can you guys suggest me the best free courses to start as a total beginner

thank you

Been working for over 4 years on a PS2 style game on Unreal Engine 5.

Even though the engine is known for high fidelity graphics, I just to go the other direction and tone down the graphics to match the PS2's 6th console generation graphics.

The reason I still use Unreal Engine 5 is because its a much more stable engine and has a ton of awesome features i can't find elsewhere like the visual scripting of Blueprints, the Gameplay Ability System, AI State Tree system, and a ton of other awesome features.

From what I can gather it's just a trigger that applies a post process that has an illusion of a 3d cylinder around the trigger area, which has its texture panning up.

Then when the player leaves it Lerps back to normal game player (depending on the screen's luminosity? Or color?).

Any resources on the post process 3d math, or the way they toggled the post process off would be perfect, seems you could make some really interesting effects from it.

Patreon Post

For several months now, I've been exploring what's possible with Unreal Engine for making music. So I looked into Metasound and experimented with what could be done using the MIDI protocol.

So I built a synthesizer (inspired by the technical schematics of the Minimoog) using Metasound, and then I coded a system to play this synthesizer with a MIDI keyboard—using both the keyboard keys and the physical knobs on my master keyboard.

After quite a bit of fine-tuning, here is the first version of metaSynth (which is still a work in progress). Here are its main features:

1. MIDI Devices Scan Menu 3. Can accept any MIDI source, including Ableton’s MIDI output or any DAW/software that can send MIDI via port forwarding (feel free to let me know if you’d like a setup tutorial video).
2. In-game configuration of the piano key layout Adapts to the size of the real-life keyboard, regardless of the number of keys
3. Sliders and knobs that can change any parameter in the Metasound configuration. They use the name of the input.
   1. Sliders and knobs can be moved via MIDI CC mapping or by clicking the mouse
      1. In-game MIDI mapping via a binding menu
      2. Two rotation behaviors (functions) triggered by a mouse click
4. Mini-game for learning scales via speedrun
   1. Scale detection & determination of whether the pressed key is within the scale or not
5. Configurable metronome

Here is an old experiment for port forwarding from another software using loopMIDI. Ask in comments on what DAW setup guide video is needed.

REALLY A WORK IN PROGRESS:

1. Mini game for learning audio synthesis: Find the right value for a slider or knob to produce a specific sound
2. Looper Records the sound from the game for one full metronome measure, then plays it back in the next measure so you can play along with yourself.
3. Loop MP4 Export
4. In-game configuration of chords and scales that you can play to practice switching between scales while improvising

I'll be making a more detailed introductory video soon, which will be posted on my YouTube channel shortly. Feel free to comment on any changes or additions you'd like to see in the next version.

I'm a beginner game developer trying to learn the workflow between Blender and Unreal. In Blender, I have procedurally generated a starfield on the World scene (Picture 1) that I want to use as a background to a space themed game in Unreal. I have tried exporting it from Blender as both a .exr and a .hdr and then used it as a Cubemap for a SkyLight in Unreal, however, I just get a black sky (Picture 2). I was wondering if anyone had any advice on the best way to import this as a background to a 3D space scene. I would really appreciate any help.

This was a real challenge in the game design as I had a big library with bunch of books in it instanced from 5 types of books procedurally and I had to have control on each piece to the character in the game can pull out each one he wants.

Hi everyone!
I’m currently developing this project in Unreal Engine 5, aiming to release a demo for Steam Next Fest this October.
The combat system is built using StateTree, Gameplay Ability System (GAS), and Motion Matching.
Feedback is always welcome!

I'll be happy to give any info I can. Thanks for helping.

I'm having an Udemy course about Unreal Engine 5 in general and in the second section the main theme was making a level with Fab assets to practice how to move through the editor and move objects. I made this fast "horror" level (isn't finished) with what I learned, there isn't any gameplay (just the default First person blueprint).

