UE4 Firespin Effect - Real Time VFX
polycounter lvl 4
Hey guys, thought that I would give it a shot to post a thread regarding my current WIP for a flaming tornado spell in UE4. I'm shooting for Riot/Blizzard kind of approach, so I will be avoiding UV distortion and attempt to hand paint my textures. I'm looking to improve on my skills as I am a new FX artist myself.
I blocked out my effects so far with meshes that I plan to panner a material with. The cone in the middle is going to be the core that I plan to apply some world position offset to, while the wisps around the cone are going to be white wispy elements that I feel will contrast with the reds/oranges. I plan on decreasing the amount of meshes for the wisps. The bottom meshes are for flames that end up being sucked into the main tornado, which I will also have flame sprites to give that portion some depth. Lastly, I created a fluid container containing a vortex field to generate some vector data for some gpu sprite embers. Smoke will be something I work on near the end, but I just plan to use FumeFX for my fire and smoke flipbooks.
The greyscale texture is something I created with noise in After Effects, so it wasn't much of hand painting there but below are some references I used to draw out my effect. If anyone has tips for handpainting towards a VFX aspect, I would gladly appreciate it.
Otherwise, this is what I'm working on now. Updates will come!
I blocked out my effects so far with meshes that I plan to panner a material with. The cone in the middle is going to be the core that I plan to apply some world position offset to, while the wisps around the cone are going to be white wispy elements that I feel will contrast with the reds/oranges. I plan on decreasing the amount of meshes for the wisps. The bottom meshes are for flames that end up being sucked into the main tornado, which I will also have flame sprites to give that portion some depth. Lastly, I created a fluid container containing a vortex field to generate some vector data for some gpu sprite embers. Smoke will be something I work on near the end, but I just plan to use FumeFX for my fire and smoke flipbooks.
The greyscale texture is something I created with noise in After Effects, so it wasn't much of hand painting there but below are some references I used to draw out my effect. If anyone has tips for handpainting towards a VFX aspect, I would gladly appreciate it.
Otherwise, this is what I'm working on now. Updates will come!
Replies
http://vimeo.com/102174212
http://vimeo.com/69655340
http://vimeo.com/69655339
http://vimeo.com/35849559
http://vimeo.com/35849451
Good resource:
http://flashfx.blogspot.co.uk/
here's an update so far. i decided to not use the floor meshes because it would seem too static. I tried utilizing world position offset on my meshes, but the vertices were glued to their locations whenever i tried to give it any rotation rate. The textures were still loading, so thats why it was weird in the beginning but this is what I have so far. Feeling that the fire feels too uniform? Not really in love with the overall effect yet.
We don't wan't to see that it's a mapped mesh. If you want to simulate fire you should deform the path of the flames, spin elements at different speeds and so on.
The light cones are coming from the emissives of the effect. I'll probably tone it down a notch,so it doesn't effect the camera so much. I'll get back on the basics to see what improvements I can make!
Hey guys, I've been running into an issue with outputting my effect into video or image sequences. It seems that it affects my timing for the particle system, which explains why my embers fly straight up and my fire accelerates towards the center too quickly. Whenever I play from editor, everything feels normal and moves correctly. It gets pretty frustrating for timing, knowing that everything comes out of sync, once capture begins. Any ideas to get around that?
Here's my level blueprint that activates my level and particle system.
Here's another update of what I have so far. Tweaked the timing so all the emitters work together. Added a light for the flar in the center and increased opacity and size of dust ring. I'm looking to finish this up whether its not as good as it should be but I'm looking to start the Throne Room challenge. So, I'm going to put one last iteration before I put this one to rest.