visual-fx

[worldly pivot]

Well not working

Ahh got it

@unreal thorn

ty ❤️

Was close, needed transforms

oh just kidding it only kind of works

in one axis

[unreal thorn]

Vertex Normal WS is already in World Space.

[worldly pivot]

Right

Say I can rotate it in Y but every other axis breaks it

Thats the ticket

😄

[steep quiver]

Hello, I'm new to color maping, I have an item from marketplace when I make roughness near 0 & metallic close to 1 it makes the material very very dark, what else should I be doing to fix this?

[steep quiver]

nvm found that I only needed to multiply base color with a variable

[faint citrus]

hi, are there resources on how to achieve the old intro graphics? how to approach the little forming details:

i presume this is the old kaskade effect, but it should be achievable with niagara, right?

[unreal thorn]

It's practically a bunch of quads layed together.

[faint citrus]

yeah i can see that. i was wondering if that project was made public by epic so you could pick it apart similiar to all the other demos

[cold sorrel]

Is it even made in unreal?

[unreal thorn]

Probably not, but it'll be decommissioned anyway, with the new U logo.

The one that's made in UE is the Inside Unreal intro.

[cold sorrel]

This looks like a straight up houdini job, but it could technically be rendered anywhere

[faint citrus]

i mean if it's not done in unreal then my whole question regarding resources goes out of the window

[fleet bay]

I encountered a problem with the ue4 particles and I could not find any solution so far.
When I add a Skel Vert/Surf Location in my particle system the viewport only shows me "no async tick" and no particles spawn.
Obviously when I add a target mesh there is still nothing spawning.
I tried to get copy the particle from an older version. I made a particle system with only the Skel Vert/Surf Location in UE 4.20 and it worked fine. When I imported it into my project, which is using UE 4.24, the same problem appears.
Does anyone knows a solution for this ?

[fossil swan]

@worldly pivot you should have used a transform vector, not position.
(though what hoodie said was already correct)

@fleet bay do a test in 4.26 and see if it still happens.
There where some weird bugsies in cascade in 24/25.
if it does happen, it might be a bug.

[stable oyster]

Can someone point me in the direction for creating a post process for total pitch black darkness except your player character (third person)?

[unreal thorn]

If you want to still able to see small portion of the floor, you could rely on thicc (volumetric) fog coloured black.

[stable oyster]

I don't

At least I wanna start with pitch black and then maybe work my way up from there

But it's as good of a starting point as any I guess 🙂 Thanks ❤️

[cold sorrel]

Use a post process material, use a custom stencil to mask out your character.

[stable oyster]

Hm yes I read about custom stencil somewhere (making a research note).
Would I need to dabble with custom scene depth or something?
Maybe I am overthinking it.

[cold sorrel]

Literally, make a postprocess material, use the custom stencil as a lerp between black and the scene color.

No more steps 😛

[stable oyster]

Haha ok 🙂 Will give it a try ! After day job is over unfortunately haha

[fossil swan]

for those who cannot let go :p
https://i.gyazo.com/d21b30b3df28938c2a08ad38f8457466.png

[analog onyx]

woooo

kaskade!

[astral iris]

anyone got a paper2d sprite material for hue shifting they can point me too

nevermind, this is dummy simple

[unreal thorn]

It's not like Matinee entirely gone in UE5 as well 😛

Also Niagara can't do animtrails, which is kinda sucks.

[fleet bay]

still the same problem 😕

[fossil swan]

hmm, i'd make a video of the problem so people can check. if nobody can verify its something you overlooked, might wanna report it

[stable oyster]

@cold sorrel I got myself a start, thanks! 🙂

Scene color wasn't allowed on the 'post process' domain, but PostProcessInput0 did the job.

General question to anyone:

Since I am fairly new to VFX and Materials, where do I begin understanding why we use things as lerp? Like how can I contextualize this. I also see many tutorials that seemingly multiply things or do 1-x and such that I completely fail to follow in their train of thought.

Any starting point directions?

[cold sorrel]

Freya Holmer, math for gamedevs

She covers it

[stable oyster]

Thank you. I'll check it out. Judging on a quick google search it is a YT channel, not a book, right?

[cold sorrel]

yep

If you want a book, I liked Elementary Linear Algebra by Howard Anton, Chris Rorres

But that has no game applications or examples. I don#t know if any book does.

[raw summit]

Hey guys
Where can I download this demo showcase object?

[stable oyster]

Hello.

I am trying to use a post process material directly on my players camera but I cannot get it to work.

If I use a pp volume (infinite extend) it works just fine, so the material in itself is functional.

Do I need to do anything in addition to adding it in the camera component?

[pseudo skiff]

how would you go about implementing snow/rain for FPS game for mobile platform AND have it working with overhangs (played goes under one and there is no precipitation underneath, but outside of it there is) ?

[torpid palm]

:triangular_flag_on_post: Márquez#6003 received strike 1. As a result, they were muted for 10 minutes.