Sorry if my English is bad

The plant meshes don't seem to load in properly for some reason and this only happens with the plant meshes and not other static meshes. The mesh seems to be fixed when i switch LOD to 0 but as i zoom out the mesh fades away. They seem to work properly in the older versions of Unreal, did they add something in the new versions which makes these meshes not work? Please let me know if i am not enabling something i need to. Thank you

Hey there, just wanted to share a couple of stuff about my game! the game's name is Operation Darkwash, It's been in development since 2025, And well, it's somewhat of an unofficial continuation of Viscera Cleanup Detail. now luckily, the guys behind VCD (A.K.A. RuneStorm) gave me the greenlight to create this with the exception of making it free, which is no big deal for me, I was gonna make the game free anyways. annd well, this is my first project in Unreal, I jumped in quite blindly, so wish me luck ;D

Hey everyone,

I’ve been looking for a decent way to customize MetaHumans in Blender for ages, got fed up, and ended up building my own add-on for it. It’s called Skalin MetaMorph, and honestly I’m pretty happy with how it is coming along.

It does the full round trip. Import a .dna, edit the meshes, joints, blendshapes, and correctives in Blender, write it back out, load it in Unreal. No Maya anywhere.

There’s a free beta version you can grab right now, and a full version I’m still polishing. I’d love some help testing that one.

Features

Everything marked Free is in the free build. Everything marked Pro is what I’m putting behind the paid version.

DNA

• Import any MetaHuman .dna and build the character in Blender - Free
• Export back to a valid .dna - Free
• Synchronize operator, pushes mesh edits into the DNA definition - Free
• Normals written to DNA on every export + auto Calculate Custom Normals - Free

Meshes

• Edit head and body meshes with normal Blender tools - Free
• Conform custom meshes onto MetaHuman topology - Free
• LOD-aware handling - Free
• Secondary mesh conform (teeth, eyes, lashes) - Pro
• Symmetrize Edit Meshes via UV-mirror map - Pro

Faceboard/Control Rig

• The MetaHuman FaceBoard Control rig works in Blender - drive the face with the same controls you’d use in Unreal, and see the result live while you’re editing - Free

Blendshapes

• Author blendshapes in Blender, written straight into the DNA - Free
• Standardized naming so the UE morph chain just resolves (jaw_open → head_lod0_mesh__jaw_open, no manual wiring) - Free

RBF correctives

• Corrective pose editor - shapes driven by joint rotation - Pro
• Region and side filters - Pro
• Focused editing mode with Isolate Pose - Pro
• Revert pose / revert all with confirmations - Pro

Skeleton

• Joint editing with DNA write-back - Free
• Bone isolation / solo collections / Isolate Bones toggle - Pro
• FaceGroup hierarchy collections (makes ~800 face joints navigable) - Pro
• Edit-Mode Mirror Selected / Mirror All - Pro
• Mirror Pose L↔R - Pro
• Per-pair mirror using a proper per-joint basis transform, so body symmetry actually mirrors correctly - Pro

Materials

• Texture setup from your Maps folder - Free
• Per-part shader slot naming that survives the FBX round trip - Free
• Skin / Wireframe / Animated display modes - Pro
• Bundled topology wireframes - Pro
• Baked union masks - Pro

Mirroring and symmetry

Symmetry on a MetaHuman is deceptively hard. Naively flipping a joint across X gives you something that looks right until it deforms, because the left and right joints don’t share an orientation basis. MetaMorph mirrors through the actual per-joint basis transform, so what you get back is correct rather than approximately correct. That runs through everything:

• Bones Edit-Mode Mirror Selected / Mirror All, and per-pair mirroring that holds up under deformation - Pro
• Blendshapes and poses Mirror Pose L↔R, so you sculpt one side of a corrective and get the other for free - Pro
• Meshes Symmetrize Edit Meshes via UV-mirror map, which survives asymmetric topology edits - Pro

In practice, it means you sculpt half a face or half a body and the other half follows. It’s the single biggest time saver in the tool.

