Unreal Games Engine: Introduction to Previz /Animation

Taught by Jon Gress

Course Number:
UNR101
Software Version:
UDK 3 
Original Run Date:
October 2013 
Duration:
7 hours 47 minutes 
3D
Have you ever wished you had a crystal ball to be able to see where production trends would go in the future? Well if you've been in the visual effects industry for any length of time and also seen the rapid progression of the new generation of amazing realtime game engines, it's really easy to put two and two together and see that this may very well soon become a very real and viable pre-viz tool if not a whole new way of making movies in a realtime production environment altogether. Or maybe you've had the idea of creating your own game but the trouble was, stepping from the visual effects production environment to the game development environment seems like stepping off into a whole 'nother world.

But who has time to learn a whole new set of tools? Well, good news! It’s why we developed this course: A fast track to learning the Epic Games Unreal Development Kit - UDK 3 game development environment. This course will be a fast paced introduction to the UDK 3 game development environment and engine covering the basics of pretty much the entire suite of UDK development tools and take you from zero to building your own freestanding game in UDK in this one course.
 
Unreal Games Engine: Introduction to Previz /Animation
Watch our overview of the course

Class Listing

Class 1

Intro, Pre-Pro Modeling & Roughing in UDK - Workflow, Concepts, Navigation & Helpful Keyboard Shortcuts, The UDK Editor - Interface & Navigation, Level Design Flow Theory & Gameplay Mindset, The Game Design Process Creating our first few CSG pieces of Geometry using BSP Brushes, Adding a Light, Jumping in and Test Playing the Level

Class 2

Adding Geometry & Detailing in UDK - Geometry Workflow, Blocking & Roughing Out the Level in BSP/CSG, Additive vs Subtractive Workflows,Geometry Edit Mode, Adding Player Start Pathnodes, Adding Weapons, Vehicles & Bots, Test Playing your Level

Class 3

Texturing, Adding a Material & Texturing Workflow, Creating Textures, Photoshop Prep of Textures, Special Sizing & Formatting Requirements, Importing Textures into UDK and creating Materials

Class 4

Detailing - Adding Static Meshes Combining Static Meshes, Grouping, Creating Prefabs, Creating Fractured Meshes, Intro to Lighting/Lightmass & Terrain in UDK - Creating Dominant Directional exterior lighting, Lightmass importance volumeCreating a new Terrain, Terrain Texturing, Using Decal Materials, Creating Water Planes

Class 5

Creating Foliage layers, Creating Deco layers, Static Mesh Mode & Detailing in UDK, Volumes, Volume Effects and Physics, The LightmassImportanceVolume, The PostProcessVolume, Creating Swimmable Water, Creating the water's surface, Underwater FX Using Post Process Volumes, DOF, Scene Highlights, Faking Volumetric Light Effects, Height Fog vs Fog Volume, Physics Creating a Skybox, Adding a Kill Z, Adding a Particle System

Class 6

Animation and Particle Systems. Intro to Cascade, Matinee, Kismet, Intro to Distributions, Converting BSP and CSG Geometry to Static Meshes, Automatic doors, Setting up Triggers, Setting Collision Radius, Height and Type, Creating Movement Track in Matinee.

Class 7

Creating Fractured Meshes, Fractured Mesh Editor, Texturing Fractured Meshes, Double Automatic Hangar Doors & Triggered Automatic Particle Systems, Creating Pawn Spawn & Death Events, Speed Workflow Cloning/Carving Elevator Shafts, Entrance Ways and Creating Elevator Lift Platforms with BSP/CSG Geometry, Converting BSP/CSG to Static Meshes to Interp Actors, Automatic Elevator Lifts using Kismet Movers

Class 8

Creating Ghost Objects, Converting BSP/CSG to Static Meshes, Creating Jump Pads, Creating Finish & Emissive Lighting, Set Lighting Theory and Application, Sound in UDK - Creating Ambient Sound, Positioning Sound in Space, The Sound Cue Editor, Creating Complex Sound Cues, Creating Triggered Sound Cues, Creating Custom Sound Cues

Class 9

Final Details, Creating a Portal, Importing Custom Animated Skeletal Mesh Geometry & Mocap, Playing Animation & Sound Using Triggers, Adding Player starts, Setting up Deathmatch Gametype, World Properties, Final Details, Adding Level Menu Screenshot, Adding Music to Level, Etc, Titling your map, Setting Map Music, Creating screenshots, Creating a configuration file, Finishing & Packaging, Exporting a standalone game

Class 10

Creating Cinematics & Previz in UDK - Creating Cinematics & Previz using UDK Matinee & Kismet, Animating a Camera in Matinee, Adding Director Group/Track, Kismet Cinematic Mode Creating A Real World Set for Previz in UDK - Construction of a full Set Using all the Lessons learned. & Intro to Virtual Cinematography & Realtime Previz in UDK - Cutting Edge Technologies