Hello Real Time VFX and guys! I’ve been in the game industry for some 6 years working like 3d character and environment artist. Recently I got hooked up to learn VFX for games, and this community is the best ! There are many nice guys helping the noobs like me, and I hope you can point me to the right way.
I’ve read most of the great stuff here, tried various stuff, and recently I’ve tried to mimic this Hearthstone effect in Unity:
I`ve come to the conclusion that :
- The ball is 3d sphere with animated material, or just rotating mesh.
- The nice dissolving effect in the beginning and the explosion in the end, i think are radial dissolving shaders on a plane?
- The flame trail, is done using some kind of trail renderer, and fancy shader maybe?
So far I`ve been able to reproduce some kind of radial dissolve shader, but it is nowhere near as close as this in the hearthstone effect:
If someone could help me with the right way to produce radial dissolve effects like this, and like this maybe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5sQ96n6oMLo
And I could not comprehend how to achieve this kind of fire trail, it looks very nice and fluidly, and like it is not stretching but uncovering the material as it goes? But maybe I am wrong, and there is another easy way to achieve it? I’ve tried using particles emission over distance, but that wat the trail is not like a single object.
I don`t think they are using flipbooks.
Sorry for the long post, but this is my first time writing in the group, and I am a little worried 
I hope and I know I`ll learn so much from you guys!
Thank you!