Unreal Engine 5 for Absolute Beginners: Build Subway Surfers

Discover how Unreal Engine 5 delivers real-time, photoreal visuals and immersive experiences through its open source access, blueprint scripting, and C++ coding, with its history and Guinness World Record status.

Install Unreal Engine five by downloading the Epic Games Launcher, then in the library choose the latest version (5.4) and install with core components and engine source.

Open Unreal Engine 5, explore the project browser and templates, and create your first blank blueprint project with starter contents on desktop while learning naming rules and the interface.

Explore Unreal Engine 5's user interface, from menus and toolbars to the viewport and outliner, and learn to manage worlds, actors, blueprints, content drawer and Quixel Bridge assets.

Navigate with the right mouse button and WASD, Q, E; adjust camera speed, focus objects via outliner with F, orbit with Alt plus right mouse, and zoom with left mouse.

Explore Unreal Engine viewport essentials, including frames per second displays, game view, bookmarks for quick navigation, perspective and wireframe modes, and lighting, visibility, and grid settings.

learn to create and transform objects in unreal engine 5 by importing assets or modeling, place actors, and add lights such as directional lights and skylight, plus shapes.

Discover how to create and light Unreal Engine 5 worlds, from sky atmosphere and sun direction to fog and clouds, and refine visuals with post-process volume and exposure controls.

Learn to create and apply materials in Unreal Engine 5, adjust color, roughness, metallic, and emissive properties, and apply textures for realistic walls and surfaces.

Learn to apply textures in Unreal Engine 5, create wall and ground materials using base color and normal maps, and adjust tiling, metallic, roughness, and shadows for realism.

Define static mesh as a 3D object in Unreal Engine 5 and distinguish it from skeletal and physical meshes. Import 3D models (fbx/obj) and apply materials with textures to objects.

Explore Unreal Engine 5 lighting by using directional light, skylight, point light, spotlight, and rectangle light to shape real-time shadows, color, and ambiance in a third person scene.

Apply Lumion, Unreal Engine 5’s dynamic global illumination and reflections, and master enabling or disabling it via post-process volume or project settings for lighting realism and performance.

Create and shape an expansive open world in Unreal Engine 5 using landscape mode, managing sections, sculpting mountains, and painting textures.

Create a landscape material with a landscape layer blend to mix grass, sand, and ground textures, and apply it to the landscape with a parameterized size control.

Access Megascans Library via Quixel Bridge in Unreal Engine 5, download free textures and 3D assets, and paint landscapes with realistic materials.

Learn to populate a desert scene in Unreal Engine 5 using foliage: import 3D plants via Quixel Bridge, enable nanite, and paint with density and scaling.

Learn blueprint scripting in Unreal Engine 5 to script character movement with nodes and enhanced input, linking keyboard and mouse controls to in-game actions.

Learn the Unreal Engine 5 blueprint system, including blueprint types and the level blueprint, and see how to create, connect, and test nodes like print string in the graph editor.

Explore blueprint classes in Unreal Engine 5, learning how actor, pawn, and character classes differ and interact with components, inheritance, and instance behavior for building interactive game objects.

Learn how blueprint class components work by adding static mesh components to an actor, attaching them to a root or road component, and managing their movement through attachment.

Explore blueprint event graph to rotate actors frame by frame using event tick and local rotation on the z axis, and understand the difference between event graph and construction script.

Understand how a function takes integer inputs and outputs results, enabling reuse across events like begin play; avoid duplicating code to save time and space.

Learn how to create and use variables in Unreal Engine 5, including types like boolean and integer, set/get operations, and runtime updates such as ammo decreasing every second.

Master shortcuts in Unreal Engine 5 to speed up blueprint visual scripting. Learn node shortcuts like select, add to selection, and branch with B+click, plus a cheat sheet for references.

Explore how Unreal Engine blueprint nodes connect via input and output pins and wires, distinguishing event, function, and data nodes and their color-coded types like boolean, integer, float, and vector.

Create and connect blueprint nodes in Unreal Engine 5 to build simple logic, using actor location, rotation, branch, booleans, delays, and custom events like shoot.

Explore how construction script in Unreal Engine 5 lets environment designers create actors with static meshes and dynamic material instances in the editor, while the event graph runs at play.

Download, extract, and open the Unreal Engine project to view the Subway Surfers map, assets, and map tools. The next lecture will cover collision concepts and a future character class.

Create a character class in Unreal Engine 5, explain actor, pawn, and character, set up capsule and skeletal mesh, adjust orientation and lighting with post-process volume, implement blocking volumes for collision.

Possess the character as player zero in Unreal Engine 5, attach a camera behind it, and move the capsule forward every frame with a looping running animation.

Learn to connect a keyboard to a character in Unreal Engine 5. Use enhanced input with an input mapping context and action, bind d and a, negate for left.

Add jump and crouch in Unreal Engine 5 by creating input actions, mapping w for jump and s for crouch, adjusting jump velocity, and enabling crouch with capsule size changes.

Create and implement an animation blueprint to control a subway surfer character, using a state machine with run, jump, and crouch states, plus movement checks for realistic transitions.

Create a reusable obstacle blueprint with box collision to detect overlaps with the player, trigger a lose state, disable movement, and drive death animation across the terrain.

Create a parent obstacle class and child train blueprints to centralize logic, and use collisions to end the character's run while top-of-train jumps and moving trains appear in future lectures.

Create a moving train blueprint that starts on overlap with a box collision, moves along the x axis for a few seconds, and uses blocking volumes for multiple trains.

Create coin pickups in Unreal Engine 5 using a BP coins actor, Niagara system, and sphere collision to add coins, update the coin count, play a sound, and destroy the coin.

Learn Unreal Engine 5 by building a coin counter UI using a widget with a coin icon and canvas panel, and display and update count at begin play.

Create a simple end screen as a widget blueprint with win or lose and coin count. Show it on game events, update coins, stop movement, and hide the player.

Create and manage sound effects in Unreal Engine 5 by making sound cues and playing audio at begin play and at train locations to enhance a Subway Surfers-style game.