BECOME A TECHNICAL ARTIST

This session establishes what a Technical Artist does in a modern game studio. We’ll break down how the role sits between art, engineering, and production, and why studios rely on TAs to keep pipelines efficient and games performant. You’ll gain a clear mental model of where Technical Artists operate, how they collaborate across teams, and how this role translates into real production responsibilities and job opportunities.

• Role and responsibilities 
• Game development pipeline
• Skills and common tools 
• Cross-functional collaboration

This lesson focuses on how assets move through a real production pipeline and what Technical Artists look for when validating them. Rather than modelling or texturing, you’ll learn to inspect assets from a TA’s perspective: spotting issues early and understanding how small problems can snowball into performance or integration issues later in development.

• Expanded game development pipeline
• The asset journey
• Introduction to DCCs for TAs
• Demo: Asset inspection and validation in Blender

Assignment #1: Asset Preparation (Blender / DCC)
Prepare a provided asset for Unreal import by inspecting scale, transforms, materials, and mesh integrity from a Technical Artist perspective.

This session gets you comfortable inside Unreal Engine and familiar with how assets are organised in real studio projects. You’ll learn how Technical Artists navigate Unreal, manage assets, and troubleshoot common import issues so you can work confidently inside the engine alongside artists and developers.

• Installing Unreal Engine 5.5 
• Project setup & folder structure
• Interface overview & navigation
• Asset types in Unreal
• Demo: Import pipeline from DCC to Unreal

Assignment #2 (Optional): Unreal Familiarisation
Explore Unreal’s interface and asset structure using a sample project.

Here you’ll bring an asset to life by setting up animation, collision, and basic Blueprint logic. The focus is on how Technical Artists use Blueprints to bridge art and gameplay — connecting visuals, input, and behaviour without writing heavy gameplay code.

• Applying animation sets
• Blueprint fundamentals
• Triggering animations & simple logic
• Collision setup & movement constraints
• Intro to tooling in Unreal
• Demo: Creating a simple playable character
• How TA tasks connect to game logic

Assignment #3: Bring Your Asset to Life
Create a simple playable character using Blueprints, animation, and collision in Unreal.

This session demystifies Python for artists and designers transitioning into Technical Art. You’ll build a practical understanding of how Python works, how to read and reason about scripts, and why scripting is one of the most powerful tools a TA can have.

• What is Python?
• Python in game development
• Python syntax fundamentals
• Demo: Python fundamentals in action

Assignment #4 (Optional): Python Fundamentals Practice
Complete guided exercises covering core Python concepts.

This lesson applies Python to real Technical Artist workflows, focusing on automation and asset validation. You’ll see how small scripts can eliminate manual checks, prevent errors, and improve pipeline reliability—exactly how Python is used in production environments.

• Why TAs use Python
• Python inside DCCs
• Accessing and modifying object data
• Automating asset validation
• Detecting missing materials or bad hierarchy
• Connecting Python to asset workflows
• Demo: Asset validation and part-swapping scripts

Assignment #5: Asset Validation Script
Create or modify a Python script that validates at least one aspect of an asset and explain why it matters in a TA pipeline.

This session provides industry context around how games are developed from concept to release. You’ll learn the terminology studios use, how teams collaborate across long production cycles, and what “full lifecycle experience” actually means in practice.

• Stages of the game 
• Waterfall vs. Agile methodologies
• Case study: Postmortems
• Version control systems 
• Crunch, soft launch, & iteration cycles
• Cross-team collaboration concepts & workflows

Assignment #6 (Optional): Postmortem Presentation
Analyse a published game postmortem and present key takeaways.

This lesson explores how scripting enables interactive art in Unreal. You’ll learn how data flows between objects, materials, and gameplay systems, and how Technical Artists use Blueprints to create responsive, logic-driven environments and characters.

• Basics of scripting for games
• Scripting in Unreal Engine 
• Creating interactive art with code
• Demo: Creating a three-light setup

Assignment #7: Interactive Blueprint Scenario
Build a Blueprint interaction that connects gameplay logic with visual response.

This session introduces shaders from a Technical Artist perspective, focusing on how they affect visuals and performance. You’ll learn how to read and reason about shader code and understand when different shader types are used in production.

• Shaders in real-time rendering
• Shader languages & node-based workflows
• Types of shaders
• Shader types in production
• Demo: Creating simple shaders

Assignment #8: Shader Exercise
Create or modify a simple shader effect and explain what it does.

This lesson focuses on shader optimisation and production constraints. You’ll explore how shaders evolve from prototypes into shippable solutions and how Technical Artists balance performance, visual style, and platform limitations.

• Shader optimisation techniques
• Performance considerations
• Shader variants & custom shader writing 
• Case study: Sea of Thieves water shader postmortems
• Demo: Optimising and adapting a shader

Assignment #9: Water Shader Optimisation
Optimise a water shader while balancing performance, style, and platform constraints.

This session introduces tool development from a Technical Artist’s perspective. You’ll learn how to identify workflow pain points, design effective tools, and automate repetitive tasks to improve efficiency across teams.

• Too development 
• Tools for production efficiency
• Scripting for tool development 
• UI/UX considerations 
• What makes a “good” tool vs a bad one

Assignment #10: Tool Concept + Lightweight Implementation
Design and implement a lightweight tool or automation script that addresses a real workflow problem.

This class expands tool development into game engines, focusing on Unreal-based tools and extensions. You’ll gain conceptual understanding of plugins, editor tools, and engine-level workflows without being overwhelmed by heavy engineering details.

• Creating tools for game engines
• Developing plugins and extensions 
• Testing, debugging, and documenting tools
• Demo: Creating a lightweight Unreal tool

Assignment #11 (Optional): Tool Extension Concept
Extend your tool idea into a more advanced Unreal-focused concept.

This session focuses on diagnosing and solving performance issues in Unreal. You’ll learn how Technical Artists profile scenes, identify bottlenecks, and make informed trade-offs between visual fidelity and runtime performance.

• Nanite virtualised geometry
• Lumen global illumination
• Optimisation techniques & profiling tools
• Workshop: Performance Troubleshooting

Assignment #12: Performance Troubleshooting
Analyse a performance scenario and propose multiple optimisation strategies.