RealTime FX in Unreal Engine by Elia Anagrius Stampes

This course walks you through building a complete real-time VFX sequence from scratch. You’ll create a cinematic space scene where a station launches a missile to destroy an incoming asteroid. The focus is on the full pipeline—procedural asset creation and destruction sims in Houdini, then animation, particles, lighting, and rendering in UE4. You’ll also learn how to keep things performant, which is a real concern in production.

🎯 What you’ll learn

• Build a high-quality VFX sequence featuring a missile striking and destroying an asteroid
• Create reusable procedural assets in Houdini
• Transfer meshes, animations, simulations, and effects from Houdini to UE4
• Understand the role of procedural workflows in VFX production
• Identify and address common real-time performance constraints
• Approach future VFX projects with greater confidence and technical ability

✅ Requirements

• Skills: Intermediate knowledge of Houdini and Unreal Engine 4, basic understanding of 3D space and VFX workflows
• Tools: Houdini, Unreal Engine 4, 3-button mouse
• Hardware: Dedicated GPU with at least 8GB VRAM, 16GB RAM minimum

📝 Description

This course is all about the practical side of real-time VFX. You’re not just learning buttons and menus—you’re building a full cinematic sequence that could sit in a game or film. The project is a space scene: a station, an incoming asteroid, and a missile that blows it apart. It sounds simple, but it touches on almost every part of the VFX pipeline.

The big theme here is proceduralism. You’ll build asteroid and rocket assets in Houdini that are fully customizable. That means you can reuse them in other scenes or adapt them for different projects without starting from zero. This is how professional studios work, and it’s a mindset that saves you hours down the line.

Performance is another key focus. Real-time VFX is a balancing act—you want things to look great, but you also need them to run smoothly on target hardware. You’ll learn how to make those trade-offs and optimize your effects without destroying the visual quality.

The course is structured around a single project, so you’re always working toward a concrete result. Each module builds on the last, from setting up the scene to final rendering. By the end, you’ll have a polished sequence and a solid understanding of how Houdini and Unreal Engine 4 work together in a real production pipeline.

🧑‍🎓 Who this course is for

• VFX artists looking to move into real-time or game engines
• Houdini users who want to understand how to bring their simulations into UE4
• Game developers and technical artists who need to create cinematic effects
• Anyone with intermediate experience in Houdini or UE4 who wants to build a complete VFX shot

🧑‍🏫 About the Author

Elia Anagrius Stampes is a professional VFX artist currently working at Fatshark. He spent three years at Ubisoft Stockholm and has contributed to major titles including Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora and Warhammer 40,000: Darktide. His production experience means the techniques he teaches are the ones actually used in the industry, not just theoretical concepts.

🏁 Final Result

• A complete cinematic VFX sequence featuring a missile striking and destroying an asteroid, rendered in Unreal Engine 4
• Reusable procedural assets for asteroids and rockets that can be adapted for future projects
• A portfolio-ready demonstration of your ability to handle a full real-time VFX pipeline

📢 Guys, this is a Group Buy campaign, check the GBC forum thread to get access

You can find the course preview in the download section below.