The Unreal Engine journey officially begins here. This day is designed to introduce you to the Unreal Engine 5 (UE5) interface and essential workflow concepts, making the engine feel approachable and intuitive. You’ll start by downloading and installing the Epic Games Launcher and creating your first UE5 project. Once inside the engine, you’ll explore the layout—Viewport, Content Browser, World Outliner, Details Panel, and Toolbar—and learn how each component contributes to world-building.

Navigation is key, so expect to spend time mastering how to move around the 3D environment with ease using mouse and keyboard shortcuts. You’ll then proceed to importing basic assets—3D models, textures, and audio—and organizing them into folders using best practices for clean project management.

Next, we introduce the concept of Materials. You’ll learn how to create a basic material using the Material Editor, assign it to a mesh, and preview it in real-time. This includes understanding simple node-based setups, such as Base Color, Metallic, Roughness, and Normal connections.

To wrap up the day, you’ll build your very first simple scene—placing static meshes like chairs, walls, lights, and floor pieces to create a small interactive environment. You’ll also add a light source and tweak some camera settings to experience real-time changes in lighting and material behavior.

By the end of Day 13, you’ll have a solid understanding of Unreal Engine’s core interface, navigation, and basic world construction. This foundational knowledge sets the stage for deeper topics like scripting, animation, and full gameplay systems in the days ahead.