Video from Jan 29 2026

Here's a video, hosted on YouTube, of one of the class sessions from Thursday 29 January, introducing Unreal 5.7.

https://youtu.be/DceRaRHHo1w

Please note that you need to be signed in to YouTube with your Miami ID to watch the video.

Below are my notes from the class. They are in a kind of shorthand, and so may not be as useful as watching the video, above.

For Tuesday 3 February

Your assignment:
Using the shapes and techniques we've talked about
BUILD SOMETHING. Create some MODERN ART-style sculpture in the middle of the PLAYGROUND space we cleared out on Thursday (29 January). Try to use at least a dozen different static meshes of all shapes, sizes, rotations.

There's no need to add materials (color, texture) for now: Just the raw shapes are a great way to get started!

Agenda Thursday Jan 29

Introducing UNREAL ENGINE 5.7

Unreal is a challenging environment: Our goal is to begin to master the environment.

This does not mean that you'll produce masterpieces from WITHIN the environment. It means that you'll begin to understand how portions of this environment work together.

Today will be a lot for some folks. That's OK. We'll proceed slowly; grab my attention if you're falling behind right away, and we'll help you get caught up.

PLEASE PAY ATTENTION and don't wander off doing your own thing unless you already know what is happening. If you know what you're doing, take this time to build and refine your skills but don't distract people. OR if you like, hang out and help people as they run into trouble.

Everything we'll do in these tutorials is carefully sequenced, one new thing after another, each new thing depends on you having done the last successfully. So if you head off in your own direction and get lost, and then need help, that's OK, we'll get you back into the fold, but please stick with us so we don't have to backtrack too much.

But this is complicated, and people are going to get lost. When you realize something isn't going according to plan just let us know and we'll get you caught up.

One thing to encourage (although it is new to me): Experiment with the Developer AI that Epic has in beta. Since it is trained on the documentation, it could be really useful.

https://dev.epicgames.com/community/assistant/unreal-engine

From the LAUNCHER
My suggestions....
Go into SETTINGS

• run in background
  X when PC starts
• hide game library
  X Enable cloud saves

The LIBRARY tab is where you'll find the projects you're building.

They get HUGE; even a small experiment can become 5GB in size quickly, so you need to keep track of them.

At the bottom of Library tab is your QUIXEL BRIDGE and FAB library. We'll worry about those later, but they'll eventually be VERY IMPORTANT.

Versions

You can also see the versions of unreal you have installed.

They get updated frequently. You may have 5.7.1 or 5.7.2. Minor point updates are generally bug fixes. FOR THE MOST PART, DO NOT UPDATE UNREAL UNLESS YOU NEED TO, especially in the middle of a project in the middle of the semester.

You can launch from the PROJECT itself or from the LAUNCH button. Let's use the Launch button.

LOTS OF STUFF, most of it is very new. TRY IT! Experiment! That's the only way you'll really learn.

For us:
Click NEW PROJECT on LEFT.
Click THIRD PERSON.

Where Things Are Stored

NOW:

Let's look at where this stuff is stored.

Project LOCATION at bottom.
Open that up, then create a shortcut and put it on your desktop.

We'll come back

Give proj meaningful name. No spaces, always letter first, always short. I go with dates in my names

IMS213FirstDemoJan29

Create it. It'll compile as it launches Unreal Engine 5.7

Customizing Details in the Viewport

This is the viewport.
These are Viewport Buttons.

Start with SCALABILITY button
REDUCE IT to MIDDLE (or even LOW). Makes life easier.
Now the button is orange to alert you.

Camera Bookmarks

Start by storing camera position (VERY IMPORTANT)
CTRL1 you'll see a note
VeRY EASY TO GET LOST in 3D, you NEED these camera bookmarks.

