Last update
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I tried starting sooner this time but I had to stop working on the effect, I think I can make it to the month with something similar to the initial idea.
My initial reference was the level up in Lost Ark (and many other games), with a big “LEVEL UP” floating sign over the player head.
Then I searched for some “level up” image references and liked the trumpets in this dialog:
https://www.behance.net/gallery/79806457/Level-Up-Dialog
I also wanted to add a big arrow pointing upwards like this other image:
https://www.vectorstock.com/royalty-free-vector/level-up-icon-game-screen-vector-26659037
I might end up discarding that. The initial wave in the gif is supposed to “transform” into this arrow. I also wanted to add some more elements, like godrays and fireworks (Lost Ark also has these in the roster/account level up).
Right now I’m just starting so I don’t know how far I will go. This is the curret extra rough state of the effect, to show part of the idea, the timing will change and it will be much shorter:
Of course, any feedback is very appreciated.
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Today I dropped the idea of the wave as I was modelling the arrow and the shape I got kind of made me want to create it from light, so I worked on that and got this:
I think it works better and is way cleaner and also easier for me to achieve.
Also added the canonic golden borders to the flags and changed the angle a bit to allow the trumpet shapes to be more readable.
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As a little breakdown for the current state even if it’s still very basic (because reading these from other people helped me learn some stuff):
Both the trumpets and the metallic loking arrow are using the standard Unity material and a directional light casting only in their layer, I don’t know how dirty of a hack this is, but it works and allows a lot of control over the look very easily.
The arrow generated from light is a combination of four particle systems, one for each of the light curves (one of them scaled to -1 on X), one for the light arrow and another one used to spawn the golden arrow. I guess I could have just 2 or even none with some scripting or better planning, but this was faster to setup and modify 
The light curves are using a curve mesh, and these and the light arrow use the same simple material scrolling a texture upwards, controlled by the particle system.
I’m using Unity, Blender and Krita.
Next thing I’ll work on are the despawn of the big arrow and the spawn animation for the trumpets.
Last update, I may modify some details, but it’s mostly done.
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