Hello all!
I’ve been fascinated by the VFXs I’ve seen in BlazBlue Entropy Effect but can’t seem to fully figure out the details of the “how”. I was hoping someone would be able to help me break it down / check over my thought process? I mainly use base Unity! (2022.3.10f). I’d like to not rely on the camera’s post-processing VFXs if possible! I apologize if this is a simple answer, I feel a dumb in this regard. 
I took the SSs from the steam trailer. Volume Warning! Steam Trailer
Namely, I love the way it’s transparent / has a hot outline. But I get confused when they’re animated.
- How to manipulate a shader to expose certain parts of the texture to be hot/glowy (green VFX screenshot / 0:46 in video)
- How does it keep the vividness of the color despite being transparent or the color getting darker? (e.g. the blue screenshot / 0:29 in video). From what I’ve tried out, the darker the color despite the saturation, when it’s set to additive, the color will disappear. Maybe there’s a better way to do this? (Or I’m missing something important?)
Thought Process
- The textures themselves have transparency baked in. So if I want the brighter outlines, I’d make a texture with the inside more transparent and the outlines opaque white.
- Inside Unity: I’d be able to change the base color in the shader / make it HDR.
- I’d make it an additive to help with the vividness of it.
- For the various hot spots/glowey spots, make a version of the texture with glow already baked in and then have the shader use a mask to expose them at appropriate parts (and make it a HDR color?)
I’m grateful for any pointers / help or the proper terminology to use in this post! (Maybe I missed a post regarding this!). I’ve been poking around here and there for help in various areas, this community is absolutely wonderful, thank you so much for reading.