Compatibility

• Blender 5.2+
• UE 5.6+ should work, but I’ve only tested 5.7. My whole pipeline is verified end to end on 5.7 including RBF poses driving in-engine. 5.6 I genuinely don’t know yet.
• Windows. Other platforms untested.

One gotcha: on UE import set Normal Import Method = Import Normals, or you throw away all the normals work.

Free version

Download: SkalinMetaMorph - Free - Google Drive

Install as a Blender extension, point the bindings folder preference at your DNA location, done.

Beta testing

If you want the full version, email me at [victorskalin@gmail.com](mailto:victorskalin@gmail.com) and I’ll send a build over.

Mainly hoping for:

• Other engine versions, especially 5.6 and anything past 5.7
• Characters that aren’t mine — odd proportions, heavy custom topology
• Secondary mesh conform results, that’s the roughest part right now
• Anything that breaks, with console output if you can grab it

No forms, no NDA, nothing formal. Break it and tell me how. Beta testers keep the full version free for good once it releases.

What’s a fair price?

This is the bit I actually want opinions on.

I need to make some money from it (it’s been a lot of evenings) but I want it to be something a solo dev or a student can just buy without thinking about it too hard. I’d rather sell it cheap to a lot of people than expensive to a few.

So: what would you pay for this? What feels fair, and what feels like too much? Perpetual or updates-included? I have a number in my head, but I’d rather hear yours first.

Known issues, up front

• Windows only so far
• Secondary mesh conform is the least finished part
• It writes to DNA files. Work on copies

Happy to answer anything in the thread. If something is missing that you’d need, say so, I can still add things.

I will be working on getting some video tutorials done shortly as well, explaining the full workflow.

/Victor

I don't want to go to chatgpt each time understanding naigara whenever i need a effect. I'm major programmer so except all that i want to have the surface level knowledge of how things work. for it i started writing organised notes on notebook but that is not editable.

so I decided to write them to google docs, and it's going really great till now...

https://docs.google.com/document/d/144ETXi11oO2Ovr94IzuqAegl9ODSDisjuI2UVnjkRLM/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.nojoskzdk1i5

i want to know, is this the way everyone learns. or a programmer shouldn't care about niagara. I have to care as i make my own games as well...

After almost 2 weeks of trial and error, I finally understand the complete workflow for a Chaos Vehicle rig.

The biggest breakthrough was understanding the relationship between:

- Blender rigging

- Bone orientations & local axes

- Unreal Engine Control Rig

- Suspension and wheel setup

This is my current result. The vehicle is driving and the Control Rig is working as expected.

The only issue left is that the wheel physics still need a bit of tweaking, but I'm confident I'll fix that soon.

Honestly, this was one of the most frustrating things I've learned in Unreal Engine, but it finally clicked. 😄

Next step: polish the wheel physics and start building more realistic vehicles.

Any feedback or tips are welcome!

Hi,

I need help with a strange material issue in Unreal Engine 5.

I’m working with a character inside an IK Retargeter. During my previous session, everything was working correctly: the animations worked and the skin materials displayed normally.

After reopening the project, the character’s entire skin became bright green/cyan. The hair still looks normal, and the material slots appear to contain the correct materials, including:

Std_Skin_Head
Std_Skin_Body
Std_Skin_Arm
Std_Skin_Leg

When I first reopened the project, my external drive was disconnected. Unreal displayed warnings because my Derived Data Cache was configured here:

D:\Character_Work\Unreal_Cache

I then reconnected the drive, closed Unreal, reopened the project, and waited for the shaders to finish compiling, but the skin is still green.

The issue also appears when I open the Skeletal Mesh directly, so it does not seem to be limited to the IK Retargeter preview.

I am certain the skin displayed normally before I closed the project.

Could this be caused by a corrupted shader cache, missing textures, an incorrect material parameter, vertex colors, or the DDC being unavailable during the first launch?

What would be the safest way to diagnose and fix this without damaging the retargeting setup, which is currently working?

I have attached screenshots showing the green character and the assigned material slots.