Tech ART TRACK
Technical Art covers a wide range of skills and technologies. At Hard Edge you'll be mentored by a Technical Art Director who is actively working in the AAA games industry and knows firsthand what studios are looking for.
We teach the practical skills, portfolio strategies, and professional mindset you need to get hired.
What we offer:
Targeted training in Shaders, Blueprints, Performance Optimization and Tools development.
Personalized mentoring to build demonstrable, studio-ready projects
CV and portfolio review focused on what recruiters and leads actually value
Interview preparation and selection guidance tailored to Technical Art roles
Core concepts covered:
Shaders & VFX - Blueprints (Gameplay & Tooling)
Optimization and Performance Profiling
Python - C++
We are proud to be Unreal Authorized Gold Instructors for Epic Games!
It’s now three years in a row that Epic officially endorsed us for their Authorized Instructor program — and we hold the Gold Badge, the highest certification available.
Our training goes beyond standard instruction: you get expert-led, industry-tested mentoring that fast-tracks your technical-art and game-development skills for the job market.
Learning with us is a focused, practical experience tailored to your goals — see the testimonials below to hear how we’ve transformed careers.
Shaders 101
Learn a core skill for a tech artist, making art with math.
Start from the very basics to understand the building blocks of computer graphics.
From emulating blending modes found in photoshop to gerstner waves for ocean simulations, there is a lot to cover in this module !
Progress then to creating particle systems and understanding how you can integrate them with your newly found shader skills to build interactible effects.
Learn the Unreal Shader Graph
Translate it to HLSL
Implement Niagara particles and connect them to blueprints!
Modules
Student Artwork by Lemeng Shao
Blueprints / Tooling
A capable tech artist must be comfortable navigating multipe disciplines, blueprints are an incredibly important part of the Unreal Engine.
Take a step above the training you can find elsewhere, learn programming patterns and correct workflows.
Avoid common pitfalls that will endanger performance.
Build a small game prototype from scratch then optimize it !
Create UI with UMG and shaders
Enhance design speed with Editor Utility Widgets / Blueprint tools
Take advantage of Procedural Content Generation
Student Project by Kyle Landon
Optimization & PRofiling
Tech art is the first line of defence for performance and optimization issues.
A strong pipeline and validation structure is key for sucess.
Learn how to use Unreal Insights and how to inspect a rendered frame with PIX / Render Doc.
Take the game you’ve just created and learn the how’s and why’s of improving its performance.
Detect bottlenecks, squash spikes and eliminate hitches.
Understand Unreal’s Threadding Architecture
Learn how to use Unreal Insights
PIX
Validators
Nativizing Blueprints to C++
Python
Automation is one of the most important skills to learn as a tech artist.
There is no better tool to save time and build efficient workflows than the Python programming language.
Learn how to program from scratch, build time saving tools and demonstrate to hiring manager that you know exactly what it takes to help a production run smoothly.
Automate time consuming tasks
Build tools for DCCs (Maya / Blender / Houdini)
Learn UI / UX for tooling
Implement Python in Unreal
Learn to build automated rigging systems, tools for export/import into Unreal and more !
Tech Art distilled into its purest form
-
DURATION
12 Months
Live Classes every week (~2hrs)
Classes will be recorded
-
Video Content
Every module is acompanied by pre-recorded video content to supplement your learning.
~12 Hours Per Module
-
Career Coaching
CV and Portfolio review during the entire lenght of the course.
Mock Interview, Application Support.
Continued assistance after the course is finished help you land the industry job you dream of.
-
Real world Skills
We teach exactly what is needed for the day to day.
We do the job and know what it takes.
No stone left unturned, speak with confidence about the topics you learn.
-
Community
Join our Vibrant and helpful community on Discord, share your work get inspired and collaborate.
-
Industry Speakers
Get exclusive sessions and presentations from industry leading professionals to help you get an edge.
look at what our awesome students can do WITH OUR training !
Student Artwork : Melvin Wee
Student Artwork: Tassja Falcatan
Student Artwork: Kyle Landon
Student Artwork: Aden Thompson
What my students are saying:
“If you need direction, clarity, and mentorship from someone who truly understands tech art, Filipe is the person to learn from. He teaches what matters, explains it clearly, and guides you in a way that accelerates your growth. You’ll wish you joined sooner.”
