5 DAY Foundation in Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine Fundamentals: Animation & VFX for Beginners
Duration: 5 days, Monday–Friday, 9:30am–4:30pm
Target Audience: No prior 3D experience
Outcome: By the end of the week, students will have created a short animated sequence (5–10 seconds) with basic visual effects in Unreal Engine, understand key industry workflows, and know the next steps for building a career.
Unreal Engine Fundamentals: Animation & VFX for Beginners
Day 1 – Welcome to Unreal Engine & 3D Basics
Theme: Getting comfortable in the engine and understanding 3D concepts.
Morning
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Introduction to Unreal Engine (what it is, where it’s used: games, animation, film, VFX)
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Examples from Pixar, Fortnite cinematics, Netflix animation, live-action VFX shots
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Installing Unreal Engine (overview only if already pre-installed on lab machines)
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Understanding the interface: Viewport, Content Browser, Outliner, Details Panel
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3D basics: geometry, meshes, textures, materials, lights, cameras
Afternoon
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Navigating the viewport and placing basic objects (cubes, spheres, planes)
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Working with transforms: move, rotate, scale
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Importing free assets from the Unreal Marketplace
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First mini-project: build a simple “set” (a room or outdoor scene) with props
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Quickfire exercise: students swap scenes and add one creative element to each other’s work
Day 2 – Building Worlds
Theme: Designing environments and making them look alive.
Morning
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Understanding levels and world building
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Using Landscape tools for terrain creation
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Adding foliage (trees, grass) and sky systems
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Introduction to materials: basic shaders, textures, colours
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PBR (Physically Based Rendering) explained simply
Afternoon
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Lighting fundamentals: Directional Light, Point Light, Spot Light, Sky Light
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Light settings for realism vs stylisation
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Adding atmosphere: fog, volumetrics, post-process volumes
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Mini-project: create a small environment (e.g., forest clearing, sci-fi corridor)
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Group feedback session: discussing mood, lighting, and storytelling in environments
Day 3 – Animation in Unreal
Theme: Bringing the scene to life with movement.
Morning
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Introduction to Sequencer (Unreal’s timeline for animation)
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Placing and animating cameras
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Moving props and lights over time
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Keyframing basics
Afternoon
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Introduction to characters in Unreal (using free rigged models)
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Importing animations from Mixamo or Unreal Marketplace
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Applying animations to characters
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Camera moves: dolly, pan, tracking shots
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Mini-project: animate a short camera move and one prop movement in your scene
Day 4 – Visual Effects
Theme: Adding magic, action, and atmosphere.
Morning
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Introduction to Niagara (Unreal’s VFX system)
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Understanding emitters and particles
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Simple effects: fire, smoke, sparks, rain, magic glow
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Adjusting particle properties
Afternoon
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Integrating VFX into your environment and animation
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Combining post-process effects (colour grading, bloom, depth of field)
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Rendering basics: output settings, frame rate, resolution, exporting MP4 or image sequence
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Mini-project: add one VFX element to your animation and test render it
Day 5 – Final Project & Industry Pathways
Theme: Pulling it all together and looking ahead.
Morning
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Final project build time:
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Assemble your scene, animation, and VFX into a short sequence (5–10 seconds)
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Apply lighting, camera work, and post-processing
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Render and export the sequence
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Afternoon
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Showcase: everyone presents their animation to the group
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Feedback & discussion
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Career pathways:
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Entry-level roles (junior environment artist, previz assistant, animation intern, VFX runner)
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Portfolios & showreels
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Free learning resources and next steps (Epic Games Learning Portal, YouTube channels, community projects)
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Wrap-up: students leave with their rendered sequence, reference materials, and a learning roadmap