Math Essentials for Tech Art in Unreal Engine
What you'll learn
- Learn practical mathematics for games: Dot product, linear interpolation, 2D rotation and more
- See each function in two environments: Material (shader) nodes & Blueprint visual scripting
- Implement crucial techniques for graphics development: Directional mask by normal, advanced interpolation, value range compression, time-based noise
- Everyday examples: procedural snow layer, ghost material, RGB desaturation, flickering lightbulb, sin for UV rotation
Requirements
- Only basic knowledge of Unreal Engine is required. I assume you are able to use Unreal Engine, Material Editor and Blueprint Editor. However, you don't need to be skilled in mathematics. Elementary school knowledge is enough.
Description
This tutorial series covers the essential math for game art. It's full of practical solutions for material nodes & procedural generation (Construction Script). I took the most popular use cases that I've encountered as a Lead Technical Artist in games. Finishing the course will give you practical experience for the games industry.
Material and Blueprint nodes are explained through popular examples, which you're likely to encounter in everyday tasks. Whether you're a programmer, an artist or a tech artist in need for a recap - you will find a useful tip for sure!
I divided the topics into concise, 10 to 20-minute long tutorials. They're brief and packed with knowledge, coming from over a decade of my experience in game development.
Learn how to use dot product in Unreal materials. Create a ghost effect, procedural snow layer, fake directional lighting and a silhouette glow.
Learn how to mix values, blend textures and interpolate object transforms with lerp.
Use sine for a pulsing material, wave masks and a flickering light with emissive glow. Learn how to animate material and light color over time - in sync with Blueprint.
Rotate UV maps or any 2D vectors with sine and cosine. Use sine for a flickering light in Blueprint, with animated material and synchronized light color. Learn about performance cost of sin/cos nodes. Are they worth replacing with smoothstep (Hermite) approximation?
I've run a Tech Art Aid education project since May 2016. It started a YouTube channel, after which I added Twitch livestreams & a Discord server. Now it's a community which enjoy spending time together, sharing knowledge. This course is the same quality but tightly edited, to make the maximum out of your time.
Good luck with mastering the fundamentals of game art math!
Who this course is for:
- Artists or programmers, who want a solid foundation in math nodes for everyday tasks
Instructor
- 4.1 Instructor Rating
- 30 Reviews
- 346 Students
- 1 Course
Hi! My name is Oskar Świerad. I've worked in game dev since 2010. Currently a Lead Technical Artist at CD Projekt RED.
Tech Art Aid is my education project, focused on advanced graphics for games. I've run it since May 2016. It started a YouTube channel, after which I added Twitch livestreams & a Discord server. Now it's a community which enjoy spending time together, sharing knowledge.