— Jerry Liu : Tech Art Mentee
Filipe's level of expertise is off the charts, always willing to share and teach you, felt like and older brother you could always rely on.
— David Blasco : Vehicle Artist @ Lighthouse Games
“I just wanted to thank you, Your Class was amazing, your teaching style makes everything easy to follow, i will be signing up for the upcoming tech art Track!”
— Jonathan Ossten
“I found the bootcamp extremely helpful, and I now feel more confident working with Unreal Blueprints and building systems on my own. "
— Mohammad Zarei
“I was a complete beginner in UE5 and coding. By the end of the six weeks, I had created a project I’m genuinely proud of.
More importantly, I came away with a solid understanding of Blueprints in UE5 and a strong foundation in programming theory. ”
— Mathew Puckey : Game Dev Mentee
“I loved it and it was exactly what I was looking for:
better understanding and practice of Unreal's systems to make a modular and scalable game system. Your knowledge is really impressive and I appreciate all the attention to detail and answering of all our questions.”
— Farhan Qureshi
"It was the first time I created shaders where I genuinely understood why they worked, not just how to copy them“
Before Hard Edge, I felt stuck, like I was “faking it” technically.
Now I feel like I actually understand what I’m doing. It gave me clarity, confidence, and the ability to tackle more advanced Tech Art tasks.
I’m much more proactive, experimental, and capable.”
— Constantin Copony : Technical Artist @Deck 13
Limited Enrollment
Limited Enrollment
Enrollment is limited to 10 students per pod.
Maximum 2 pods.
The program starts every 3-6 months.
12 Months of Tech art with our Director Filipe Strazzeri - Live lessons every week - Pre recorded content - Career Coaching - Technical Art honed into a fine edge taught like you've never seen before. Please note that installment plans cost more due to transaction fees.
Frequently asked questions
-
Tech art is a specialized skillset inside 3D art and game dev. As such there are basic requirements to get the full enjoyment and sucess out of the course.
Experience building 3D models & materials with software such as Maya / Blender is required.
Understanding of Physically Based Rendering (PBR).
-
Yes all lessons are recorded, we ask that you download the archives right away as they will get removed from our cloud after 6 months.
Our classes are delivered via Zoom and pre made videos are using vimeo.
-
The Tech Art Track is focused on shaping the next generation of Technical Artists.
Our focus is on building generalists as that will give you the greatest reach in the job market and will also allow for specialization in one field that you enjoy the most.
Teams look for versatility, pro active jack of all trades are highly sought after in the job market.
-
Classes run on weekdays for 2 hours - Once a week.
6PM UK Time (GMT)
11AM LA Time (PDT)
(Guest speaker sessions will be extra to this)
Our instructors work in the industry during the day, they moonlight here to provide you with expert content.
Your pod will be assigned a slot, on a weekday that best fits your schedule, we try and group students in similar timezones.
-
Our feedback is given directly during the first hour of the live sessions, Q&As are held and we do our best to cover every student’s needs.
We also give feedback in written format on the discord, audio messages or in private calls.
Not everyone can make the live classes, but nobody gets left behind.
We will take care of you.
If your class is very large (max 10) we may do individual feedback separately as we still teach fresh content in the classes and there has to be at least 1 hour alocated for that.
-
No other course exists that will shape you into a tech artist in 12 months.
This is a mentorship through and through, we will guide and help you every step of the way.
Our content is specialized and unique, we work in the industry and most of our insider knowledge cannot be found elsewhere.
-
Our content is taught 2 weeks on one week off.
We know life can sometimes get in the way, our training is different and accounts for that.
All video content and live lessons are available to you and so if you cannot continue the course for whatever reason it is possible for you to learn at your own pace.
We will also make sure you get all the career advice / coaching needed if you fall out of pace with the rest of your group.
-
In order to be sucessful in anything you have to dedicate time, we recommend at least 1 to 2 hours per day of the week during the program to achieve best results.
To be a tech artist means to be driven, thirsty for learning, there is always something new in the horizon.
-
Zoom
Unreal Engine 5
Visual Studio Code / PyCharm (Python)
Visual Studio / JetBrains Rider (C++)
Optionally your 3D application of choice (Maya/ Blender) if you wish to produce custom content during the course.
-
If you aren’t able to pay in full or in 12 installements please get in touch via the contat form and let us know your situation.
We are flexible and would like to help.
Lets talk and see what we can do.