Unreal engine training courses for professionals
As one of few Unreal Engine Authorized Training Centers in the UK, we have developed a range of short courses with content and materials approved by Epic Games, in order to help train professionals in using Unreal Engine for various industries. Training is delivered by our authorised and industry-experienced tutors.
Choose from these pre-developed courses to get your staff or artists upskilled in this high-demand software. We've recently trained professionals from companies across a range of industries including 3D architectural visualisation, film and TV, advertising, motion desigin, animation and games.
We recommend for anyone to take the Unreal Engine Fundamentals course before moving on to any more specialised courses, unless you are already familiar with the software.
Each course should run with a minimum of six students.
For enquiries about these courses, or if you are interested in a course that isn't currently listed, please get in touch with our Sales Team to discuss training options at sales@escapestudios.com or on +44 (0)203 918 4491.
Course information
Perfect for a comprehensive tour of Unreal Engine right from the start.
- How to install Unreal Engine
- The Epic Games Launcher
- Documentation and training resources
- Explore the Unreal Interface, windows and user environment
- Viewports
- Transformations, units and measurements in Unreal Engine
- Navigation and basic usage of the editors
- FBX interoperability
- Mesh triangle counts
- Clean mesh construction
- Collisions
- LODs - Level of Detail
- LightMap UVs
- Static vs skeletal meshes
- Naming conventions
- Unreal Engine PBR workflo
- Textures guidelines
- MipMapping
- Texture Packing
- Material Editor
- Creation of basic Materials
- Applying Materials to Meshes
- Static vs RealTime Lighting
- LightMass
- Light Types
- Controlling light
- Properties
- Light Mobility
- Lightmaps
In this course, you will learn the basics of the Blueprint viewport and the functionality of Blueprints. In the second part of the course, you will have a more hands-on approach to get comfortable with the Blueprint viewport and functionality.
At the end of the day, you will be given a task as preparation for the second day. This will be followed up on the next day with a Q&A about the task.
Learning what blueprints are - Theory
- How they are used
- Terminology
- Blueprint types
- Blueprint communication
- Inheritance
Navigating Blueprints
- When are events executed?
- Creating variables + what are they?
- Changing and exposing variables
Creating Blueprints
- Actor class
- Creating parents/child inheritance
Scene Interactions
- Box triggers
- Flow control - turning lights on/off
- Registering player input
- Debugging
Communicating between Blueprints
- Setting up a Blueprint interface
- Understanding the limitations of casting
- Sending information between blueprints
Creating a Door
- Using timelines
- Rotating an object
Driving mutliple blueprints with one
- Arrays
- Flow control - for each loop
Basic Artist Access
- Learn how to use the construction script
- Flow control based on choices
- Changing static meshes and light types
Real-time Rendering for Animation
In this course, you will learn the basics for working with Unreal Engine’s cinematic creation tool, Sequencer and how to produce an animated short.
- Sequencer window overview
- Navigating sequencer
- Cinematic viewports
- Working with tracks
- Master sequences (edits and fades)
- How cameras work
- Using camera rig set-ups (rail rig/crane rig)
- Shots and takes
- Play rate (“time-warping”)
- Animation curves and transitions
- Basic animation importing/exporting
- Skeletal animation vs geometry cache
- Rendering out cinematics
- Blending animations and properties
- Post processing for ‘film look’ colour grade in Engine
- Creating sequences with dynamic transforms
- Using spawnable objects
- Recording to sequencer
This course will include all you need to know to start lighting effectively in Unreal Engine. Day one will focus on the fundamentals, learning how to manipulate and shape your lighting to achieve a desired look or mood. Day two will be more advanced using a large scene with raytracing enabled to create a realistic/ cinematic environment.
- Light mobility (static vs real time)
- Lightmass (lightmap control and baking)
- Lighting types
- Controlling light properties
- HDR lighting and backdrop
- Reflections
- IES profiles
- Light functions
- View modes and optimisation
- Sun positioning and sky
- Exposure control
- Fog and volumetric lighting
- Lightmap settings in depth
- Raytracing
- Post processing effects
The first session will introduce this course with a view of the project files and an explanation of the content that will be covered. The second session will look to finish off the scene with animated materials and a little interaction. We’ll take a look at some of the more advanced nodes to create our VFX materials.
Introduction to Unreal Engine's Material pipeline
First look at Unreal Engine's powerful material editor
- Shortcuts
- Navigation
Introduction to PBR texturing
- Metal/rough workflow
- General rules
Creating a master material with exposed parameters
- Creating a tiling master material to begin texturing our scenes
Creating a deffered decals material
- Build a decals material to add unique details and interest to our environment
Creating translucent materials
- Build a glass material for our screen
- View shader costs
Masking materials and blending together
- Using Lerp nodes and masks
Creating animated materials
- Creating animated materials with panners
- Using emissive
Creating dynamic materials which players can interact with through blueprints
- Quick view into blueprints and create a dynamic blueprint actor
Creating and using Material functions
In this class, you will learn the basics of the Niagara interface and file hierarchy, as well as creating our first Sprite based particles. You will learn how to push our effect with Mesh and GPU particles, as well as particle lights. Finally, we will touch on Sequencer to see how we can further animate our particles.
Niagra UI and Emitter/System hierachy explained
- Breaking down the difference between Spawn and Update
Building our first Particle Material
- Using particle colour to control our sprites
- Covering the basic modules (location, velocity, colour over life etc.)
Building our first Sprite based components
- Adding randomness with uniform distributions
- Adding randomness with flipbook textures
Adding mesh particles and GPU particles to the effect
- Building the specific materials required for mesh and GPU
- Dynamic parameters and particle tandom
Converting the effect from a looping system to a burst
Animating and triggering the burst system with Sequencer
Local vs global particles
