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Organic World Building in UE5
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Organic World Building in UE5

A 10-week course in which students will create a fully textured, game-ready environment in UE5
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Overview Gallery Instructors Interview Pricing Benefits Testimonials

Build the world you've dreamed of in UE5

Build the world you've dreamed of in UE5
In this course, students will create a game environment from scratch in Unreal Engine 5. Lectures will cover the entire process from start to finish: reference gathering and blockout, sculpting organic assets, creating textures and shaders, incorporating set dressing, lighting and adding atmosphere, and post-processing and rendering the scene. Along with Unreal, students will use Substance, ZBrush, and SpeedTree to create their environments, as well as learn how to incorporate scans in a 3D environment workflow. By the end of the course, students will better understand level and environment workflows, and have all of the tools needed for a polished and presentation-ready game environment. Lecture videos will use Unreal Engine 5, but students may use UE4 or UE5.
Registration Now Open
Registration Period
Jul 17, 2024 - Oct 07, 2024
Course Start
Sep 30, 2024

Course Format

Standard

Skills Level

Advanced

Duration

10 weeks

Q&A

Once a week

Feedback

Individual recordings

Lecture Type

Pre-recorded
Assignment
Due each week. Expect to spend 10-20 hrs/wk viewing lectures, Q&A, and time on assignments.
PREREQUISITES
Must have a solid understanding of environment art creation and relevant software (Maya/3DsMax, ZBrush, Substance); course pre-reqs: Vegetation & Plants for Games, Environment Art for Games in Unreal Engine, Unreal Engine Modular Environments
MATERIALS
UE4 or UE5, 3D Modeling Package (Maya/3DS Max), Substance Designer, ZBrush, SpeedTree

The more you know, the better.

Planning out a scope-able project | Important factors when designing a successful environment | How Design and Art work together to build a Game Environment | How to gather useful reference and create a ref board | Blocking out a scene in 3D
Unreal 5 Intro | Unreal 5 Landscape Overview | Unreal 5 Landscape Master Shader Overview | Creating Tileable Ground Texture in Substance
Zbrush Intro | Sculpting small/medium boulders | How to design successful large cliff assets | Sculpting large cliff assets
Understanding Nanite | Rock Polishing Tips | ZBrush Decimation | Creating game ready meshes from high poly assets | UVing and Baking Assets | ZBrush Tiling Texture Sculpt | Substance High Frequency Details | Substance Base Color & Roughness
Vertex Blending Shaders | Height map based shaders | Additional Shader Add-ons | Importance of Master Shaders/Instancing
Foliage Methods. Sculpting, Modeling, Scans | Utilizing Scans for small assets like grass | Utilizing Modeling for plants | Utilizing zBrush for trees textures cards | Unreal Shader Setu
Speed Tree overview | Creating a tree in SpeedTree | Adding variation to our assets | Unreal Setup | Procedural vs Hand Painted Unreal process
Fundamentals of detailing out a scene | Utilizing Unreal tools to detail faster | Emphasizing a focal point in your scene | Story telling with details
Lighting Basics | Creating Mood/Atmosphere in Unreal | Light-maps for objects | Setting up multiple looks with Lighting
Final polish pass for environments | How to push your scene beyond the class | LUTs/Post Processing | Rendering out screen shots | Creating portfolio template | Setting up Artstation

STUDENT GALLERY

Real heroes don't wear capes they teach

Ryan Schake
Environment Artist
LECTURES BY Anthony Vaccaro
Course Start: Sep 30, 2024

Ryan Schake has been fortunate to spend over a decade working in the visual effects and gaming industry, developing his skills and contributing to many projects. His journey began in 2013 when he started working with real-time game engines for previz on projects like The Fantastic Four, Maze Runner, and Maze Runner 2.

After that, he moved into the gaming industry with Naughty Dog, where he had the opportunity to work on Uncharted: Lost Legacy and contribute to shader programming for The Last of Us 2. This experience provided great learning opportunities and helped him grow both technically and artistically.

Since 2018, Ryan has been with Respawn Entertainment, working as an Environment Artist on Jedi: Fallen Order and later as a Senior Environment Artist on Jedi: Survivor. His focus has been on foliage and organic modeling, which has proven to be both challenging and rewarding.

Passionate about visual storytelling, Ryan continually strives to improve his craft. He looks forward to sharing his knowledge with the next generation of artists and creators, hoping to inspire them and help them achieve their goals in the world of visual effects and game development.

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Instructor's Gallery

Game Art
Game Art
Game Art

STUDENT INTERVIEWS

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Approaching Organic Environment Building

Introduction My name is Casper Wermuth, and I currently work as a Lead Environment Artist at Ubisoft Blue Byte in Germany. I was born in Denmark...