[main marsh]

Hello everyone, i hope yall are having a great day

i come today with a question ( beginner )

so i've made a portal in ue4 ( from a tutorial on youtube )

and unfort its too small

when i try to scale it up

the particle effect doesnt follow, is there a way to scale the whole thing all together, or should i scale everything 1 by 1 ?

[fossil swan]

sadly the latter

[main marsh]

@fossil swan thank you very much for your help, this tought me a lesson to better organize myself and learn to block shapes before starting to work freely xD

https://gyazo.com/a51e3aa5f479d4facd87340703002db2

fixed it, thank you @fossil swan

[fossil swan]

great!

[signal trench]

Howdy, i'm sure this comes up alot but is there an agreed-upon go-to source for learning Niagara and unreal vfx-stuff in general? there IS a course on unreal learn but it's for the old system, and there's obviously alot of youtube videos but that's hit or miss when searching blindly.
I can most likely port the knowledge from the 2018 cascade trianing video over, but still.
Unreal released a video recently about using it for crowd sims, which is what i'm primarily interested in, but getting a primer first is probably ideal.

[cold sorrel]

Thomas Harles Niagara 101

I'm partial to this list since I made it, but it let's you pick learning content at the level you are at. https://realtimevfx.fandom.com/wiki/Tutorials

[signal trench]

@cold sorrel Excellent, i'll give it a go ontop of some of the other things i found. Much appreciated!

[marsh lava]

stupid question but is there a video eplaining unreal unitys partcile systems im trying to convert unreal partciles to unity and i can create the shaders for the matirals just need to know how to recreate the partcile effect

[unreal thorn]

So you're trying to port Unreal's particle emitter over to Unity's?
Best thing you could do is try to mimic it with Unity's own particle system.

[marsh lava]

i have but dont understand some nodes in unreal

partcile nodes propites

[unreal thorn]

Hold up. Are you trying to copy Unity particle into Unreal, or the other way around?

[marsh lava]

trying to get unreal partciles to unity

[unreal thorn]

Well, I assumed you already have understanding of either UE's Cascade or Niagara system (or even Unreal Engine installed for that matter) because you're attempting to copy it in Unity.
Otherwise, you have to teach yourself how to use Unreal's particle system.

[frigid cove]

hey guys

is there anyway to do this effect?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWKCv3KxpTQ

the light trail effect

[fossil swan]

timestamp?

[frigid cove]

oh

2mins in

thought i stamped it automatically

or just 1 mins above. feel free to watch the shit on mute btw lol

[fossil swan]

assuming you mean the lightning, thats just a beam emitter with noise.

[frigid cove]

oh, i mean the way the light from the lamp posts leave a trail as you drive by them

[fossil swan]

hmm, motion-blurry
kinda looks like a post processing, but iunno.

[frigid cove]

Part of me thought it was motion blur, but It didn't work the same way

and especially not like that

ridge racer 7 has a similar thing as well

[fossil swan]

could be some form of rendering that light into a separate render-target-thingy to create it.
I think Glad/Death might have a better suggestion as I dont have any experience with it.

[frigid cove]

would it be okay to tag him?

[fossil swan]

they'll read it if they are around

they are everywhere :p

[frigid cove]

You make them seem like a force of nature

i like this

[fossil swan]

lets just say I respect their opinion (at least when it comes to tech-stuff) highly.
not sure if our opinions align on the color of our socks though

[frigid cove]

Ah, that's great

experts

[analog onyx]

Considering that the game on your reference was released in cave age, where no fancy full screen blurs were achievable, it is likely simple ribbon trails. @frigid cove

[frigid cove]

that's...actually great to hear

I also assume you're the guy luos reference, correct?

[fossil swan]

yup

[frigid cove]

the next question becomes, how are they activating it? is there just like a trigger that plays it? hmmm

i feel to open up UE4 to see this

[analog onyx]

Attach particle system with ribbon to camera. Have a manager, that determines how many of trails are needed, and when new lights are close enough, places them there and updates their position every frame to snap to to the light. When they leave the distance, places particle systems back to pool.

[frigid cove]

Well

shit

And that would get the effect above!?

[analog onyx]

It will definitely get you somewhere

[frigid cove]

my goodness

thank you SO much

[scenic goblet]

Does anyone have any idea on how can I achieve Rocket league like animated materials? Do I need a proper UV unwrap on my models for them?

[cold sorrel]

Yes

[radiant hemlock]

Hi! I have a particle effekt to my pawn. It sometimes cuts out for a second or so. All particles go invisible and then everything comes back. Any idea why?

[lone wing]

try increasing the bounds a bit, maybe it thinks it should get culled

[radiant hemlock]

@lone wing will do

https://i.imgur.com/ztH8Q52.gif

this is what it looks like

it's so weird. it's like when the track is in the background then it is invisible but only sometimes. when it's in front of the sky it's visible at all times

[upbeat oyster]

Hello guys, are you familiar with this type of flickering behavior on Niagara ribbons?