Moving Around

Move around in VIEWPORT.
RIGHT MOUSE BUTTON
MOVE MOUSE
Look around

Back to Camera 1

Now jump back to CAM1 pos
hit 1 on keyboard

More Movement

NOW WITHOUT moving mouse
RIGHT button + WASD
RIGHT button + Q down
RIGHT button + E up

Back to Cam 1

NOW go back to 1

Complex Movement

NOW, like this is a 1st person shooter,
RIGHT BUTTON + mouse move + WASD

Give This a Try

Now go to hover above each corner of playground face center and set a camera bookmark. 2,3,4,and 5.

Don't like where you're at, just reposition and CTRL-n again overwrites.

THAT'S a LOT of what you'll do all semester long.

NOW let's deal with the STUFF we have in front of us.

These things, grey, green, are what we call STATIC MESHES. 95% of the time this semester, you will be dealing with STATIC MESHES. Some systems call them PRIMS or PRIMITIVES. They're basic shapes which makes them CHEAP to create and render.

Let's look at one closely.

Selecting a Mesh

Now SELECT the cylinder in center by clicking on it.

Yellow outline means it is selected.

Look in your outliner to see it selected
Look in DETAILS to see its details.
Press F to FOCUS in on it.
Use mouse wheel to zoom in out
Get a bit away from it.
hold ALT + LEFT mouse button + Mouse left-right to orbit. Reposition if necessary. Click F again, then orbit.

Go back to CAMERA1, pick something, zoom in out orbit orbit it.

Go back to CAMERA3 pick something zoom in out orbit.

OK

Let's use the outliner

What to Do When the Interface Gets Messed Up?

I.E., Missing Windows, Tabs, Etc.

What happens when my interface gets messed up?

Close Outliner, stretch details panel
OK
Go to WINDOW > Load Layout > DEFAULT
Remember that, you'll NEED IT.

From cam pos 1
In outliner
Close up the LIGHTING
Under PLAYGROUND
double click on FLOOR
this is the same as FOCUSING
Orbit around the floor

Double click on a few other things
see how camera snaps to them?
Orbit

Now back to double click on FLOOR

Let's rename it to MYFLOOR
naming things and ordering them in the OUTLINER REALLY IMPORTANT
To RENAME:
either RightClick > EDIT > RENAME or F2 or select it then click again

now go back to CAMERA1
Pick cylinder in center
See it in OUTLINER
Now delete it
Gone from VIEWPORT
Gone from Outliner
Gone from your game

Did you do that accidentally,
CTRL - Z to undo -- this key combo will UNDO the deletion.

But go ahead and delete it again,
In fact, to prep for our first project,
go ahead and delete everything in the center of the PLAYGROUND.

If you accidentally delete floor,
Bring it back with CTRL-Z.

so everything from the middle is gone
GREAT
Let's SAVE the project

Saving the Project

Look on tab
LvL_ThirdPerson followed by anASTERISK
An asterisk next to something always means UNSAVED
But LvL_ThirdPerson wasn't the name we assigned our PROJECT.
Project name is on upper right hand side
LEVEL name, is on the TAB

Your games will typically have several levels, this is just the default

SO LET'S SAVE EVERYTHING

CHOOSE "SAVE ALL" from the drop-down menu.

Quit UNREAL.
Go to PROJECTS
Open that directory
When things break, we'll often have to come back here to fix things.
.uproject is the MAIN project FILE

The SAVED folder is where your screenshots will eventually go

The INTERMEDIATE and DATACACHE folders are processing files and are generally disposable (but we want to avoid that if we can)

CONFIG is where your project config files are stored

Finally, the CONTENT folder is the MAIN FOLDER
It is where all your project's assets are stored
It is shaped by you, but as we go, we'll talk about the standards that you need to adhere to.
Let's have a look!
Open the CONTENT folder, choose the Third Person folder.

In there, you'll see the file
Lvl_ThirdPerson.umap
That is the level we were just editing.

NOW:
Technically, we can rename these files, delete them, add new files, etc.
BUT
For the most part, don't do that. Leave these files alone. ONLY MAKE CHANGES from within UNREAL's file browser, not from within YOUR file browser, OK?

But let's do ONE THING before we go.

Backing Up Your Project

Go up to the project level and right click on project file and create a zip. Rename it BACKUP DAY ONE.zip. Now if you get in trouble, you have this perfect copy of your project that you can come back to.

