Learn Vertex Painting in Unreal Engine 5 - For Free Course Udemy

Learn how to use vertex colors to add more complexity to your 3D models

Summary

This course on using vertex colors in Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) aims to enhance the complexity and quality of 3D models. It targets beginner game developers and 3D artists looking to improve their assets through vertex painting techniques.

Course Outline:

Introduction to Vertex Colors:
- Basics of Vertex Color Information: Understanding how vertex colors store data that can be used in 3D modeling.
- Blending Materials: Techniques for blending single and multiple materials using vertex colors.
- Quixel Master Blend Material: Utilizing Quixel tools to streamline workflows and enhance material application.
Requirements:
- Basic navigation skills in UE5 are recommended but not mandatory.
Description:
- Vertex Painting Overview: Vertex painting is a crucial tool for 3D artists, particularly for blending different textures. This technique allows artists to enhance their models without adding extra details, thus increasing both quality and variety.
- Practical Application in UE5: The course covers how to use the Vertex Paint Tool in UE5, including painting, debugging vertex painting channels, and visualizing data.
- Material Creation: Starting from single material blends, the course progresses to more complex blends involving multiple channels.
- Quixel’s Automatic Blending Material: This part focuses on using Quixel’s tools to apply learned techniques efficiently, saving time and improving workflow.
Course Content:
- Vertex Color Theory (05:25)
- Basic Vertex Color (07:39)
- Basic Vertex Painting (09:54)
- Height Lerp (06:04)
- Modifying Megascans Assets (11:31)
- Quixel Master Blend Material (06:55)

Learning Outcomes:

Participants will gain skills in using vertex colors to blend materials, enhancing their 3D models without additional modeling efforts. They will learn practical vertex painting techniques in UE5, making their game worlds appear richer and more complex, akin to AAA game projects. The course also aims to optimize workflow efficiency through the use of Quixel Master Blend Material.

Target Audience:

The course is designed for beginner game developers and 3D artists who aspire to improve the visual quality of their assets, leveraging the power of vertex painting in UE5.

What You’ll Learn

Learn the basics of vertex color information for 3D models inside UE5
Learn how to blend 1 single material using vertex colors
Learn how to blend multiple materials using vertex colors
Learn how to use Quixel Master Blend Material to improve your workflow

Requirements

A basic understanding on how to navigate in Unreal Engine 5 is preferred but not mandatory.

Description

Vertex Painting is a tool for 3D Artist to generate data that can be used for many things. The most popular one is to blend different textures.

In order to use vertex painting you will learn how to paint inside Unreal Engine 5 using the Vertex Paint Tool. You will learn the basic theory and how to debug different vertex painting channels to visualize the data.

Then you will learn how to create materials that can use this vertex color information. We will start with one single blend but then we will increase the complexity by adding multiple blends to different channels.

This method will allow you to increase the quality and complexity of your 3D models without the need to add more modeling details. It is extremely useful to add variation to your worlds and uniqueness to each asset so that you can create a rich and complex world.

Last but not least, we will take a look at Quixel’s automatic Blending Material that uses Vertex Painting to quickly apply everything we learnt and save time when creating your own materials in the future.

Vertex Painting is widely used in all AAA game projects and it is the secret to make them look like they have rich and complex worlds. After watching this course you will be able to do the same on your own projects.