The concept is really nice, can’t wait to see more. 
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Thank you ! And yep their will be more !
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LOG 04 : Laser Rocket (Concept Art)
Infos : We are getting close to the end of the Voxel Horror Jam and we have still a lot of things to do ! And my part time job also doesn’t help my vfx learning road. I still want to forge myself some good vfx concept skills, for now they are too much on the 2D side but I will work on it. Creating concept is really fun and help a lot on understanding how the vfx will be build !
The sketch
1 Like
LOG 05 : Toxic Arrow (Concept Art)
Infos : I learned a few very good techniques and I want to try them out so here we go ! This time, I’m working on a projectile, a toxic arrow (launch, projectile, impact). I want to be able to create different types of projectile (toxic, fire, ice, dark magic etc…) but with the same foundation. I will need to figure out how to generalize the process to avoid a complete recreation of the shader/vfx. If you have some tips on how to create a good vfx workflow on UE4, I will be glad to here them ! For those who did not saw or read this, here is an article of the workflow of Matias Mahler in Spellbreak, very interesting !
Soooo yeah, I almost forget ! Here is the concept for my future toxic arrow ! I’m pretty happy with the result because, I can imagine how I will proceed on UE4 to create this effect. Again, far from perfect but I’m slowly, gently progressing.
The full concept
2 Likes
LOG 06 : Toxic Arrow (UE4)
Infos : I tried to follow my concept and create the toxic arrow in Unreal Engine. I quickly found out some things that needed to be modified like the shot which was too simple. In overall, I’m very happy with the result ! I want to create different types of elements like fire, divine, dark magic and so on of this attack. I have reworked the workflow to be able to quickly create variations. I will start create new textures for the new effects.
For the V2, I did some adjustments on the projectile. The projectile mesh was actually there but was waaaaaay too small !
Toxic Arrow V1
Toxic Arrow V2
Projectile Textures
6 Likes
LOG 07 : Fire Arrow (UE4)
Infos : I’m still creating variation for my arrow shot and here is the fire one ! I’m happy with how I built it, it’s super easy to customize, I mostly just need to create new textures and tweak a bit the emitters and voilà !
Fire Arrow
Question : BUT their is something I’m struggling with. Their is a flare for the HIT effect but it’s overlapping with the mesh. I don’t know how to manage to draw the flare in front of the mesh. Someone got any ideas ?
4 Likes
LOG 08 : Arcana Arrow (UE4)
Infos : This one is inspired by the Arcana skins series from League of Legends ! They are so clean and classy with so much details, I love this skin line ! I had to create more detailed textures and also add / modify some of my emitters. I wanted to the keep the colors from the original texture so I had to create many more materials. I did not think about that when I originally started but it was not very long to create. I still don’t know how to draw the flare on top of the mesh so the impact feels a little weak but overall I’m super happy of the result !
Some of the textures
Take care everyone !
5 Likes
Just on a general node:
I really like what you’re doing with the fx! I think if the timings of the arrow were slightly different, vfx would pop more as well. Right now, the arrow is flying in a (more or less) linear fashion. If you would change the projectile curve to something like ‘ease out quad’ or similar, I think it would have more ‘impact’. There’s actually a cool thread, related to timings here:
To the vfx itselft:
- You’re already doing a great job with colors and shapes. Color composition is nice, mixing softer and harder shapes, projectile reads well etc.
- I feel like the impact could have more directionality. E.g. in the opposite direction of the impact or following the direction of the arrow ‘outwards’. Sloppy paintjob of what i mean:
- It would be nice to have some kind of anticipation. For example a charge effect on the arrow, bow, guy firing it etc. The anim allows for plenty of time for a charge-up effect
2 Likes
Very good idea for the projectile curve ! I’m trying my best to give impact and interesting movement to my particles but I totally forget to give this attention to the projectile itself. I tried with 2 different curves :
First curve
Second Curve
I like the movement of those 2 but I think the first one gives a more launch & rush feeling. I also oriented some vfx to give the directional effect you were talking about. It’s indeed working well !
