Unreal Engine 5.8 – Complete Environment & Metahuman Course

Master custom Metahumans with Animation, Mesh Terrain Tool, Procedural Vegetation Editor, PCG and PCG Splines

New

Created byJan Benkwtiz

Last updated 6/2026

English

What you'll learn

Learn the new Custom Mesh to Metahuman Feature
Use your own Metahuman as your Third Person Character
Set up Live Link Face for realtime face animation with your iPhone
Learn the new Mesh Terrain Tool
Use your own trees in the Procedural Vegetation Editor
Paint your own trees as Actor Foliage with bone driven wind animation
Use Nanite Voxelization on your trees for extreme performance
Create your own PCG Graph to scatter Grass, Bushes, Rocks, Tree Logs, Mushrooms etc.
Add Roads, Lakes etc. to your PCG Graph procedurally
How to use the new PCG Spline Tool for Roads, Cliffs and Lake scatter transitions
Cinematic exterior lighting with Exponential Height Fog, HDRI Backdrop, Post Process Volume and Directional Light

Course content

1 section • 15 lectures • 4h 10m total length

Introduction1:43
Metahuman - Install Metahuman Core Data4:30
Metahumann - Import your own Character into a Metahuman Mesh21:46
Metahuman - Apply Materials and Export our Metahuman7:52
Metahuman Creator
Metahuman - Use Metahuman as your Third Person Character in 5.86:28
Metahuman - Use Live Link Face for realtime Face Animation in 5.82:12
Mesh Terrain - The Complete Walkthrough51:42
Mesh Terrain
Procedural Vegetation Editor - Modeling and Texturing the Tree for PVE7:51
Procedural Vegetation Editor - Setting up our Tree inside the PVE9:33
Procedural Vegetation Editor - Export our Spruce Tree as Instanced Skeletal Mesh15:52
Procedural Vegetation Editor - Add Bone Driven Wind Animation7:01
PCG - Environmental Concepts14:01
PCG - Prepare Road Spline and Landscape46:45
PCG - PCG Spline Tool and Improve Lighting22:00
PCG - Finish the Environment31:30

Requirements

Basic knowledge in Unreal Engine as a Beginner

Description

Master Unreal Engine 5.8's most powerful new features with me. I am an experienced Unreal Engine Artist and using Unreal Engine as an Indie Game Dev and Environment Artist for many years now. I went extra deep into the experimental Version of 5.8 to find out all the useful and necessary features. Please keep in mind, that 5.8 is still experimental and a lot of things will be updated by Unreal Engine.

This course is your complete guide to building stunning real-time environments and cinematic characters from scratch.

We start with the full MetaHuman workflow – custom mesh import, joint rig setup, Live Link Face integration for facial animation, and animating your MetaHuman as a fully playable third person character.

Next we explore the new Mesh Terrain Tool before diving deep into the Procedural Vegetation Editor. You'll use the same Nanite voxelization technique seen in The Witcher 4 to create your own spruce trees, convert them into Actor Foliage and paint them independently from your PCG system for maximum control.

Speaking of PCG – we build a complete PCG graph from scratch with endless scatter freedom. Foliage, stones, mushrooms, leaves, dead branches and tree logs – all procedurally placed with full control over density, scale, rotation, noise and falloff distances. Roads are cut out procedurally and PCG performance features are enabled throughout. The PCG Spline Tool adds a third scatter method for natural transitions along roads.

We finish with a full cinematic Nordic environment project – atmospheric exterior lighting, cinematic composition and advanced performance tips to bring everything together.

This is UE5.8 at its most powerful. Let's get into it.

Who this course is for:

Game Developers
Film Makers
Environment Artists learning the new 5.8 Tools in Unreal Engine
Character Artists who want to learn the new Metahuman Creator in 5.8