This is my material:

[radiant hemlock]

I confirmed it. When the particle is in front of a black background for a while, it vanishes. Any idea what might cause this and how to fix?

[fossil swan]

i reported something similiar (will find video in a bit) but never heard anything about it

its not fully the same but:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvfBfZfRLWo

[radiant hemlock]

@fossil swan It really acts as if it was behind the material. When I set the material opaque .8 I can see it but it's darkened. it's definitely in front of the material though

[cold sorrel]

Set the sorting prio on the system and the track

[radiant hemlock]

I don't know where I can set the sorting for the track

and setting in the system doesn'T seem to change anything but it's definitely the system. It works with a different one

also.. shouldn't there be emitters other than the ones I created?

Makes me think something's broken with my niagara

[radiant hemlock]

Alright now. I recreated the surface materials and it works

[south sun]

Does it make sense to be able to spawn a sprite that doesn't face the camera? I was trying to make a circle dispersion effect that would exist in 3D space in whatever orientation it was spawned without rotating toward everyone's camera. I know using a mesh would accomplish this, but I already have the sprites set up.

Ahh, may have already found it. Custom Alignment and Custom Facing Vector

Where do you control the actual alignment vector though

[south sun]

Ahh I think I see, setting SpriteFacing

[cloud nimbus]

Does anyone know how to make an emitter become a 'template file'? When I copy an emitter into the niagara content folder with the rest of the template files it doesnt show up. meta data shows me that its not tagged as a template asset

NM Found it!

[distant verge]

Hey anyone know, I'm using a forest test scene. I'm trying to get rid of these light rays. Any idea how?
https://gyazo.com/29763bac010e3b9c25bf7d9e63f855d1

They seem so unnatural and ruin the scene. I can't figure out what they are called in the scene browser though. Any ideas?

Thanks

Found it nvm

How does the remove foilage tool work?
https://gyazo.com/381be8a3a078a22453595cc4f8365b10

Doesn't seem to do anything

[distant verge]

Anyone know how I can solve this?
https://gyazo.com/01fead5780468e2f9e71d1f8c5c84992

The foilage renders in and out within a very short distance and is very noticeable.

The cull is set to 0 for min and max distance on both the foliage and the mesh?

[signal trench]

Howdy, what's the term i'm looking for when it comes to choosing what surfaces a light actually impacts?

such as having spotlights attached to a character shining on them at all times, only lighting parts of them up, but not influenicng the env at all?

[signal trench]

NEvermind i got it, i was looking for Lighitng Channels.

[primal parrot]

Do you have random life, and are they inheriting parent lifetime? Change that. Or try Particle Reader, not sure but it may produce better results, will have to do some tests 😉

[main marsh]

Hello everyone, hope you all are having a good day or night ( depends on where you are ). I'm struggling to find a solution to an error i encountered in UE4 which is this

i made this portal FX and i quite enjoy it but since i configured my lights, now i'm getting this bloom effect on my face which ever direction i move ( facing the portal of course ) and it's so annoying

did anyone face such a pain ? thank you for your help ( first week using ue4 )

[unreal thorn]

Is that lens flares?

[timid jay]

cool portal effect!

[timid jay]

try changing the lens flare settings in your post process volume

note that the post process volume can be set to "unbound" to cover the entire map instead of just a volume

[upbeat oyster]

Hey! Thanks for your answer but ribbons have a fixed lifetime and I tried both not to and inheriting parent lifetime but it's still happening :/

[languid hearth]

Hello frneds

Today, i have come up with a system to create earth like weather system for both planet and flat terrian system, thanks to AK for his fantastic fluid ninja components, but i am having some issue as unreal is not rendering more than one volumetric actor, can anyone tell me how to have more than one volumetric cloud sphere

[unreal thorn]

You cannot have more than one volumetric sky cloud showing.

You might be able to set up some material trickeries to fake the layering, though it's easier said than done.

[languid hearth]

I want to use the default for general /normal weather

One more for regular strom and cyclone

And other one for disaster storm

But other two must be sphere

Is it possible to use volumetric texture to two Spheres??

There are volumetric mats under volumetric cloud contains

[main marsh]

@unreal thorn sorry i went to sleep yesterday but you're a real genius and life saver, that's exactly it. thank you so much

@timid jay yes that's exactly what kept annoying me, thank you so much for your help, !

[lavish solstice]

Does anyone know what I can start to look at/lookup in regards to replicating this effect in material?

When there's heaps of the same material stacked ontop of eachother, it produces this effect (if that somehow helps narrow it down)

[cold sorrel]

https://realtimevfx.com/t/ue4-advice-on-how-to-achieve-sea-of-thieves-ghost-effect/15282/3

[lavish solstice]

oh wow, you're a legend, i'll check it out!

[torpid palm]

:triangular_flag_on_post: Rugarus#1470 received strike 1. As a result, they were muted for 10 minutes.

[lavish solstice]

hmm.. now to work out how to render the previous frame in a material

[cold sorrel]

Rendertarget

The effect could be done in Niagara as well.

