how they can optimize them for Production Limitations and Guidelines

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COURSE OVERVIEW

Create master materials in Unreal Engine

The objective of this course is to teach students how to learn the basics and get accustomed to Node Based shader systems, whether in Unreal Engine or in other Texture Authoring Programs or Engines. They will create materials and textures for video games in Unreal Engine. Students will learn to create materials on a modular basis and learn about various advanced materials used through Video Game productions in the Industry such as Vertex Painting, Foliage Shading, Landscape Material systems and other complex shaders. By the end of the course, students will have knowledge on how to create various types of Master Materials used across many teams in Production like; Props, Environment, Characters, FX and Lighting/Cinematics.

Course Format:

Standard

Duration:

6 weeks

Materials:

Unreal Engine, Substance Designer/Painter or any other Program to create textures

Lecture Type:

Pre-recorded

Assignment:

Due each week. Expect to spend 10-20 hrs/wk viewing lectures, q&a, and time on assignments

Skills Level:

Intermediate

Feedback:

Individual recordings

Q&A:

Once a week

Prerequisites:

Basic knowledge of Unreal Engine; Basic Knowledge of Texture Authoring Process, Basics of Modeling and UVing. course pre-reqs include: Advanced Substance for Environment Art

Course Format:

Standard

Duration:

6 weeks

Materials:

Unreal Engine, Substance Designer/Painter or any other Program to create textures

Lecture Type:

Pre-recorded

Assignment:

Due each week. Expect to spend 10-20 hrs/wk viewing lectures, q&a, and time on assignments

Skills Level:

Intermediate

Feedback:

Individual recordings

Q&A:

Once a week

Prerequisites:

Basic knowledge of Unreal Engine; Basic Knowledge of Texture Authoring Process, Basics of Modeling and UVing. course pre-reqs include: Advanced Substance for Environment Art

Course Format:

Standard

Duration:

6 weeks

Materials:

Unreal Engine, Substance Designer/Painter or any other Program to create textures

Lecture Type:

Pre-recorded

Assignment:

Due each week. Expect to spend 10-20 hrs/wk viewing lectures, q&a, and time on assignments

Skills Level:

Intermediate

Feedback:

Individual recordings

Q&A:

Once a week

Prerequisites:

Basic knowledge of Unreal Engine; Basic Knowledge of Texture Authoring Process, Basics of Modeling and UVing. course pre-reqs include: Advanced Substance for Environment Art

COURSE OVERVIEW

Course Trailer

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

EXPAND ALL COLLAPSE ALL

The more you know, the better.

Week 1 | Introduction and Overview of Textures and Unreal Engine Material Editor

We will go over the basics of PBR textures used in UE4, Texture Packing and overview of the UE4 Material Shader System

Week 2 | Master Materials & Material Functions & Math

We will breakdown Master Materials, Instances and the overall benefit in production of using the feature. We will also work on creating parameters and basics of Math in regards to shader systems and art. Finally we will go over the Modular workflow of Master Materials and how we can organize better with Material Functions.

Week 3 | Complex Materials and Details Maps

In this lesson we will go over more complex uses of Math such as; Time, Sine and Cosine as well as Panner and Rotator. We will also go over other special materials used in games such as, Transparent/Glass, Fresnel, SSS, Clearcoat and Velvet.

Week 4 | Advanced Materials Shaders I (Landscapes, Vertex Painting, Tri-Planar & Position Maps)

We will go over Landscape Materials and how we create layer blending, we also will go over other Complex Materials used by Environment and Prop teams such as Vertex Painting, Weight Painting, Position based effects and other blending techniques.

Week 5 | Advanced Materials Shaders II (Parallax, Tesselation & Decals)

This lesson will go over more complex and expensive shaders such as Parallax, Tesselation and Decals (Deferred & Mesh Decals.)

Week 6 | Advanced Material Shaders III (Foliage, Mesh Distance Fields, Virtual Textures)

Finally we will go over Foliage and other features currently in Unreal Engine such as Mesh Distance Fields and Virtual textures and how both can be used practically, but also Pros and Cons overall.

Texturing and Shading for Games

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

Instructor

Real heroes don't wear capes, they teach

Hugh Trombley

/Sanzaru Games

LECTURES BY Hugh Trombley

Hugh is currently working as a Material Prop Artist at Sanzaru Games a Facebook/Oculus VR Studio in the California Bay Area, USA. He has worked on numerous environments on various AAA productions and projects for over 5-years. He's worked on titles such as Infinity Ward's Call of Duty Infinite Warfare and two VR titles for Sanzaru Games; Marvel: Powers United and Asgard's Wrath. His work has been featured on the 80.lv homepage & Polycount.

INSTRUCTOR'S GALLERY:

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STUDENT GALLERY

Texturing and Shading for Games

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WINTER TERM REGISTRATION

Oct 18, 2021 - Jan 25, 2022

ONLY

$599

COURSE BEGINS

January 22nd

PRICING SCHEDULE

Even though our courses are the most affordable for the quality of education.

These FINANCE OPTIONS allow you to focus on your goals instead of the barriers that keep you from reaching them.

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”

Zeth Wilson

I became a lot more confident and fluent with the material editor in unreal. The fundamentals were made clear to me and I’m glad I took the course. Hugh was very helpful and responsive to questions.

”

Sudhir Trivedi

By answering my questions mostly. ^^ Also, since Hugh have experience in the field, he can say why he’s doing something, good practices, gotchas, ect. It was also an amazing introduction to PBR.

”

Jean-François Bercier

My knowledge definately improved after this course in material and shading part. I really liked the way Hugh explain every material nodes process.

”

Sharon Hoosein

Concepts carry over to Unity, 2d shaders, and vfx work I do at my job. Helped with communicating with graphics engineers.

”

Radoslaw Karbowski

I know much more about shaders than before. I am not afraid of making one like I was before. He (Hugh) is a great professional.

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