Creating Modular Planets in Unreal Engine 4

I was hoping this course would allow me to create "modular planets" but the final spheres have pinched polar coordinates making the planets unusable.

I took this course for two reasons. One to learn more about material work and two to learn how to set up blueprints for orbiting systems. Of these, I achieved one goal (the later). The class focuses mostly on material work, via material graphs. What I expected was to be able to learn how to use some of the nodes on my own. What I can do, now, is replicate the nodes as presented and make minor adjustments. I've developed no further understanding of how materials work. (If you are beginner there is very little here for you, if you are past the beginning stages, I'd argue there is nothing here at all for you). With regards to the blueprints for orbiting systems. This section goes a bit more in-depth, as if the instructor was more comfortable here than with materials. If you are beginner there is plenty here for you (it is a bit hard to see though). If you're past the beginner level with UE then there is nothing here for you (outside of maybe using dynamic material instances via blueprints). It is not clear if the course content is complete or not. The instructor kept referencing coming back to one of the material nodes (those related to changing the lighting on the planet) in the blueprints. I do not remember coming back to that node and a comparison between the master file and the work as completed via the instructions show there are some differences that aren't just style (e.g., color) choices. Another example, in the blueprint they reference the fact that the blueprint will only work for one system and not if you procedurally generating multiple. The way the instructor makes it sound, it appears as if they will return to it. (By the way for anyone who wants to know how to do this, get the length of an the array of sun, store their locations in a temporary variable, do the same for the planets, then have it group planets by the sun they are nearest). Ways to improve: 1) Provide a clear structure for the lessons (I think this was done in just one lesson) 2) Explain the nodes used in more depth (for material section, you do this well in the blueprint section) 3) Recap how the nodes are working together (especially for the material section) 4) Summary of achieved goals at end of each lesson (this is done in some)

It was a good course except for the MPC part which was basically a waste of time and only served as an example of what not to do. Atmosphere shading was very basic and I would have really liked it if the instructor had shown how to create a believable planetary atmosphere or used more advanced material functions to add other improvements. Still, I'm very happy with the course.

Seriously love this course. I have just completed the material part and absolutely loved the way the instructor put it all together.He explains everything, I have prior experience with the UE4 material shader system and found this course worth the money and fun.

Overall this is a solid coarse. I knew a lot about the materials already myself. However, while he did go into blueprints I felt like he could have gone into a lot more details. His material coverage was much greater than the blueprint coverage. I found at the ending being left with a few exposed variables that I wasn't sure what they were for.

This a great and succinct course on creating nice and interchangeable materials and shaders that give you a great base to be able to apply to your own projects and ideas. The Blueprinting side of things is also clearly explained at the end of it you have a cool little project that you can customise and add to. The files included are also helpful, as they explain (in terms of the blueprinting) what each step of the process entails.

This was short and sweet. Gets you familiarized with textures, lerps, fresnel, panners, etc, and how to create dynamic materials in blueprint. I'm using the material we made in my current game!

I have prior experience with creating materials and blueprints in the Unreal Engine, so navigating my way around/ following what was going on hasn't been an issue for me. This tutorial has expanded my understand of materials in the engine and allowed me to develop a rather adaptive shader for my other projects. The instructor Greg was clear in his descriptions and would often explain why you were doing what was in the video rather than just making it a "copy what I am doing" type tutorial. I am very pleased with the outcome from this course and feel I have had real value for money. There was an issue with the video order towards the end of the course which caused me confusion but I was able to achieve the end result with some common sense. I will be recommending this to other people.