Node graphs are how you sketch a shader; HLSL is how you understand one. This track teaches the language under every material editor - because the day a graph can't do what the AD wants, or runs at 9ms when the budget says 2, the TA who reads code is the one who fixes it.
Floats, vectors, swizzles, UVs, lerp, and the five functions behind 90% of material work - taught through effects you already know from the graph.
-> S-02Where HLSL plugs into Unreal's material editor: the Custom node, material functions as a library, and master-material design that doesn't melt permutations.
-> S-03The field guide: output-the-suspect, isolate-by-bisection, the classic wrong-looks catalogue (NaNs, sRGB, tangent space), and the profiling views.
->Prerequisites: Materials 101 for the node-graph vocabulary, and nothing else - the HLSL page assumes zero code. Companions: the material performance guide for the budget side, the noise generator and channel packer for feeding your shaders, and the TA math cheat sheet for the dot/cross/lerp family that shader work leans on daily. If this track clicks harder than anything else on the site, read the shader specialization profile - it may have chosen you.
The Technical Artist