Placing Actors in Your Project

Go back to launcher, open project by double-clicking it.

Everything just like you left it
Check camera positions

Let's actually make something now.
PLACE ACTORS
actors are things in your level; they are like objects
Place a SHAPE > CUBE
FOCUS in on it
Orbit it
See the GIZMO in the CENTER
That is how we TRANSFORM the INSTANCE of the STATIC MESH
MOVE IT AROUND
UP DOWN FORWARD BACK
Orbit around it a bit
Move it around some more

See how location data changes on right
type in location data
or put mouse in window LMB mouse move

Reset it to 0,0,0 with tiny back arrow icon

Other Kinds of Transforms

Rotate and Scale

TWO OTHER TRANSFORMS
Upper lefthand of viewport buttons
CHOOSE ROTATE
Experiment with rotation
See how the numbers change
Reset it
NOW
CHOOSE SCALE, the last TRANSFORM
Scale it up and down
Can always CTRLZ
OR reset in the details panel

GRAB the MIDDLE of the SCALE GIZMO
in order to scale things uniformly
reset it by hitting the little "back" arrow next to the SCALE TRANSFORM data in the DETAILS panel (bottom right panel on screen).

LOCATION GIZMO
DRAG Cube above floor
Now press END to seat it perfectly on floor
It aligns the faces
On Mac FN RIGHT ARROW

Now lets create duplicates and place them

Renaming

To keep track tho let's rename the cube
Go to the OUTLINER
Rename (F2) to SM_MyCube
ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS SM_name
SM stands for static mesh
You will have hundreds and hundreds of different actors in your outliner YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO LOOK AT THEM AND KNOW IN AN INSTANT, AH, that's a mesh, that's a blueprint, that's a widget, that's a light. YOU MUST ADOPT THIS HABIT.

Duplicate and Move

Select myCube
Select move gizmo
HOLD ALT and drag along axis (mac OPT)
Release
Select again
HOLD ALT and drag
So create four cubes next to each other

Now MULTI SELECT holding SHIFT while you choose them

Then with all selected, go to gizmo, ALT and drag

Now add a sphere
Roughly place on top of cube
so it is higher but generally aligned
rename it to MYSPHERE so it doesn't get lost

OK.

Multiple Windows in the Viewport

CAD/CAM View

the viewport is a miraculous place -- if you've used cad software or blender this will be very familiar.

Go to viewports view button on upper righthand of viewport click it

In outliner double-click on sm_mysphere
all the windows will focus on it.
TOP FRONT RIGHT PERSPECTIVE
Hover over window you can MOUSEWHEEL zoom IN OUT
RIGHT CLICK in window you can move around
click on sphere (hard to do).
BUT
Using the different window points of view
try to get your sphere exactly over top of one of the cubes
work in one window at a time
THIS CAN BE HARD TO FIGURE OUT AT FIRST.
Then use ALT-DRAG to duplicate sphere
Put it over top of another cube.
When we're done, go back to VIEWPORT WINDOWS button and maximize our PERSPECTIVE VIEWPORT view.

They should be almost perfectly placed!

Grabbing a Screenshot

WE DIDN'T GET TO THIS YET,
We'll do it on Tuesday!

Let's grab screenshot
First position your camera at perfect angle
Save it to a bookmark

Go back to PERFORMANCE SCALABILITY BUTTON
(ORANGE probably)
Click to set it to EPIC or CINEMATIC
That's important here.
go to our COMMAND LINE BOX

type HIGHRESSHOT 2
Make sure you get both S's
Space between word and 2
It'll take a moment, you should see notifying popups

NOW click on the output log button
Scroll to bottom,
You'll see all the stuff happening in background
It will tell you it saved

(This data is ugly but you'll have to get used to it!)

Now minimize UE
open up our project DIR
Go to project, then to SAVED
Then to SCREENSHOTS
It should be in there somewhere.

Great
Go back to UE
Change the scalability setting back to MEDIUM
Save all
close out
You are done