Nikita Dubatov - VFX Sketchbook

Hey everyone!
I think it’s time to start my sketchbook here :smiley:

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Sword that I worked on for a few last days. I still didn’t found the way to make it as I want, but still…I like this vertex offset flame, so I will back to it later.

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Very awesome stuff :smiley:

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Thank you!
I am not sure I can post some stuff because it’s only 10-20% about VFX. Because I more like to make effects for my own models. And it takes a long time before I really starts make effect :sweat_smile:

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I mean, it’s your sketchbook! Doesn’t have to be always VFX I suppose :smiley:

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I’m curious about the process you followed to create their flames. Can you tell me more about it?



Just some vertex offset shader with details (based on depth…like alpha mask) and particles.
I can share node shader…but it’s…draft(CHAOS!)
But if you interested in - you are welcome, I will spell you everyrhing I can to.

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I am interested, please show it to me.

It’s realy a little bit chaousy and mayby illogical\wrong.
So this one for emission.
Noise texture scrolls in world coords so flame always look up.
First smoothstep for opacity mask and second one for color lerp mask.

Second block is for opacity
We have depth fade for soft sword intersection and fresnel for soft edges (but I am not sure it’s right way)

And the last one is for vertex offset. But it still undone too.
Here we have 3D noise in world position and UV mask for less noise power on flame mesh top and bottom.

So that’s about main flame.
Flame particles is just simple particles with some distortion.

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"I understand, I also usually use fresnel in situations like this and haven’t found a better alternative yet. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

I realy like how world normals works as a mask for vertex offset animation and for colors.
Fire always goes up and additional color can be always at bottom\top etc.

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This is really a good idea, you can be sure that I will use it.

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Animation
I tried it out in a demo and still got a pleasing result, it was a great piece of information.

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Looks nice. Like texture pattern. So soft.
If you will use this for offset animation - you can clamp normals and convert them world->object for different noise power on top and on bottom.

Simple Unity sphere (0 to 1 clamp here. -0.1 to 1 for a little noise amount on bottom. Like at the torch flame )
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Yes, I noticed that while doing it. I will try to use what you suggested in my next attempts.

Welp, I tried to begin new long distance vfx scene.
But later I was recognize…that will too complex to make it in whole piece.
So I separated it for a few short distance pieces.
The first one is living roots.

So I tried make it simple at first. Just Shader animation.
Not perfect at all. but really understandable.

So then i tried to skin it to the character skeleton and use it with shader animation.
Bot great idea: I am not good in skinning :smiley:
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And then have some fun with it and made some animations in Cascadeur and made fire druid trickster hit :smiley: .

With some improovements I think that will what was looking for.

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A little bit more fun with tentacles…tentackles? Octopushands.
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Moar tentacles for the god of tentacles
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I added some eyes, but I am to lazy to animate them by animations, so I added particle system and eyes looks at particles. And distace between eye and looking target is affecting pupil size.

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