Paul Miller: Sketch #13 WIP

On the left you’ve got a dropdown called Variables. If you click the + button you can add a variable of a specific type (ie. float). Click the eye icon to make it pubic. Then you can drag that variable onto your graph to get its value.

I think Zak Parrish has some good intro to blueprint videos that you should watch.

Otherwise, looking good! I like how you’ve executed a plan.

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Thank you @cannabis.cod3r , I’d just like it if my plan came together at some point XD.

Also thank you for that explanation… I’ll have to try that when I get home. I also thought of a few solutions as w well I was driving in to work.

As for Zak Parrish’s videos, Are these what you were talking about

I foudn two blue prints introductions, one with a guy named Wes Bun, and the other one, with someone who doesnt say their name (I’m assuming that person is Zak.)

I dont think i’m going to be able to learn to do what I want to do with blue prints for this month’s sketch. I’ve already learned a bit, but its slowing down, and I dont think i’m getting a lot of work o nth effect itself done. So I think i’m going to switch gears, and make the particle system look as good as I can, Then after that, work on the technical part.

I wasnt able to work on it to the fullest extent last night, but I did get an opportunity address SOME concerns/criticisms.
things I addressed
-Rotating the rainbow texture(For this I used Luos rotation material function. I"m going to dive in to see how he made it, because I found that incredibly useful).

  • Masking off the tail end of the rainbow, and distorting it, to get some motion out of the tail

  • I also panned the rainbow texture itself, at an angle. This wasnt done on purpose, but I personally like theresult. It makes the rainbow look like a tube almost. If this doesnt read well, then I"m going to nix it.

Things i wasnt able to address.
-Breaking down the effect further
-I didnt gather more reference yet.

  • The end of the effect (the burst) is no good. The main comment is that, it breaks the whole feel of the effect, and doesnt feel like a rainbow gun.
    -THere is no muzzle flash, that sends the projectile out flying yet.
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So i took a second to break down my effect further and explore some ideas based on some suggestions/criticism i received. My main goal is to really stick with the rainbow theme, and the way my effect is now its not really working. Anyhow, these are my favorite effects that I came up with.

I experimented with the bottom concept a bit more, and got this result

There still isn’t an initial muzzle flash. I will work on that part tonight, while tweaking the impact.
I think there should be a much bigger explosion at the end, and a flash.
In addition, not enough parts of this effect are glowing. There should also be some gravity so this “rainbow wave” falls to the ground as it dissipates.
I also think an erosion would be nice.

Looks like you already have a solution for your spawn effect at splines end! I’ll keep my badly organized blueprint in the dark for a while longer. :smile:

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haha ! it’s all good. I didn’t use a spline blueprint, I ended up doing it in cascade. figure I can learn just as well that way

I actually went on vacation this week but this is what I was experimenting with before I left. I forgot to post it.

Finally back home, its been a week since I posted, and there’s so much I want to do to this effect. I’ve really sold myself on just doing it(the effect) all in Cascade at this point.

I tried adding some animation to the impact, but I’m having trouble with a few things. Mainly

  • I think the impact should dissolve away
  • The impact lasts too long.
  • The shrink at the end is weird.

Do these thoughts make sense?

edit: I posted this int he discord, but I want to amek sure my thoughts are here too.
sorry i should be more specific.
Specifically if you could provide any technical feedback on how to improve this, I would appreciate that.

Also some suggestions on improving the sense of “violent impact” at the end of animation. I would appreciate that as well.

Updated version of the rainbow gun.

So a few things. @Josh_Parker helped me with the timing, for this update. Super grateful for that. I Wasnt aware of how wack it looked before that, so that was awesome.

I wasnt able to address the things i mentioned above, but as I was driving in to work, i realized there were a few more things i want to change/ add based on other critiques.
-A charge
-a release
-A shockwave
-I want to rotate the textures on the rainbow, and try to get it to pan across the meshes.




I’m having trouble figuring out how to get the explosion to distort
OUTWARDS. Right now it distorts in one direction, and it keeps wrapping when i pan . I"ll post it later so it makes more sense.

After some extensie help on the discord from Jan, and Andreas, I kind of began to understand why my distortion wasnt working on my impact. I tried to do a sort of radial expansion at the impact point.

(like i mentioned above).

I also changed up the rainbow pattern at the end of the explosion, and tried something different with that.
I rotated the rainbow texture, decreased the spawn amount, and eroded it. IAlso doesnt fall any more.

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I’ve seen some people just post a “change log” on what they worked on. SO I think i"lld ot he same :slight_smile:

-Made radial Impact bigger.
-Started adding a charge in the beginning.
-Altered the timing on the trail sparkles
-Made a texture for the energy charge.

Thigns I want to change
-More anticipation at the top of the arc.
-More ribbons coming to a point on the charge.
-A release for the charge.
-Give the sparkles coming off of the orb a death animation.
-Add a purple tint to the smoke. (add smoke Lol)