UE5 Grenade Explosion VFX

Personal Work
1

Grenade
Hey everyone, this is my 5th effect in UE5!
I’ve created a grenade throw effect, complete with a dynamic trail and an impactful explosion. I would really appreciate any feedback or tips on how to improve it.
Cheers!

artstation

2

Hello!

To better help with feedback and direction I would like to know what kind of grenade effect you are trying to create?

I have some pointers that would improve the current visuals though:

  • Smoke disappears very quickly and linearly with little or no expansion.
  • The flying glowy bits are a bit large and few and could do well with mixing in some long stretched out sparks that move very quickly to add extra emphasis on the speed of debris and potential shrapnel flying out.
  • The effect would benefit greatly from more sparks.
  • The decal doesn’t match the explosion size.
  • Find a reference and try and get as close as possible to the timing of the elements in it
3

Nice work! I think the trails are well done, the anticipation before the explosion feels pretty good, and the overall silhouette reads well. To push the quality further, I’d suggest polishing it step by step, starting by defining your primary and tertiary FX elements.

  1. Fire Core & Smoke: The fire core fades out a bit too quickly and looks slightly low-res. The smoke also disappears too fast. I’d suggest increasing its lifetime to give the explosion more lingering smoke and a stronger sense of aftermath.

  2. Smoke Depth: The smoke seems to be missing depth fading, as there’s a noticeable hard intersection with the ground. Adding Depth Fade could help soften those intersections.

  3. Secondary Details & Environment Response: Consider adding dynamic lighting, a quick shockwave burst during the first few frames, some debris, and a scorch decal to make the explosion feel more impactful and better integrated with the environment.

  4. Performance: Keep an eye on overdraw as you add more layers. It’s easy to get carried away with extra details, but too many overlapping translucent particles can cause FPS drops.

I’d also recommend checking out Epic Games’ Niagara VFX packs on the Marketplace (Fab). They’re great resources for studying both the visual and technical sides of explosion effects.

Overall, it’s a solid start. Keep polishing!