Start With Unity's VFX Graph?

[Lem]

Hello everyone, I’m an animator trying to learn VFX in Unity for a game I’m working on but I’m so lost. Almost every tutorial I’ve found is for the particle system, the few vfx graph ones I find don’t help me in the slightest.

I’m wondering if it’s wise to start with the vfx graph? It seems like everything has a “you know the particle system, so vfx graph should be easy” feel to it.

Should I ditch the vfx graph for now and learn the particle system? So many more tutorials and I can find exactly what I’m looking for.

It definitely feels like learning the particle system first and then moving onto the vfx graph is the way to go, but what do you think?

Thank you, I appreciate any replies.

[NateLane]

There’s probably loads of people with a variety of opinions on this, but the industry itself from my experience is very much not in visual effects graph yet. Projects lag behind a few years usually. I’d stick to get ng use to the tradition system as far as job prospects and then pickup vfx graph. In a couple years my opinion will likely be shifted.

[raytheonly]

Hello Lem,

first of, welcome to this community!
The problem some people (me included) have with VFX Graph is actually everything that surrounds it. With that I mean, the rendering pipelines, the updates that break existing scripts because unity refactor under the hood. Because of that, people are jus playing with VFX graph but not really invest time for production.

That said: Just go with the regular unity particle system (which is called shuriken). If you know how to handle that and get the feeling on what to do to create certain effects, this knowledge can be applied to any other particle system. It is just that VFX Graph gives you some more possibilities on how to handle the particles.

Looking forward to seeing your progress

[Lem]

Thanks for the replies NateLand and raytheonly, I appreciate it!

I’m going to use shuriken, I’ve already been able to find dozens of tutorials showing exactly what I want to do!