11 Week course. Students will learn to create digital environments using Maya, Megascans, and Unreal engines.

 

Week 1 | Concept & Collecting Ref

Decide upon a concept from the options | Go over useful tips and techniques to finding good references | Understand the importance of references and how to use it | Talk about adding your own creative touch to an existing idea | Creating reference boards for your project

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Week 2 | Blocking Out

Create the blockouts and general layout for the scene | Discuss shape language, silhouettes, and composition | Understand how to create a proper blockout that will allow for iteration of the piece without major rework

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Week 3 | Setting Up UE5 & Organizing Project

Quickly go over some important tips for UE5 and project settings | Talk about folder structure and how to keep files organized in the beginning so when you grow in size it doesn’t get out of hand | Creating your level with the template provided and getting your blockout in there to get a general idea of how it's going to look

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Week 4 | Assets & Planning

Go over general workflows and techniques of making modular sets and how to efficiently build an environment | Planning is important | Figure out the assets and setup them so we can see what all needs to be created

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Week 5 | Modeling Techniques

Different modeling techniques based off of hard surface or organic modeling | Figure out what techniques would work best for some of the pieces and start to understand how to work smart and not hard | Model a decent amount of the assets for the environment.
 

Week 6 | Texturing

Go over additional texturing techniques in Substance Designer and take a deeper dive into creating textures and materials for games | We will most likely use blends to get a better feeling from some parts of your environment and we can set those up in Unreal | Talk about the process of texturing and some important tips and guidelines to follow to keep them generally at a consistent feel

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Week 7 | Implementing into Unreal

Bring both our models and textures into unreal and start to really solidify and layout the scene | Setup shaders based off of a needs basis for your environment and go over some additional steps that the models and shaders may need inside of Unreal

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Week 8 | Creating A Tree

Bring both our models and textures into unreal and start to really solidify and layout the scene | Setup shaders based off of a needs basis for your environment and go over some additional steps that the models and shaders may need inside of Unreal

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Week 9 | Foliage & The Details

Really start to focus on the details, once we have the structure and macro shapes inside of Unreal and a decent pass of shaders on them | Foliage setup and placement in the environment and go over any additional tips or techniques involving the creation of foliage and how to make it feel organic in a scene | Additional details and the set dressing for the scene will also be looked at, that may help with environmental storytelling or so

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Week 10 | Lighting & Post

Once we have everything setup, we will take a much deeper pass on lighting | Go over mood and how to sell a feeling or time frame with lighting that helps with the story or piece | Anything like fog, simple effects, sky, etc. will be looked into at this period as well on a case by case basis of what is needed | Additional post settings to help unify the scene

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Week 11 | Renders & Presentation

Discuss camera techniques and settings for screenshots | Go over how to render out shots and/or videos to show off your piece | Talk about the best way to present your piece in your portfolio and how to make it professional