[lavish solstice]

how so? like planes or something with the effect on it emitting in front of the object or?

[cold sorrel]

Grid2d and simulation stages. Still need the rendertarget though.

[lavish solstice]

interesting, you've given me some stuff to look up, ty!

[ashen citrus]

Hey! Can I sample individual mesh distance field in Materials/Niagara that the engine generates? I know I can sample global distance field but it is very low res and I just want a specific mesh. Creating SDF by hand and importing seems also unnecessary since engine generates them for every mesh and they look quiet good.

[lavish solstice]

@cold sorrel Sort of getting my head around Grid2D and simulation stages... How would I go about putting it together for the effect in those gifs?

cover the original mesh with a sphere particle using render target/simulation stages? how exactly are UVs gonna work with it

srry bit of a noob with all of this, feel like i've fell down a rabbit hole haha

[cold sorrel]

Don't use grid2d if you are a noob .

Find a simpler solution

[distant verge]

Wow thanks instead of anyone answering the question I get muted.

Maybe if I knew which channel to bloody post in I'd stick to one. Like I've got questions that pertain to multiple channels...

[jovial belfry]

Here is my torch fire.. how do you make the light a little bigger in the particle?

light radius now

[unreal thorn]

Probably your auto exposure compensating a bit too much.

[primal ice]

How would you create mesh-dependent SDFs manually? 🤔

[jovial belfry]

you mean from the post process volume?

[unreal thorn]

Yes.

[jovial belfry]

k thx ill play with that

[ashen citrus]

@primal ice in Houdini you can easily bake out different maps from meshes. Basically it’s just a volume texture. You import it into the engine and sample in materials/Niagara. Been doing that and works fine except you must set it up manually for every mesh and is rather big in size for something that already is in your build. Too bad you can’t simply access it.

[primal ice]

I personally would like to just have control over the SDF primitives, maybe in hlsl directly. Like, program SDFs for meshes or add the primitives like with collision boxes

[hasty copper]

Hello, new here.
Usually, what is the main approach to create physical phenomena (fluids, fire, explosions, water) in unreal? Is it always Niagara or are there other tools/ways as well?
Thank you

[cold sorrel]

This video is a good summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3QKK2o5rWSQ

[hasty copper]

Thanks @cold sorrel

[hasty copper]

@cold sorrel
Is there also a more specific one? This is great, but a bit „general“.
For example in Houdini, there are different solvers (flip for water, pop for particles, Pyro for smoke/fire, vellum for cloth etc) for different simulation types.
How are things in unreal?

[cold sorrel]

The only solver you'll be using is Niagara. But what I hoped the video would show is that there's no real standard. Sometimes you use meshes with funky materials, sometimes you use particles, sometimes it's postprocesses etc.

It all depends on the project and type of effect.

But for the majority of effects you'll likely use Niagara in one way or another.

[hasty copper]

Ok great. Understand. So to be more specific:

• how would one „simulate“ fire most probably?
  Also Niagara, right?

[cold sorrel]

Most of the work would be in making the texture and material.

A fire particlesystem will likely be just a couple of nearly static sprites.

[hasty copper]

Ok. So how about adding „real“ forces ? Make it art directable, like gravity, Wind, divergent free

I am more interested in the behavior than in the look

[cold sorrel]

Hehee

You'll love games xD

Coming from film I take it

[hasty copper]

I don’t care how it looks visually if it behaves correctly

Yes, 8 years Houdini user

The tech side interests me more

[cold sorrel]

Yeah, that experience is unfortunately not super relevant for what you are trying to do. You'll have to build the systems/controls one by one by faking it.

You can't do it at all the way Houdini does.

@primal parrot We got another live one

[hasty copper]

I see. And how would I built those systems/controls?
Niagara? Script modules? Blueprints? C++? Python?

[cold sorrel]

Materials

Everything you want to do has to end up on something that can render. Most likely a sprite.

[hasty copper]

Materials for gravity?

Material for wind?

[cold sorrel]

Again, you won't use it the way you expect.

Gravity, potentially, wind absolutely.

[hasty copper]

Ok, then simple task:
Please add Wind to your particles

[cold sorrel]

Unless you build a full fluid solver using Niagara simulation stages all you will do is image manipulation.

You can just add a wind module in Niagara.

But that will look shit.

Unless you've specifically buiolt your sprites to work as individual licks.

Which I doubt you'll want to do.

[hasty copper]

What are Niagara simulation stages?

[cold sorrel]

Advanced experimental feature that let's you run simulation hlsl on any data inside Niagara.

[hasty copper]

Good to know. Thank you very much.
Again: can look shit. Has to be „correct“. I want to do tech rnd, look is completely bs

[cold sorrel]

It won't be correct

I guarantee it.

Everything is a hack.

[hasty copper]

Hmmmm

[cold sorrel]

That's how it runs in realtime.

If it has to be correct, do it in Houdini.

[hasty copper]

Doin it since 2013.
but heavily interested in unreal tech

Especially in maths behind

[cold sorrel]

Yeah, but even if you are new to houdini you'll be able to do a more correct setup than in Unreal.

