Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) Complete Beginners Course

On July 31, 2021

Release date:2021, July

Author:Tyler Delange

Skill level:Beginner

Language:English

Exercise files:Yes

Welcome to a beginners comprehensive look at the new Unreal Engine 5. UE5 is used by professionals and beginners alike to create stunning real-time content with the help of the new Lumen Lighting System and Nanite Virtualized Geometry Engine. It has never been easier to get started as a Game, Architectural, or Product Developer and create amazing content.

We will take you from Unreal Engine Zero to Hero in just a few hours, covering everything from the general UE5 layout all the way through creating a fully functioning game.

Just a bit of what the course covers:

Introduction to Unreal Engine 5
- Overview of the new UE5 user interface
- How to setup your first project
- Creating your first level
- Adjusting manual exposure and exploring post process volumes
Full Introduction to Materials and Shaders
- How to build materials using the material node editor
- How to create master and instance materials to easily cut down on material efforts
Explore the Unreal Marketplace
- How to use the Unreal Marketplace to score free and paid meshes, materials, functions, and lots more
Unreal Engine Lighting Basics
- A full introduction to different lighting types in UE5
- How to use light map baking to create playable beautiful environments
- An overview on lightmass settings
- How to fix common light map issues

New: Lumen Lighting Engine
- Introduction on how the lumen lighting engine works to create amazing real-time environment lighting
- How to create emissive materials that generate both direct and indirect real-time lighting

New: Nanite Virtualized Geometry
- Introduction to Nanite now allowing million plus poly meshes to be added to your scene without major performance issues
- How to create Nanite assets from existing meshes
- Discussions around Nanite limitation like overdraw and how to overcome these limitations

The Integrated Quixel Bridge (Megascans) Library
- How to get started with the Quixel Bridge and Megascan meshes right from the UE5 interface
- A look at pre-built free Quixel Bridge materials

Importing External Meshes and Assets to Unreal Engine 5
- A walkthrough on how to import FBX files right into UE5
- How to fix possible material issues at import

Complete Introduction to the Blueprint Visualized Scripting Engine
- How to build your very first blueprints and create events in UE5
- More in depth examples of creating your first UE5 blueprints
- How to create and use Blueprint Variables and Functions
- How to build a blueprint health and damage system that updates in realtime

We then build a completely functional game that covers additional concepts like:
- Planning a project
- Setting up a project for the first time
- Sculpting landscapes and terrains
- Painting materials on landscapes
- Creating “auto” materials that paint different materials based on the slope of the terrain
- How to create realistic water bodies like oceans and lakes
- Adding foliage variations (plants, weeds, flowers, trees, etc.) using the UE5 foliage creator
- Importing, rigging, and adding animations to characters
- Creating a on screen HUD (Heads Up Display) overlay that shows real-time progress bars
- Creating blueprint food caches
- Introduction to Unreal’s VFX system Niagra
- How to use the Event Tick and Timed Events in UE5
- And lots more…