Concerning the anticipation, well I actually thought about that when I started those effects but in the beginning it was suppose to be some kind of basic attack. But now I want to give them more style and power so yeah I will definitely create casting effects !
Thank you Tobias for your feedback !
BTW, do you have any ideas how to draw a texture on top of a mesh ? I want my billboard flare hit to appears in front of the mesh like on this image. I’m struggling so hard on that :C
2 Likes
I’m currently trying a solution for my own billboards in UE4. What I’ve done and it seems to have worked with no weird side effects is to use a camera offset node in the material but what I would really like is to use custom depth but that hasn’t worked out.
TL;DR: try camera offset and play with the offset value (you’ll plug in the world position offset material node)
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Thank you @Azeros ! It was exactly what I was looking for. I feel like the flare is popping out more, the overall fx is more clear now !
Without offset
With offset
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Yeah looks much better!
It’s a good feeling to know that the players will 100% see your textures hahahahaha, glad I was able to help .
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LOG 09 : Dark Star Beam (UE4)
Hey, it’s been a while ! I had finally some times to work on vfx so I wanted to create new stuff. I’m trying to make a MOBA type effect, something stylized with clear indication of the damage area. I love cosmic / astral effects and I never done anything in this style so jumped right in !
First I drew a concept to help me take some of the main decisions for the direction of the effect. The orb absorb the stars around to create his own star then when it reaches the maximum of what it can takes, it launches all the power in front of it, creating those dark little stars and anomalies. The yellow colors are for the normal stars, the purple / blue are for the dark stars. Btw I realized using a screenshot and painting on it was way easier and useful during the concept art phase!
CAST
LAUNCH
Once I was sure about where this will go, I started working on it. I began with the cast then quickly put some of the launch elements to help me visualize the effect in general. After 4 days of work, I’m very happy with the result ! There is still some improvements to make and the Hit is still missing.
CAST + LAUNCH
SOME OF THE TEXTURES
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LOG 10 : Dark Star Beam - FINAL (UE4)
I am more than happy to call this work done ! I I added the hit effect, modify the ground texture and also added some distortion to create a more impactful / anomaly effect. I learned a lot during the process, I thought when I started it won’t be very difficult but it gave me some great challenges.
FULL
HIT
I also created some sounds ! Here is the HD version + audio.
Thanks to the incredible VFX community who helped me and gave me some great tips and advice ! Happy new year !
6 Likes
Looks really cool! The only detail which distracts me a little bit is that the beam seems to ignore the monster.
Well it’s a simple cross mesh with a texture on it so that’s probably why it does not cover the monster that well. Now that you pointed it, I can not unseen it D:
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It brings me genuine joy whenever you post an update on here or Twitter. keep it up, man!
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That’s sweet, it really means a lot ! Thank you !
LOG 11 : The Eternal King - Boss Intro (UE4)
I have not posted any progress of my training on this specific VFX so here is a little update ! I wanted to learn more about ambient and cinematic VFX (how to trigger emitters during a cinematic, adapt specific effects for camera shots etc…) and I ended up creating this little boss intro. I did not encounter too much difficulty in the process except on the flipbooks, it was my first time so I had to redraw them many times before ended up with a good result.
I’ve made a breakdown on my artstation if you are interested to see some close up and techniques used.
AMBIENT VFX
TORNADO CLOSE UP
3 Likes
LOG 12 : Cursed Blade Combo (UE4)
This one was very enjoyable to make ! I wanted to study sword attacks, so I needed to create slash effects (without using trails). It was my first time doing it and I’m very happy with the result !
I started with very basic drawing for the textures just to see if it was the good direction. It definitely helped me a lot especially for the style / size of the texture. I realized I really love mixing soft and hard shapes.
I added some camera works to help following the movement and to gives a lot more style (also sounds as well). The video is too long for a gif so here is the youtube version.
Again, I have made a breakdown on my artstation !
SLASH BREAKDOWN
HIT
WIP VERSION
1 Like