[Riot Creative Contest 2017] - Richard Green

richard_mcd_green

WIP thread for my VFX entry. I'm not really experienced in real-time FX, I mainly focus on film stuff, so this will be a challenge. Will hopefully update soon with a concept!

richard_mcd_green

So as I mentioned before, I've never been involved in real time effects, this is actually my first ever time. With that in mind, I've been experimenting with particles in unreal engine. So this test ISN'T at all representative of my final concept, but it's the result of my first day in working in unreal and sticks with the theme I want to use (Playing card suits!) I plan to update with a concept for the actual effect soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxsO1CbAeCQ&feature=youtu.be

alemar95

richard_mcd_green said:

So as I mentioned before, I've never been involved in real time effects, this is actually my first ever time. With that in mind, I've been experimenting with particles in unreal engine. So this test ISN'T at all representative of my final concept, but it's the result of my first day in working in unreal and sticks with the theme I want to use (Playing card suits!) I plan to update with a concept for the actual effect soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxsO1CbAeCQ&feature=youtu.be

yo congrats! for 1 day in unreal, that's pretty... unreal

where did you find the tutorials for collision btw? 

richard_mcd_green

alemar95 said:

yo congrats! for 1 day in unreal, that's pretty... unreal

where did you find the tutorials for collision btw? 

Thanks! I think that collision I just worked out after fiddling around for a bit, but the tutorials that were most useful to me were the intro to cascade series for the basicw, I haven't watched it all yet so I'm sure it'll continue to be useful https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXK2Xbd7D9w
And also this 4 part Mesh based particle tutorial, which was a really good introduction to the material editor and various particle editor techniques 

https://youtu.be/-X505BCS530

Other than that it was really a case of trial and error and having a million tabs open to look up the names and functions of things when I got stuck. There are still some things that baffle me though to be honest!

richard_mcd_green

Finally time for an update! I've been pretty busy over the last few months, so any time working on this project couldn't be written up, but now I have some time, so here's my (admittedly pretty lame) progress!
I've worked on the basic concept for my effect, it goes as follows:
1. The first player/sphere? fires up a projectile that spawns and sucks heart particles inwards to a point above its head, that causes a pointed crystal with a glowing heart insigna and veins to form.
2. A target reticule appears over the target sphere.
3. The crystal 'charges up' with energy, shaking around increasingly and crackling with red 'electricity.'
4. The crystal fires at the second sphere, shattering and releasing a magical ecplo particle effect.

I abandoned the playing card suits, as the black suits looked awful in engine, but I kept a heart motif.

So far I have modelled the crystal in zbrush, shattered it and produced an alembic sequence in Houdini, and begun working on it's materials in Substance Painter. I've created an electricity sprite sheet using Kirita and Photoshop, although I worry now that it may be too high detail for it's planned purpose, which is a little annoying as it took forever! I've also produced a targeting reticule in photoshop, and designed some of the particle systems in unreal.
A lot of my time thus far has been spent getting to grips with unreal. I'm still far from where I need to be though, and in absence of understanding how to do it properly, I'm using the cinematic sequencer to string together my effect. If anyone knows a better way to do it, please let me know.

Obviously there's still a long way to go before this even looks passable!

https://youtu.be/BlJgfZH2-J0