Course Details
Location
Live Online
Start Date
8th September 2023
Duration
8 weeks, every Friday
Mode of Study
Part Time
Fees
Free
Submissions are temporarily closed, but may reopen soon
Submissions are temporarily closed, but may reopen soon
Calling VFX and post production personnel working in TV: join our Unreal Fridays!
Are you in the HETV industry and want to get to grips with Unreal Engine? Do you have at least two years of work behind you and now want to step up to using Unreal in your workflow?
Then our Unreal Fridays course maybe right for you - fully funded by the ScreenSkills High-end TV Skills Fund with contributions from UK high-end TV productions.
Unreal Fridays is Escape Studios proven online training course. Over eight Fridays you’ll be taken through Unreal Engine 5 and given the context to help you maximise its effectiveness in your workflow.
How does Unreal Fridays work?
If you are accepted on this fully-funded course you’ll have eight consecutive Fridays of tuition, from 8th September till 27th October 9.30-3.30pm generally split into tuition on the weeks theme in the morning, and mentored time to practice in the afternoon. You might choose to engage with this from work (with your employer’s permission) or from home. The software is free to download.
So, if you’re a freelancer working in HETV we hope you’ll want to join us. Numbers are kept small to allow quality training and tutor interaction, so you’ll need to apply with your CV/Resume or IMDb details, see below.
HOW YOU APPLY
Interested? Send us a link to your online CV/Resume/IMDb that highlights your experience in the HETV sector, and up to 300 words on why you want to join Unreal Fridays. We cannot accept files via this website so a link will do.
ScreenSkills welcomes applications from a diverse group of people from across the UK and from all genders.
The Programme
Unreal Fridays: Training in Unreal Engine for HETV (High End TV) professionals
Week 1 - Introduction
8th September
The tutor will outline the curriculum and its stages and the group will have the opportunity to discuss what they want to get out of the course. The emphasis will be on quick creation with later iteration and modification. This episode is about getting to grips with the interface, its key features and importing work.
There will be an introductory keynote by a high profile VFX director
Topics include:
- How to install Unreal Engine
- The Epic Games Launcher
- Documentation and training resources
- Explore the Unreal interface, windows and user environment
- Viewports
- Transformations, units and measurements in Unreal Engine
- Navigation and basic usage of the editors
- FBX interoperability
- Mesh triangle counts
- Clean mesh construction
- Collisions
- LODs
- Level of detail
- LightMap UVs
- Static vs skeletal meshes
- Naming conventions
The afternoon is a time for optional student study with the offer of short mentor sessions.
Week 2 - Making your renders looks good! Kitbashing, Megascans, Quixel
15th September
Topics include:
- Texture editor
- Texture formats
- Mipmaps
- Texture groups
- Material editor UI
- Node based workflow
- PBR
- Master materials and material instances
- Material functions
- Shader complexity
- Advanced techniques
The afternoon is a time for optional student study with the offer of short mentor sessions.
There will be a presentation from a VFX company on how they incorporate UE into their pipeline, with examples.
Week 3 - Lighting and Mood
22nd September
The theme of the day is Visualising Mood. We explore how lighting can communicate mood and help your plans, utilising the power of Lumen, Unreal Engine 5's new fully dynamic global illumination and reflections system.
Topics include:
- Light mobility (static vs real time)
- Lighting types
- Controlling light properties
- HDR lighting and backdrop
- Reflections - IES profiles
- Sun positioning and sky
- Exposure control
- Fog and volumetric lighting
- Lighting in different scenarios (stylised and realistic)
The afternoon is a time for optional student study with the offer of short mentor sessions.
Week 4 - Creating photoreal sequences: Worldbuilding with Quixel and Nanite
29th September
Nanite is UE5’s virtualised geometry system that allows infinite polygons and real-time level of detail.
Topics include:
- How Nanite works - rendering pixel scale detail and high object counts
- Frame budgets, polycounts, draw calls, and mesh memory usage. Creating photoreal sequences with Megascans and other apps
- Quixel bridge
- Realtime cinematography
- There will be a workshop on what you need to know about cinematography lenses from real cameras by a DoP.
The afternoon is a time for optional student study with the offer of short mentor sessions.
There will be a presentation from a VFX company on how they incorporate UE into their pipeline, with examples.
Week 5 - Blueprints
6th October
By learning Blueprints, the visual scripting language for Unreal, you can customise and re-purpose the engine to service your styles and needs and add useful UIs.
Topics include:
- Fundamental concepts of Blueprints
- Creating functional Blueprint-based assets - variables and events
- Animation Blueprints
- Setting up Blueprint Actors via the Blueprint Editor
- Controlling properties of materials
- Communicating between different Blueprint Actor types
The afternoon is a time for optional student study with the offer of short mentor sessions.
