UE4 Acid Explosion WIP
polycounter lvl 4
Hey guys, so I've been working on a stylized acid explosion effect in UE4 and would love some feedback before I get into polish stage. I'm planning to have this as an ability, in which the character throws out grenades radially around him to prevent his enemies from running away. I think the only issue that I ran into while capturing was my flare texture not loading. Other than that, this is what I have so far!
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIsl7J-hbZg[/ame]
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIsl7J-hbZg[/ame]
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Aside from the grenades falling through the floor and the textures not loading in the first part of the video, I updated the effect with just a fluid flipbook. Multiple attempts in RealFlow(Still Learning) but this was one of the better outcomes. Not sure if the fluid is lasting long enough or is too visible? I also created the second part just for context purposes as if the grenades are raining down on the enemy, something similar to Borderlands.
The next step is to polish and paint some of my textures like the Density and Temperature of my explosion.
@Ged I'm gonna repaint my acid texture over (just started to learn how to paint haha) Hopefully I can sell the hot, acidic look of acid. Burn mark is a good idea and the smoke is easily accomplished by reusing one of the smoke emitters I created.
prefer a static camera rather than a rotating view but that's just me.
Some more points:
The shockwave looks a lot like an expanding glass bubble, maybe make it thinner so it's less like a torus and tone it down slightly?
The green liquidy bits could live for a bit longer as they're trown out, it would make your mind connect them a bit more to the pools on the floor
Smoke rising from the pools and scorch marks are a great idea. See Alien/s for good example of acid eating through things (Alien Resurrection when aliens kill another alien to escape is a good one too).
The round glowing things are quite uniform in shape and size, could do with some more variation or possible fewer/more variation in velocity... Not sure.
The area of the pools of acid at the end are a lot smaller than the explosion implies, I'd make them slightly larger or have it change depending on at what height the grenade explodes (trickier but would be more dynamic). If the grenade explodes in the air like your first single one does, you'd have a larger area of acid. If it explodes on the ground it could be smaller. Another thing that you would be able to do if you made the area dynamic would be to have it stick to walls and then slowly slide down. Lots of potential there...
I wish I was more savvy in blueprint to create something that correlates with the explosion height.
I had the same thought about making the acid act as a decal but would that complicate the location spawns for my bubbles/ripples? I have a feeling those smaller elements wouldn't be able to be used as decals.
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no I mean the splat that glows after the explosion has gone off, the one shown in the preview pic on the youtube video before you press play
Welp, here's my finished product. I added a few small bits of debris from the grenade and added an angled top view for perspective. Thanks for the feedback guys! I hope this holds up as a cool effect for y'all
I belive Ged was talking about the puddles on the ground, that they needed some drops outside the main blob to make it look a bit more detailed and less blobby.
yeah thats what I meant
@urgaffel and I would love to hear those pointers. It doesn't hurt to learn a thing or two for next time!
So the two shockwaves is what makes it look like it's inside a glass bubble like I mentioned earlier. I'm not sure what's going on there to be honest.
The sprite looks really low res and is cutting through the floor, there are ways of getting it to fade the edge so it's softer, usually called depth fade.
The smoke from the acid pools could be more tendril-y and a bit more uneven in height (just add random), at the moment they're all more or less the same size.
The green sparks are a bit too glowy, and I'm not sure if they are sparks or drops. If they are drops maybe tone down the glow, if they are sparks I guess leave them as is?
I still think the glow is too strong but that's just my opinion
One last thing, the angled camera has a lot of empty space at the bottom of the screen, the framing could be better to show off the effects more.
From your paint over of the smoke, I definitely agree. This will taken into for future smoke like that!
Overall your advice is fantastic and really will make me think of details like that for my next effects. You will see me in the forums again soon, so I hope to hear from y'all again!
The distortion and shockwave work well, it's just that the way they are in your effect makes it look a bit weird. A way around it could be to make the distortion ring thinner so it's not quite so pronounced and/or to make the distortion even faster since the distortion shockwave usually travels a lot faster than the explosion (lots of reference online for that kind of stuff). It will be interesting to see your next effect.