Lightning VFX sketch advice

Was told to open my own thread for help on this. So I drew this lightning effect a while back and wanted to know how to make a flipbook in either Unity or UE4. I’m not sure which to use or how to get started. So any help would be great thanks.

Here is image reference I’m using.

Here is the sketch.

Hey there, Pony!

What a promising lightning sketch :smiley:

Hmmm first you would have to remake each frame in .PNG file, so it carries a transparency channel within.

If you aim to make a more flat style lightning, Adobe Animate/Flash will do the trick, because it uses vectors and you can export .PNG files later when you’re done drawing. If you aim for something really detailed, you might want to use Photoshop or Krita.

Now, about actually making the animation play in Unity/Unreal or any other engine of choice…
This alone isn’t complicated, but this alone won’t be a cool effect, you know? I recommend you learn some other stuff before going straight to using flipbooks.

If you’re just starting, I recommend Gabriel Aguiar courses on Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/course/vfx-for-games-in-unity-beginner-to-intermediate/

He also has an youtube channel called Gabriel Aguiar Productions.

Other interesting links:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=vfx+apprentice

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Hi there. Good advice. I know what PNG is and have some UE4 experience w/ importing things from other programs. But I think my next step is to hand draw some lightning textures in a program like animate. And I do want a 2D almost PokemonGo like lightning effect. Not something 3D.

Animating it would be after I get those drawn and uploaded for some helpful feedback lol.