Energy orb using dynamics?

The_Adaministrator

I am fairly new to this forum,and finally have a question to ask all of you! How would one go about making an energy ball/orb like thing? example: Here

I don't want it to look exactly the same but hopefully you get the idea. I've tried several things, such as a sphere trapping lots of particles inside, different sized spheres colored differently, 3D containers. anyone have any ideas?

Michael Knubben

Particles would be your best bet. With a few different particle systems to pull off that particular effect, it can look brilliant.

Try to break it down into its components and recreate them one by one.

First off there's the sphere with the glow surrounding it. This could be handled with a mesh, yes, but you could also use a particle system for it to make clipping less of an issue.
Whether you seperate the inner sphere and outer glow depends on what'd have the least impact in your particular game: texture memory or overdraw.
Then there are the beams, which will just be a skewed rectangle texture spawned centrally, growing over time.
The tiny sparkles are another part, and should be quite easy.
finally, the stuff in the middle could be done with another particle system with an additive shader. To get a less monochromatic effect, use an rgb texture with some interesting variation so overlapping elements give the illusion of a more complex system.

edit: seeing the Dota items in your sig - check out Dota's particle effects for reference, certainly if you're intending to make this particular effect for a Source engine game.

Some of these systems will need to be in front or behind each other, for which I imagine most engines will have a system. Unity's default particles editor has this in the form of the 'Sorting Fudge' option under the Renderer header. Quoting from the manual:
"Use this to affect the draw order. Particle systems with lower sorting fudge numbers are more likely to be drawn last, and thus appear in front of other transparent objects, including other particles."

The_Adaministrator

Im getting there, but it messes up when you enlarge the ball. (This is in Unity by the way)