You can cobble together an actual solver in Unreal but it won't be usable for many things, but perhaps that's more up your alley.

[hasty copper]

I will keep tryin.
Never give up.
Thank you for the insight

[cold sorrel]

I'd start by learning about simulation stages, Grid2d and then port a fluid solver from GPU gems.

It won't run fast enough to be used in a game, and it won't look good enough for film.

[hasty copper]

THAT I wanted to know

[cold sorrel]

But if it's just an excercise, that's doable.

[hasty copper]

👍

But out iof curiosity:
Fire is fine with materials?

The behavior?

[cold sorrel]

It's the only alternative, so yes 😄

[hasty copper]

Interesting

Will check that

New worlds opening up

[cold sorrel]

An example not from Unreal: https://youtu.be/RTcLrM1lYgY?t=90

I'm guessing the flames is one - three sprites, the crawling fire is a sleeve or part of the shader.

Then there's just some smoke sprites and a few embers.

That's a starting point that could be expanded upon with WPO and shader parameters.

[hasty copper]

Ok

Checking

[distant verge]

Help please

When I import assets using bridge in UE5. The material instance is blank upon import.
https://gyazo.com/e6180ffe1ff8c8ac2eccf877e9a97251

Everything, material is always left blank?

Do I need to reinstall?

[slim badger]

Is it there a workaround for having translucent particles receive shadows?

[crimson parcel]

Anyone know if there is a way to move an asset and all its references to a different folder? I would like to take out only 1 particle from a pack bought in the marketplace and delete the rest, but going through the asset reference list and moving each one is taking a lot of time

[cold sorrel]

Open the pack in a different project and Migrate the assets you want

[crimson parcel]

OK, no way to do it within the same project? I have to migrate to another and then back I guess?

[cold sorrel]

You could migrate from your project and then nuke everything you don't want, and bring the migrated parts back

[crimson parcel]

OK thanks, I will do that then

Would be awesome if it was possible within the same project though

[oak elk]

Does anyone know if texture based wood, brick Chaos Fractures are on the roadmap? I would love to see fracture based on textures to make it more useful.

[late vale]

how can I access local vertex offset in material nodes?

[glad badger]

How can I spawn all particles in particle system immediately, without any delay between them?

[cloud nimbus]

Use the burst emitter

[frigid cove]

@analog onyx heya, could i ask you a few questions?

[analog onyx]

Me specifically?

[frigid cove]

Yeah. It's mostly about the blur effect

[analog onyx]

I plead not guilty!

[frigid cove]

I was having a bit of trouble with it

namely, i'm not particular too sure how to start implementing it, despite the instructionsy o gave (its my first time trying this lol)

[analog onyx]

ah, yes, ribbons!

[frigid cove]

indeed!

i've got the ribbon set up

but, im not sure hwo to set it to the camera

would I use a sphere trace?

[analog onyx]

What setup do you have so far ?

[frigid cove]

as far as the car itself goes or?

i've got a main car BP that all of the other cars inherit from (master BP essentially)

I imagine that the player camera is what i would need to assign this to?

[analog onyx]

Are you using niagara or cascade?

[frigid cove]

cascade

im not very familiar with niagara sadly

[analog onyx]

@frigid cove start by having a particle system with ribbons attached to your camera

[languid hearth]

Any idea how to make it possible for stone ??

https://youtu.be/Jz050a2OMXE

Id like to do similar effect to display damage to meshes loke stone bricks and other surfaces

[analog onyx]

decals

[languid hearth]

? How decals distorting mesh Can you explaim a bit??

For my purpose, lets say dragon shoot a fireball and it blast pver a large stone

Id like to use any method to look as if the stone got deformed inwards

[analog onyx]

Drop deformed part and you will be fine.

[languid hearth]

Okay i checked a tuto on decal just right now, but problem is its not cause geometry defrom , it looks like only normal based

Is they anyway to defrom the geo like wpo or anything

Kinda have short time thats whu seeking guidance

[analog onyx]

There is a way. Many ways. But they are likely going to be out of your reach, so drop the idea to deform and proceed with just decals.

[languid hearth]

LOL

I have been finding this for almost 1 year

And now u telling me many ways are there and no telling whu trolling me for nothing

If decal can distort mesh then ok otherwise i must find better way

[analog onyx]

Me trolling you is not impossible, but exceptionally unlikely. The reason is that if I outline one or several potential approaches to you, you will end up even more confused, and likely to loose significant time on this with getting nowhere.

[languid hearth]

Have anyone tried this before??

generally, It comes in mind that after receiving damage a thing can't just break from the very beginning. First some distortion then breakage when damage is added. . .

[unreal thorn]

Mesh "decals" controlling the masked opacity isn't out of the possibility. Just saying.