Week 6 - Animating and Realtime
13th October
Topics include:
- Animation in Unreal Engine
- Introduction
- What is Sequencer?
- Sequencer interface
- Cinematic views
- Organising sequences
- How do cameras work?
- Using different tracks, types
- Further lighting and atmospherics
- FX
The afternoon is a time for optional student study with the offer of short mentor sessions.
There will be a presentation from a VFX company on how they incorporate UE into their pipeline, with examples.
Week 7 - Animation in Unreal Engine - advanced
20th October
Topics include:
- Animation import/export
- Blending animations and properties
- Using spawnable objects
- Recording to Sequencer
- Rendering out cinematics post process volumes, grading in real time.
The afternoon is a time for optional student study; with the offer of short mentor sessions.
Week 8 - VP and Realtime
27th October
Topics include:
- Broadcast TV applications (summary/discussion of VFX presentations on this course)
- How it gets on the Wall
- Working with the DoP on set for ‘final pixel’.
- Possible VFX realtime pipelines
The afternoon is a time for optional student study with the offer of short mentor sessions.
We will introduce ScreenSkills VP standards as a guide to participants
FAQs
What do I need to know about Unreal Engine already?
Nothing, except why you’d like to learn it!
What kind of machine do I need to run Unreal on? Will my laptop suffice?
You can find the specs here. https://www.razzem.com/unreal-engine-5-system-requirements/
How much is the eight-day course?
It is free to participants thanks to funding from the ScreenSkills HETV Skills Fund
I’m a new entrant in TV/VFX so don’t have a track record or resume to apply with - can I still have a place?
Unfortunately not. The funding that allows us to put this training on is specifically to help the HETV sector and experienced professionals who have a track record of around 2 years.
I’m a working HE professional with over 2 years of experience in the industry, but I’m unsure I can manage eight Fridays off. Can I shift my engagement by downloading the sessions?
Our experience as an Unreal Authorized Training Center shows that the most effective training is synchronous with the tutor and back-up assistants being on hand to answer your specific questions and also give context to how Unreal may fit into your workflow. Also mixing with your peers will bring forth ideas and information you never expected!
So this is the most effective way to learn and most likely to help the industry get a new bunch of Unreal talent!
Sessions will be recorded, as we know some people won’t be able to make the odd Friday, but only for a limited period.
I work in film not TV, but really need to learn Unreal. Can I apply? Can I attend if I pay?
Sorry this funding is for HETV professionals only; so, you won’t be eligible. However, check out both the Escape Studios website and Screen Skills for other opportunities in the near future.
Also Escape Studios operates a B2B (Business to Business) training scheme so if there are a few of you at your workplace we may be able to help as we have for a number of high-profile companies, but this wouldn’t be subsidised.
I’m a student but my course doesn’t teach Unreal. I intend to work in the TV industry when I leave - can I have a place?
Sorry, no, only experienced professionals are allowed on this course because of the nature of the funding.
Why not an eight day in a row course?
Experience shows that working professionals find it very hard to clear the decks for a number of days in a row. On average, shorter episodes work better and have less dropouts.
What if I’m fully employed?
Firstly, ask your employer if you can take Friday mornings for study, 9.30 till 1pm, they may even let you make up the time elsewhere. The mornings are where most of the instruction happens, and the afternoon is designed for you to do structured practice, so it would be possible to just do the mornings, although we recommend all-day attendance
It may be in your employer’s interest to get you trained in Unreal.
How many Fridays do I need to commit to? I’m pretty sure I’ll need to miss a couple.
Without a community of learners being present the course will lose a bit of shine. If you have to miss a couple that’s understandable- life happens. However, remember the purpose of the course is to create Unreal talent for the HETV industry, and that fails if people don’t attend, so we hope if you get accepted, you’ll join us for all eight episodes!
Can I ask questions and get advice outside of the course too?
We’ll have a special private Discord server so that peers and tutors can chat during the week, swap tips, and reference resources they find.
Free courses aren’t necessarily the best, why should I invest my time in yours?
It is usually a paid course and places are free to successful applicants thanks to funding from the ScreenSkills HETV Skills Fund
There are a couple more good reasons; firstly, we were the first Unreal Accredited Training centre in the UK, and Epic Games themselves commissioned us to run the Summer of Unreal in 2021. ScreenSkills have awarded us funding in the past, most notably for the Virtual Production suite of courses we ran in the summer of 2022. VFX giant Framestore has used us to train its staff, and our previous Unreal Fridays course consisted of professionals from Untold Studios, ECT, the Mill, Time Based Arts and Hogarth.
Secondly, our range of tutors- they have all worked in industry and bring that experience to bear in their teaching. They understand what you need to know. After all Unreal is a games engine, and as such has its foibles that VFX and HETV content creators need to know about.