Interview with

Casper Wermuth

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Building an Organic Environment in UE4

Introduction Hello, my name is Leonid Prokofiev, I started to learn 3D by myself at the university. The first time I worked at Threedex studio where...

Interview with

Leonid Prokofiev

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Crafting a Modular Greek Scene

Introduction Hello, my name is Derek Kruk and I am currently working as a 3D Artist at Wayfair in Boston, MA. I originally come from Columbus, Ohio....

Interview with

Derek Kruk

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Creating a Stylized Chinese Landscape

Introduction My name is Carmen Schneidereit. I am a 3D environment artist from Cologne, Germany. I recently finished my studies in game arts at the Cologne Game...

Interview with

Carmen Schneidereit

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Environment Art: Skygarden Production Breakdown

Introduction Hello everyone! My name is Antoine Lambert and I am currently working at Triotech in Montreal as a 3D environment artist. I started by studying architecture...

Interview with

Antoine Lambert

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Lessons of Organic World Building

Intro Looking back, I believe my last article with 80.lv was almost 2 years ago on the Dead Space Cockpit, which in hindsight was at a very...

Interview with

Christen Smith

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Lighthouse Production Guide: Substance Tools Workflow

The Career It has been a while, about a year since our last interview! Since then, I’ve been busy at work on The Elder Scrolls Online as...

Interview with

Lauren McKenzie

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Lost of Civilization: Organic Environment Art in UE4

Introduction Hi! My name is Le Guo which means “river”, so my friends always call me “River”. Fl social channels such as ArtStation and Facebook, I like...

Interview with

Le Guo

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Making a Scene Inspired by Dungeon & Dragons

Introduction Hey everybody! My name is Ilya Pavlov (Elijah Pauls), I am an Environment 3D Artist currently working as a Level Artist at Sperasoft Keywords Studio in Saint-Petersburg,...

Interview with

Ilya Pavlov

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Rural Chinese Environment

Introduction My name is Jiaming Chen, I am an environment artist and currently work at Netease Games in Hangzhou, China. I graduated from Jilin Animation Academy in 2013. After graduation,...

Interview with

Jiaming Chen

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Setting Up a Tiger's Nest in UE4

Intro My name is Yulu Xue. I’m a 3D artist living in Toronto, Canada. I’ve been worked on various types of games on multiple platforms in...

Interview with

Yulu Xue

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Snowy Village in UE4

Introduction Hi everyone! My name is Yuko Yokoi. Currently, I work as a Senior Environment Artist at DigicPictures in Hungary, Budapest. DigicPictures is mainly involved in the production...

Interview with

Yuko Yokoi

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Temple in the Mountains

Introduction My name is Emily Henderson.  I’m from Los Angeles, California, but currently live in Austin, Texas, and work for Bioware on Star Wars: The Old Republic Onslaught....

Interview with

Emily Henderson

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Winter Environment in UE4: Assets, Plants, Lighting

Introduction Hi, everyone! My name is Evgeniy Vegera. I am an environment artist and currently work as a lead compositing and modeling artist at an animation...

Interview with

Evgeniy Vegera

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Winter Scene: Environment Building Tips

Introduction Hello! I’m Mauriccio Torres and I currently work as a Level Artist at Ubisoft Chengdu. I was born in Lima, Peru, and I got my bachelor’s degree...

Interview with

Mauriccio Torres

PRICING SCHEDULE

Even though our courses are the most affordable for the quality of education, these finance options allow you to focus on your goals instead of the barriers that keep you from reaching them.

3x Payments

$332.67

2x Payments

$499

Full payment

$998

Fall TERM REGISTRATION Now Open
Jul 17, 2024 - Oct 07, 2024
COURSE BEGINS on Sep 30, 2024
Organic World Building in UE5

PERSONALIZED FEEDBACK

Receive personalized feedback on all assignments from the industry’s top professionals.

LIFETIME ACCESS

Enjoy lifetime access to the spectrum of course content, including lectures, live Q&As, and feedback sessions.

CERTIFICATION

Show off your Certification of Completion when you turn in 80% of course assignments.

FLEXIBLE LEARNING

Learn anywhere, anytime, and at your own pace with flexible, online course scheduling.

Testimonials

Great personal touch. Gave live 1 on 1 feedback for long periods of time.

Filip

Excellent instructor, was great to have someone like Anthony sharing his knowledge with us.

Lewis

I already had intermediate skills for designing the environment, but Anthony took everything to the whole new advanced level of world building and helped me a lot to learn different steps of the environment design and how to prepare the assets and landscape to get the result that I want. His experience is priceless and I am so happy that I invested in this class and I feel more confident to pick whatever idea or concept that I want and turn it into the portfolio piece that I want.

Mohsen

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