[languid hearth]

Mmm i looks so simple thinh yet i feel like no one ever done it before n also hard to done thing🤨

Verts exist, all it needs to pushed along impact force

Can render target do this? I have heard it has been used for water planes to make collision effect

[tardy dome]

if you can give an example of in what game somethign similar is done , there are prolly people here that can tell you how it is done there

closest thing ive seen is voxels

[languid hearth]

While that's true there is one and only voxel plugin owner

He had 4.21 before but now he totally deny the fact. I wonder why he hated old version that much

That's why im trying to find other solutions

My target was use decal for mini damage effect but it cant distirty mesh along impact.
Then swap with destruction mesh,
The swap debrus after x amount of time. And if possible make them look eroded over time n finally leaving a texture over surface they are

My aim is to make a system where from start to finish mesh destruction can be displayed

They dont have to accurate but also nor so naive like apex ot chaos ( maybe)

Usually debris just vanished to save performance cost

But that breaks the emersion

[tardy dome]

so does 5 fps

[languid hearth]

?

[tardy dome]

if after 5 min of playing the performance cost grinds ur frames down to sub par levels thats not good for anything

you wil be emersed in frustration

[languid hearth]

Its possible to swap it with less

I bet you imaging i meant tons of debris

No it can as few as 3

With dust fx

And i do mention that there would be mesh distortion on damg impact

I will check if render target can do it

For eg charater did power sword slash that hit stone n stone got distortion on surface

Now if dragon blast fireball it will break

And swped 3 static nesh debris

With lod

Non voxel destruction have one issue and that its LOD

[lavish solstice]

https://www.shadertoy.com/view/3lyfWw
would anyone know how to achieve an effect like this in UE? and have it limited to a specific object rather than the entire screen
like the ghost objects from SoT

[analog onyx]

@lavish solsticeWrite object to stencil. Render a translucent quad in front of the object. In quad material, distort scene UVs, sample stencil. If stencil is not the object, just return scene unidstorted scene color. If stencil is the object, return scene color at distorted UVs

[lavish solstice]

time to look up stencils hahah

sorry I'm a bit of a noob when it comes to shaders, and I've stepped into a rabbit hole on this one but determined to wrap my head around it, thanks!

[cold sorrel]

Would you look at that, the exact same answer you got when you asked the same question a couple of days ago...

[lavish solstice]

Sorry, thought there might have been additional info added from others, especially with that example from shadertoy added

[unreal thorn]

If you want to, you can put some of the GLSL bits into your post FX material, as a Custom nodes. HLSL isn't really much different from GLSL, though Custom nodes can't have nested functions, so you have to come up with workarounds for that.

[lavish solstice]

interesting, thanks

[late vale]

how can I access local vertex offset like world position offset ? there's no node in the master node!

[languid hearth]

Hello frnds after a long time i finally able to find a non voxel way to create damage stuff for my eso like game. The answer was a POM decal and DoN s mesh paint plugin which seems to create holes and depth of damage effect. Finally three last things are preventing me from prototyping my game is

1. I will be using flowmap based gpu particles and i d like to swap with very low resolution cpu particle when they are behind fov of camera

2. Culling out some of debris static meshes

3. Setting up unifited environment with destruction effects

Have anyone tried swaping the particles issue?

how can I access local vertex offset like world position offset ? there's no node in the master node!
@late vale
https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/offset-vertex-in-local-space/62317

Maybe that's what ur finding

@late vale

https://answers.unrealengine.com/questions/893986/local-vertex-position-in-material.html

Also look at this

[late vale]

Thanks and yea I found those results but it's really clear how to do it

[languid hearth]

What ur makin with it im just curious

Hello frnds after a long time i finally able to find a non voxel way to create damage stuff for my eso like game. The answer was a POM decal and DoN s mesh paint plugin which seems to create holes and depth of damage effect. Finally three last things are preventing me from prototyping my game is

1. I will be using flowmap based gpu particles and i d like to swap with very low resolution cpu particle when they are behind fov of camera

2. Culling out some of debris static meshes

3. Setting up unifited environment with destruction effects
   @languid hearth

Any1 plz let me knw

[late vale]

actually wanted to do something like that but all in unreal not with 3d max

https://youtu.be/6Cain-u9_g4

dancing teapot

[low wharf]

can someone explain how get rid of these black spot things

[graceful hill]

Can anyone link me to resources/tutorials on low poly VFX?

[fossil swan]

@late vale while I should make a video that just goes over the basics, you could take a look at this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQyHmhG3eD4

there is also:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpbCul0I_d0

[late vale]

That's awesome, thanks very much, I'll check that

[inland ibex]

Why even bother with Cascade if its reaching the end of its life?

to me makes much more sense to learn the new and more powerful system

[neat cloud]

Hey, does anyone know if there is a way to bake a texture of the sky out from Unreal so that I can reproject it in nuke? Thanks

[thick sage]

anyone got an idea on how to tackle particles that face the players camera

[uneven pulsar]

How to make projectiles like this can anyone help me up with any tutorials or anything useful i am new to unreal and i dont knw how to use cascade to make these kind of projectiles

[uneven pulsar]

thanks a lot man

[craggy plinth]

In fps games, the arm meshes are rendered onto a separate render target and then overlayed on top of the main framebuffer.
How do I achieve this in UE4?

