Greetings, I'm starting in VFX

[Zelud]

Hello everyone,

I’m actually a Game art student, and recently I found hudge passion in VFX making. I was used to work in Animate doing hand drawn FX ( if you want to take a quick look of my rencent vfx work check this gameplay video of my latest project https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=68&v=110FWS1Hubo )

But now i really wanted to go further and try to go on blending 3D and 2D in my vfx. So I basically learn Unity and Unreal ( wich is giving me somes hard times triying to transpose my Unity knowledges in it) particule system. ( again here are somes exemples of somes of my work on unity

Again and Again I want to push my Vfx further and I really want to have a similar approach and render of LOL’s VFX or of the FXs in this video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5ET292V8j0&t=3s
It seem that I need a loooooot of things to achieve that, like shadders, doing alpha erosion, add noise to my texture to make them look less static. I really want to go further than just using the standard option in the Particles system.
I have to said that I’m totaly lost. It seem that I’m lacking of Knowledges and even with the help of somes topics in this forum I don’t know where and How to Start.
For exemple I wanted to give a try on @ShannonBerke Trail tutorial, but this was a big Fail ^^ I understand well how the thing work but I was unable to do it ( I don’t know how to use the noise on the trail texture, how to make the trail texture scrolling ).
I pass a lot of time reproducing FX in tutorials ( with a lot of fail due to my lack of knowledges ) but, doing things from scratch myself seem absolutely impossible.
There is sooooo much things I need to learn but all seem very obscure to me. What to start with ? how to learn and enter in the beautifull work of shadder ?

I hope you guys understand me, my post will probably be a little bit confused ( so do not hesitate to ask me for precissions)and I hope that you guys here will be able to orient myself correctly and to illuminate all the shadows around me.

have a good reeding

[sebastianXY]

Sure dude! , your VFX do look good for a student , keep it up!

[Zelud]

Thank you

I’m actually starting to learn things pieces by pieces, even if it’s not making a complete FX, but I think this is necessary for me to properly understanding how to make my own shadders for the future.

[Torbach]

if you have 2018.unity use shader_graph… it will allow you to visually explore processing to re-create a scrolling trail

or more technical stuff

you use custom vertex stream to pass a value into the shader straight from Shuriken particle, however the setup for that is not documented verbosely ** i can help you here

create a ‘UV’ node, then ‘split’ node

AFAIK R,G are reserved for the UV, so you pass Blue or Alpha into a vector X (or Y, or X & Y) then that goes to a tile_offset and finally into the UV’s of a texture like this

then in Shuriken activate Custom Vertex Streams and make sure to add(+) the parameter
passing B(1) = custom1.x

and use over_lifetime curve rather than ‘2’

passing B and A? no problem → use Custom1.xy
then attach A(1) into Y(1) and it will pass into the offset

many techniques create similar results, it comes down to experience to know when to use which and simplest (most efficient / lightest) tricks are best.

just using the above example you can imagine multiplying (or subtracting) a texture from another texture be it through position or colors; then use vertex streams to control strength over the particles lifetime and you can start creating some great results.

[Zelud]

Thank you very much, this will be very usefull for me !!!

[fxpasco]

@Zelud I’m starting in VFX too! Good job on those FX Could you link me to this tutorial you were talking about from @ShannonBerke? Would love to try it out myself this week!

[Zelud]

Hello !
Thanks
Here is the thread where you can find a looooot of usefulls tips and tutorials Shannon McSheehan - LoL FX + Knowledge Share - #165 by Zelud
good luck !