I want to recreate this water effect.the sub-zero reference is just how the water will hit,I am really having trouble getting started.Help Me!!!
4 Likes
Your link is not working.
Edit: now it is, My bad.
Are you struggling with the method to try and do this? If you want it to feel as graphic and stylized as this my first thought would be to do use animated meshes, rigged etc., and pan nice flat/stylized texture around the outside of it. Maybe to break up the edges you could have a camera facing trail that penetrates the center of the mesh and just pops out of the other sides. for the back trailing piece of the water you could use a traditional particle emitter.
Probably other much better ways of doing this, just the first thing that comes to my mind.
4 Likes
I’m doing the effects by itself without the human
PlatinumGames made a really cool Avatar game, you should definitely check it out for reference
11 Likes
from what u have seen it is very helpful to see it in video game form thanks.I was wondering if you had any suggestions of tutorials i could follow to achieve this kind of effecr
Neat project! can’t wait to see how your effect turns out.
First thing I would focus on is how you want the effect to move? The dynamic movement of that shape is what makes this tough. Do you want fixed shapes / animation in the moveset? Do you want something that can adapt to anything without having to make a bunch of different shapes?
If each wave is tied to a specific move (pre-baked shapes), you can form your mesh funnels to follow the animation (ps - you should really get at least one reference animation to work with. maybe a freebie on the marketplace?). Once you have that you can work on your material to sweep-in with the hand. This will allow you to emulate the hero pulling the effect around. Using some simple vertex colouring / math in your material you can have the tail (blend mask) look watery while having this whole material pan along the funnel shapes. I would say that’s the “traditional” games way to do it. And the version that will cost the least in perfs.
How would I tackle this? Probably like so -
Create a tube shaped mesh, not curved to fit the anims, just a straight tube shape with a nicely closed & rounded head / open tail. Send a series of bones down the middle, the same way you would when skinning a snake, and skin that linearly the whole way. At this point, you’ll need to import that into your engine of choice and throw a chain / rope component on your skinned mesh. Most engine have gravity options for these types of components, set that to zero or very small. You don’t want your funnel to fall to the ground or dangle from the hand, you just want to drag it around. Attach that whole system to your character and you’re half way there. Just need to make your material to taste and apply it to this object.
The nice part about doing it this way is that you can apply this any animation and it will work. You will also have bones that you can attach particle systems to for your details and since they’re moving you can use that velocity data i your particles to really get some fun, magical motion.
I hope that helps you get started! And please post updates. 
3 Likes
I’m doing it without the character because that would mean rigging except you can refer me to a rig with that motion but it is without the character.
I would go with the Second option to answer your question. “I want something that can adapt to anything without having to make a bunch of shapes” because that sounds faster and simple because the shapes sound like they would take quite a lot of work. I prefer which ever one is much faster and easier to do…
You can also try to use a spline and feed it into Niagara as a source. Haven’t really looked into that functionality but it sounds like something that could be interesting from a technical point-of-view and might work out visually if you manage to animate the spline dynamically via BP (or whatever) in a cool way. It would also work (theoretically) from a gameplay perspective because you can easily set the endpoint of the spline to where you want it to hit.
1 Like
well that’s fine also, but just remember that “faster and easier” usually doesn’t equal “best”. This effect in particular is not the easiest of effects to pull off successfully in RT, but like any other effect - it deserves the time it needs to be the best it can be.
Nothing in game development is “easy”. If I can suggest one thing, it would be to not shy away from from the difficulty of an effect by taking shortcuts via the “easiest” path. That method may be quicker, but there’s no doubt in my mind that you will be sorting out the bugs that come up procedural work. Ex: having trail systems will work for the most part, but will be really tough in situation like in your example gif where the male character (sorry, forgetting that character’s name in the show), wraps the effect around his back. There’s three frames of time there, so interpolation will very likely be wonky. And you’ll have that problem often in combat games. Quick melee moves in games are often SUPER fast (2-3 frames, sometimes even 1 frame of time). Interpolation for procedural requires before and after frames, if those frames don’t exist you need to start adding trickery to your effect.
Aside from that, if you’re going for an illustrated look, IMO, fully procedural usually stands out as procedural instead of deliberate and with a clear story behind it.
All that to say - sometimes the “easier” route is not actually easier. In your case, it might be and it will all work out beautifully, and I really hope it does.
As for assets - if you’re working in Unreal, there’s TONS of free stuff on the marketplace and even in the sample assets. I’m sure the same goes for Unity.
You are completely right.The easier way is not always the best way.In some situations it may be but in some it may not be so i will take that into considration for the rest of my life.Thanks for you response and feedback
1 Like
That Could actually work.
btw - I just want to make it clear that I was not trying by judgmental and I hope my comment didn’t come off that way.
The take-away is that effective planning and thinking about what you want is what will help you decide the best path to completing your effect.
I would definitely try this as an option as well. funny enough, i just did an effect this way and didn’t think to mention it. This option might be the best of both worlds.
I know you didn’t meant it that way.I am not offended,if anything ihave been enligthened
If i wanted to do just the ice effect from the subzero reference or somethiung close that and have it shot up where would be the best place to start in creating the material and then the effect in unreal from thge material
I have created the rig in Maya Using Motion trail but when I took it into Unreal, The Animation seems to not follow the Mesh and Play. How do I get the Rig to work In Unreal
I finished my water effect but cannot upload it here.
So I have no clue what the point of this video is, specially under the last airbender water clan effect topic.
That being said, your FX_Explosion needs a LOT of work. Before I get into stuff like timing, animation, different elements etc (which should be pretty straight forward if you did watch the certain pluralsight tutorial files you seem to have in your content folder), lets start with the obvious… Why are they all hard edged quads with no opacity? 
Also, you’ll definitely want to make your SubUV’s animation more prominent. Start with spawning just 1 quad and play the flipbook on it to test it out first, then once you like the desired motion and timing of spawning the images go back and start animating the particles for variation. The translucency and multiple spawned quads at different rotations are just completely out of whack and my eyes are unable to catch any motion currently.
What exactly is the “intent” of your FX by adding the starter content bush and starter content fire?
Check out some references:
Notice how the fire burns away all the leaves at the bottom and only spares few on the top. So get rid of the bottom leaves and just keep the top ones the fire doesn’t touch intact. Play with the bark/branch material with a mask to add charred (burned) texture closer to the bottom.
Hope this helps with your goals 