Creating a relatively simple hand-smashes-into-ground-and-explodes effect in VFX graph (didn’t get ot the ‘explodes’ effect just yet); I’m getting gimped in the ‘making it look like liquid’ department (the GIF is a bit outdated as it does look slightly better than that, but not by much…). I’ve tried looking around for some resources on liquid sim in VFX graph, but most seem vastly ‘too big’ for me (I’m looking at 20,000-40,000 particles max, and these have hundreds of thousands).
So any tips/resources you have would be welcome.
You’re trying to simulate real-life particles, and that’s already holding you back — it’s pretty much a dead-end approach for something like this.
Here’s a checklist for you:
-
Find good references that resemble what you’re aiming to achieve.
-
Google existing similar approaches — most of the time, there are 1–3 commonly used solutions tailored for specific scenarios. Most likely, you’ll end up using the VAT (Vertex Animated Texture) method. It’s controversial, but you can also try ask AI about existing approaches.
-
Always build the effect using the smallest possible details. Your current 20–40k particles may occupy less screen space than a single pixel — that’s not ideal, think about how cluster of particles looks. Try to pack as much information as possible into fewer elements.
It’s hard to tell what exactly you’re trying to achieve without references or a clear scenario. But if you follow this checklist, you should be more or less fine 
. Good luck, have fun!