Mentorship Info
In this Mentorship, the artist will learn about creating shaders in their choice of Unreal or Unity to achieve effects for anything from characters and environment assets, to vfx and post-processing.
We will begin by discussing goals for what you want to work on and how you want to expand your knowledge. This could mean tackling a specific shader, walking through the use of essential nodes/functions, or growing in understanding of the entire real-time rendering pipeline.
We can also discuss other key qualities of a successful technical artist, like general problem-solving, bridging the gap between artists and engineers, and pathfinding for your team.
By the end of the mentorship, you will have gained exposure to a variety of industry-proven workflows and techniques for making shaders. You will also have a deeper understanding of rendering and the responsibilities of a tech artist.
⮟ Areas of Focus
- Material/shader editor fundamentals
- Advanced pixel and vertex shader creation
- HLSL / custom shader nodes
- Vector math
- Rendering technology
- Performance profiling and optimization
- Problem-solving
⮟ Mentorship Details
- Feedback - Calls + Discord Community + Mentorship Notebook
- Skill Level - Beginner To Advanced
- Prerequisites - Basic knowledge of Unreal Engine 4 or Unity
⮟ Tools Used
- Unreal Engine / Unity
- Shader Graph / HLSL
- Substance Designer (Optional)
- Houdini (Optional)
Byte Size Memberships From
$235/mo
Monthly or quarterly.
Tier 1 ($235)
Tier 2 ($470)
Standard Mentorship
$800
1 month
4x1.5 hour calls.
6 total hours
Premium Mentorship
$2400
Spans 5 Months
8x1.5 hour calls
Additional 3x45 minute checkin calls
Mentorship Calls
Our Mentors bring a personalized approach to each Mentorship through One On One calls featuring hands on training and live demonstrations.
Exclusive Community Access
Each Mentorship comes with lifetime access to The Mentor Coalition Discord community. The community is vibrant with driven members sharing their work, giving feedback, and participating in challenges.
Mentorship Notebook
The Mentorship Notebook is shared resource between you and the Mentor. Use it to share your work, ask questions, and get feedback & paint overs from your Mentor!
Mentor Bio
Aaron Aikman | Lead Technical Artist, Graphics
Aaron Aikman is a Lead Technical Artist at Blizzard Entertainment who focuses mainly on shaders, performance, procedural art pipelines, and problem-solving. He has worked on AAA titles, indie games, cinematics, remasters, film, tv, and amusement park rides - often wearing the many hats of a tech art generalist. He now specializes in graphics - from shaders and rendering technology, to performance profiling and optimization. He frequently works on dynamic surfaces like water, snow, ice, clouds, fog, and lava. He sees Mentorship as an opportunity to provide the kind of back and forth discussion and training that might happen on the job, equipping tech artists to better face the technical challenges and responsibilities ahead of them.
