Math Essentials for Tech Art in Unreal Engine

Hey! This tutorial series covers the essential math for technical artists.

Important material and Blueprint nodes are explained through popular examples, which you're likely to encounter in everyday tasks. Whether you're a programmer, an artist or a tech artist in need for a recap - you will find a useful tip for sure!

This project originated when I've done my 3-hour long math Twitch stream.

I recorded everything from scratch again. I divided the topics into concise, 10 to 20-minute long tutorials. They're brief and packed with knowledge, coming from my decade of experience in the games industry. You can watch my existing tutorials at TechArtAid.com.

Included videos

Full HD .MP4 videos with complete audio commentary in English:

Dot product (16 min)

Learn how to use dot product in Unreal materials. Create a ghost effect, procedural snow layer, fake directional lighting and a silhouette glow.

• Silhouette glow

• Math & values

• Ghost transparency

• Fake diffuse lighting

• Procedural snow

• Desaturation

• Oversaturation

Linear interpolation (20 min)

Learn how to mix values, blend textures and interpolate object transforms with Lerp.

• Math & values

• Clamping to [0, 1]

• Color mixing

• Texture blending in materials

• Better transition with HeightLerp

• Lerp in Blueprint. Instancing

• Mapping a For loop index to [0, 1] range

• Location & rotation lerp

• Landscape tiling fix

• Camera depth with RemapValueRange

Sine (7 min)

Use sine for a pulsing material, wave masks and a flickering light with emissive glow. Learn how to animate material and light color over time - in sync with Blueprint.

• Math & values

• Nodes

• Pulsing animated glow

• Wave pattern in material

• Blueprint: location displacement

• Final words

Advanced sine (15 min)

Use sine for a flickering light in Blueprint, with animated material and synchronized light color. Rotate UV maps or any 2D vectors with sine and cosine. Learn about performance cost of sin/cos nodes - quarter-rate on RDNA architecture. Are they worth replacing with smoothstep (Hermite) approximation?

• Flickering lamp: Time in materials and BP

• Noise equation

• Using Math Expression node

• Rotating texture UV in materials

• Performance of sine & cosine on GPU

• Approximating cos using smoothstep

Requirements

I assume you are able to use Unreal Engine, Material Editor and Blueprint Editor. Basic knowledge of the software is required. However, you don't need to be skilled in mathematics. Elementary school knowledge is enough.

Project files

Scenes & materials seen in the videos are available as a separate option on purchase. Compatible with Unreal Engine 4.24, 4.25 4.26 and 5.0 EA (after converting).

Support

Feel free to reach me about the product at support -at- techartaid.com.