[molten orchid]

Please post your question in one channel only.

[craggy plinth]

Sorry, wasn't sure where to post so I did it in both. 😬

[sleek linden]

Hello everyone, hope you are doing well . I'm in need of a bit of help:
I'm currently trying to spawn a particle at the impact point of a line trace in C++.
I made a multicast function (' multiplayer project ) that uses the function SpawnEmitterAtLocation this way :

Unfortunately nothing spawns ...

Does someone have an idea what could be causing this ? Thanks in advance for your help

[hoary talon]

I think I ran into this once, trying to remember. btw if you only need the impact point of the hit result, you could just pass that vector to the net multicast function to save bandwidth

is PSC fully initialized on all clients?

[sleek linden]

Yo thanks for the answer I'll take note of that

[sleek linden]

I think so , I set its value in the blueprint so I guess so yeah

I enter inside the if statement , I put a break point and I can see that PSC is initialized

Also the hit point position seems to correspond

So I don't really see why it's not showing

[hoary talon]

are you calling netmulticast on the server?

[sleek linden]

Yup calling it from a server function

It's also reliable

[near osprey]

Hey guys! I have a quick question. For some reason Legacy particle systems don't always display when attached to actor. I have a fire particle effect attached to a torch, but sometimes the fire goes away and only the light stays. Any thoughts to why this is?

[molten orchid]

My first guess would be that the bounds are too small, so the particles are culled

[uneven pulsar]

i have a doubt if we use mesh data in cascade will it bring load to our game i am doing mobile game can i use mesh data for the particle system

[sleek linden]

Managed to fix my problem, the issue was that i was calling my multicast function from a Server function, I switched it to a Client function and it's all good now 🙂

[thorn kernel]

Hi guys I’m new to unreal in general, I come from a vfx background. How does un 5 handle when it comes to compositing aov’s? Things like zdepth, crypto. Thank you

[cold sorrel]

There is some support, but I wouldn't rely on AOVs.

[acoustic olive]

Does anyone know how to set up a decal material like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4Q8wBxH1Vc

[cold sorrel]

The material is straightforward.

It's figuring out the plane that's tricky. It needs either blueprint or niagara.

Nearly did my head in.

[acoustic olive]

i see...

did you manage to figure it out in Niagara?

[cold sorrel]

Ish.

I hacked it with a sprite instead of a decal actor.

But that way I could steal all the transform data and just pass that in.

It's not a great solution, but it works.

[analog onyx]

Decal actor is not something that is practicable to use for bullet hole decals anyway.

[acoustic olive]

👍

[cold sorrel]

Yeah, that was my conclusion.

But then the coder decided to spawn a full instance for each hole and now I just want to cry until they fix it.

[analog onyx]

In Niagara age, decals are probably sorted as follows: Have a manager class. Manager class has a spawn stack. Manager has Add To Stack even(function). Whatever wants to spawn decal, calls that function and passes parameters(decal type, location, w.e.). Manager class, upon receiving such event, adds decal to spawn stack. And once on tick, it sends whole spawn to stack as array DI to niagara as well as its length and then clears the stack. Niagara spawns length of stack numparticles and reads through array DI their attributes and sets accordingly. From now on, decals are managed and rendered by niagara. As for POM specifically, just rendering decal using a sprite render, as Glad did, is the most efficient. POM would work by default using sprite's tangent space.

POM with projection is doable too, but mostly impractical, because you will be using decal space to trace, and projected result will drift with camera motion.

So it is better to keep it simple.

[cold sorrel]

It gets annoying AF when you have an atlas of pom textures. The little bastards really want to peak in at the side.

So make sure you mask it.

[acoustic olive]

👍

[cold sorrel]

As for spawningmethod, yeah keeping it simple is recommended. Otherwise you'll end up in maintenence hell.

[uneven pulsar]

will particle system using mesh data generate heavy load to mobile games

[cold sorrel]

Measure it.

That's the only way you'll know if it works for you.

[uneven pulsar]

can i use mesh data in particle system for mobile

[cold sorrel]

...

[uneven pulsar]

if the mesh is low poly can i use it in particle system

[cold sorrel]

Yes you can use mesh particles on mobile.

Yes it will bring some load. Everything does.

[austere jetty]

hmm I just found out that adding multiple post process instances of the same material override eachother. Is this an engine bug?

[analog onyx]

That is a feature.

[austere jetty]

😦

[unreal thorn]

Post Process instances aren't additive by nature.

[thorn kernel]

@cold sorrel thank you for your time

[vast dagger]

I'm experimenting with RGB-D video, using the depth channel to displace a mesh. in this image I've using the greyscale (left) to displace the mesh (shown on the right) but it is banding pretty severely I guess due to lack of resolution in the single channel + video compression. There seems to be much more resolution in the colour depth image (centre) but I can't figure out how to map the colour information into a single channel to use for displacement. Any insight greatly appreciated.

