Unreal Engine 5 course

Lesson 1 • Understanding the UE5 Interface

Introduces the Viewport, Outliner, Details panel, and Content Browser. Familiarity with these panels is required for all editing tasks in later chapters.

Lesson 2 • Viewport Navigation and Editor Modes

Teaches perspective and orthographic views, editor modes, and pilot mode. Efficient navigation directly accelerates every level-building task ahead.

Lesson 3 • Installing and Configuring UE5

Covers Epic Games Launcher setup, engine version management, and hardware requirements. Establishes the technical baseline every subsequent workflow depends on.

Lesson 1 • Prototyping with BSP and Geometry Brushes

Demonstrates additive and subtractive BSP brushes for rapid blockout. Blockout skills accelerate level design iteration before final assets are ready.

Lesson 2 • Transform Tools and Snapping

Teaches move, rotate, and scale gizmos alongside grid and angle snapping. Precise transforms are essential for professional-quality level layouts.

Lesson 3 • Working with Static Mesh Actors

Introduces static meshes, collision settings, and LOD awareness. Static meshes are the primary building block for environments in UE5.

Lesson 4 • Organising Levels with Folders and Layers

Explains actor folders, data layers, and level streaming basics. Good organisation scales to large productions covered in advanced chapters.

Lesson 1 • Physically Based Rendering Concepts

Explains base colour, metallic, roughness, and normal map inputs. PBR principles ensure materials look correct under any lighting condition built later.

Lesson 2 • Advanced Material Techniques

Introduces blended materials, vertex painting, and emissive surfaces. These techniques expand visual fidelity for environments built in later chapters.

Lesson 3 • Texture Importing and Compression

Covers texture import settings, compression formats, and mip-map generation. Correct settings prevent visual artifacts and maintain performance in-engine.

Lesson 4 • Material Editor Fundamentals

Introduces the node-based Material Editor, output pins, and preview controls. Understanding the editor layout is prerequisite to all material authoring tasks.

Lesson 1 • Post-Process Volume and Colour Grading

Introduces Post-Process Volume settings for exposure, bloom, and colour grading. Post-processing finalises the visual tone established by the lighting setup.

Lesson 2 • Sky Atmosphere and HDRI Backdrops

Teaches Sky Atmosphere actor, Sky Light, and HDRI backdrop setup. Accurate sky simulation is critical for exterior scenes and time-of-day effects.

Lesson 3 • Shadows and Performance Optimisation

Covers shadow map resolution, virtual shadow maps, and distance field shadows. Balancing shadow quality and performance is essential for real-time projects.

Lesson 4 • Light Actor Types and Properties

Covers directional, point, spot, and rect lights and their key properties. Selecting the correct light type is foundational to every lighting scenario.

Lesson 1 • Functions, Macros, and Custom Events

Teaches creating reusable functions, macros, and custom events with parameters. Modular logic reduces duplication across the gameplay systems built later.

Lesson 2 • Blueprint Classes and the Event Graph

Introduces Actor Blueprints, the Event Graph, and core execution events. The Event Graph is the entry point for all Blueprint logic created in this chapter.

Lesson 3 • Player Input and Pawn Control

Implements Enhanced Input actions, axis mappings, and basic pawn movement. Input handling is the foundation of all player-controlled gameplay mechanics.

Lesson 4 • Collision, Overlap, and Hit Events

Covers collision channels, overlap events, and hit responses in Blueprints. These events drive pickups, triggers, and damage systems in later chapters.

Lesson 1 • Animation Blueprint and State Machines

Builds an Animation Blueprint with a locomotion state machine and blend spaces. State machines manage transitions between idle, walk, run, and jump states.

Lesson 2 • Animation Sequences and Montages

Covers importing animation clips, trimming, and creating Animation Montages. Montages enable triggered actions like attacks and interactions in gameplay.

Lesson 3 • Skeletal Meshes and Skeleton Assets

Explains skeletal mesh import, skeleton assets, and retargeting basics. A correctly configured skeleton is required before any animation can be applied.

Lesson 4 • Character Blueprint Integration

Connects the Animation Blueprint to a Character Blueprint with a camera and spring arm. Integration produces the complete playable character used in later levels.

Lesson 1 • Inventory and Item Pickup Systems

Builds a data-driven inventory using Data Tables and pickup actor Blueprints. Data Tables allow designers to add items without modifying Blueprint logic.

Lesson 2 • Menus, Pause Screens, and Game Flow

Implements main menu, pause, and game-over screens with level transition logic. Complete game flow is required for the polished project deliverable.

Lesson 3 • Game Mode, Game State, and Player State

Explains the roles of Game Mode, Game State, and Player State classes. These classes form the architectural backbone of every UE5 gameplay system.

Lesson 4 • Health, Damage, and Death Systems

Implements a health component, damage application, and death event handling. Damage systems are reusable across enemies and players in the final project.

Lesson 1 • Memory and Asset Optimisation

Audits texture memory, reduces overdraw, and applies asset streaming settings. Memory budgets are critical for console and mobile deployment targets.

Lesson 2 • Nanite and Virtual Geometry Optimisation

Enables Nanite on high-poly meshes and configures fallback settings. Nanite eliminates traditional LOD overhead for supported static geometry.

Lesson 3 • Packaging and Platform Deployment

Configures packaging settings, cook maps, and platform SDKs for final builds. A correctly packaged build is the deliverable that ends the core curriculum.

Lesson 4 • Level of Detail and Culling Strategies

Configures mesh LODs, Hierarchical LOD, and occlusion culling settings. These techniques reduce GPU load without visible quality loss at runtime.