Introduction

Layout + You0-welcome

Welcome to Layout’s Virtual Reality Content Creation course! In the coming weeks, you'll learn how to make cutting edge VR content using Unreal Engine 4.

Each lesson will teach you powerful UE4 tools and fundamental VR concepts. Knowing programming fundamentals will help you move faster and allow you to experiment beyond each lesson, but we have plenty of supplementary material along the way to help you if you are new to programming. The Unreal Engine Documentation, Answerhub, and Forums are great additional resources to help you as you learn.

Lessons are set up as guided tutorials with occasional challenges. Challenges are not meant to test you, but instead are meant to keep you engaged and facilitate true learning. Use them as an opportunity to practice and cement the concepts we cover. The answer to each challenge is provided after you've decided you're ready to check your work.

Making content for VR is a new art and you’re on the frontier.

Let’s get started.


Setup

This process may take several hours depending on your internet speed.

Oculus

  • Set up your Oculus Rift if you haven't already.

The lessons are currently written with the Oculus Rift in mind. Fortunately, if you have a Vive, you'll still be able to do nearly everything in the course. Check out UE4's Vive Getting Started Guide for your initial setup. Later on, you may also want to check out the Motion Controller Guide to use the Vive controllers in your projects.

Unreal Engine

  • Go to the Unreal Engine website.
  • Click Get Unreal in the upper right.
  • Create a free account and then download the Epic Games Launcher
  • Open the Epic Games Launcher and begin downloading Unreal Engine 4.11

Layout Starter Projects

  • Layout has one master starter project that you'll use in each lesson. Move on to Lesson 1 to get the download link.

A note on learning something new:

Learning is difficult. No matter how many bells and whistles an online course has, teaching yourself and learning anything new requires a lot of work. The way to make learning not feel like work is to have fun while doing it. Here are some tips on how to have fun while learning:

  • Experiment. Take a break from the lessons and experiment with something you’re interested in. If you ever ask yourself, “How does this tool work when I use it like this?” Try it out! This is your adventure.
  • Try and try again. When doing anything new, your first try won’t work. The only way to get it to work is to keep trying. The best way to learn is to fail fast and keep going.
  • Strive to understand. This course is not a tutorial for you to mindlessly follow. We hope that you take your time to understand what is happening. Use the challenges throughout the course as an opportunity to test yourself.
  • Keep the end in mind. What am I trying to accomplish in this lesson? Why am I taking this course? What do I want to make with everything I learn? These are all questions you should have answers to. You need reasons to learn effectively.