[hoary talon]

what an interesting idea. have you tried using a high resolution reference depth image of some kind to rule out the video compression issues etc?

[analog cairn]

Uhm, quick question, do I need to do something additional to make Sub UV's work in Cascade or am I missing something?

Ok, apparently just adding this worked. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

[vast dagger]

Yeah I've made a ramp/gradient image but I can't figure out what to do with it! I think I need to do something like this:

[hoary talon]

I really have no idea, I've never done anything like that before. looking forward to seeing how it turns out

[vast dagger]

people seem to do it in Processing with the Kinect. This is from the ipad...

[stoic zenith]

Hi guys. Anyone aware of tricks or techniques in making vertex animated materials not look like <fill in the blank> on close ups?
I'm referring specifically to vertex animated characters and was hoping there was some shader technique to make skin, hair, and cloth look like they are supposed to.

[fossil swan]

that is rather vague

if you also update the normals and such on them, it should be fine in most cases

[inland ibex]

so every time you activate the ability it does a cutscene?

[arctic vector]

no

[inland ibex]

okay, got it

[arctic vector]

there is a cut scene that shows off the ability, then after that they player can do the ability by pressing f for example

[inland ibex]

I'd do it like this:
At the activation the character plays an animation where they are experiencing some convulsions, you can also change the material on him to add splotches of fur appearing all over his body. Then he falls down into a dog like posture, and there you morph target him into the werewolf mesh with some bloody/furry effects that will partially conceal the morph

if you can't morph the human straight into werewolf, because the topology is too different (again I have never actually worked with morpth targets, i don't know the limitations) you can morph the human into some shape that is close to the final werewolf mesh, and then literally switch the morphed mesh for the nice and clean actual werewolf mesh when the effects are strongest and the player loses sight of the model for a couple of frames

[arctic vector]

ok, thanks soo much

[cold sorrel]

I think the first question is what your rigs are like.

Will both forms use the same?

If so, you can rely heavily on anim and morphtargets.

If not, you need to be able to do a swap. Either by matching shapes or covering it with stuff.

How fast is it?

How close is the camera?

Can you see it from multiple angles?

So I'd start by talking to techanim and code and build a spec sheet for all of this. It's going to be a big task whith several disciplines.

[glad badger]

Hey guys! I wanna use this texture, so I applied it to the material

But in a material it looks like this

How can I fix this?

[inland ibex]

You are putting RGBA into opacity

[halcyon wadi]

What is the best way to end a Niagara system via blueprints without it destroying the particles?
For example, if I have a laser with sparks, how could I destroy the laser system without the sparks instantly deleting as well? So the sparks stick around till they die.

[modest leaf]

@halcyon wadi i would say Deactivate

that will stop the emitters

and depending on the particle lifetime

they remain or disappear

[inland ibex]

I don't want to remove the specular highlights from lights that illuminate my hero asset because they create nice reflections, but they don't match the lighting present on the level, how do you guys usually solve this?

[civic roost]

hi all, I've got a pretty simple systems that emit particles that move in local space

I can rotate the emitter which causes particles to emit in direction of emitter

but particles always travel in + worldspace direction

what I mean is I can point system right and particles travel right, but if I point system left particles still travel right

same for up and down, and forward and back

[leaden heron]

that looks like the shape of a baby

[halcyon wadi]

Is there a known issue on UE5 where the "Custom Depth-Stencil Pass - Enabled with Stencil" in the Rendering section of the Project Settings, doesn't work? I can't get a hilight effect to work on my materials. And yes, I do have it enabled inside my blueprint's mesh as well.

[wind fable]

Hello everyone! 🙂
About Cascade (yea yea. but old VR works good only with it)
Can i parameterise Mesh for Mesh spawn emitter?

[languid hearth]

Hello vfx people has anyone tried this new thing of Niagara

https://youtu.be/-cKgZrrBJ2w

[cold sorrel]

Which Part?

[languid hearth]

Frm 19:00

He successfully able to create flex like fluid with Niagara

Captions are there with English

[cold sorrel]

Yeah, you can go for it.

It's pretty much the most advanced thing you can build with Niagara.

His examples for the flip sim doesn't work as he couldn't share all components.

Expect many obstacles.

[languid hearth]

Hmm ok i understand

[cold sorrel]

If you are very comfortable with spatial hashing and simulation stages, and know how to write a PBD solver without too much trouble, you should be able to figure it out, but it will take a lot of time.

If any of what I said sounded unfamiliar, this is not for you.

[languid hearth]

Ill try look by all thesr search im. Focusing my aim about what i should do

Btw, has epic discuss anything abt including softbody n fluid Phys in future??

Ue4-5 features are too much for me to get, but at least i can focus so it will spend my time well

[cold sorrel]

Do you know what PBD, FLIP and PIC are?

Without googling...

😛

[languid hearth]

Yes i was reading this recently

No ofc im not a wizz

[cold sorrel]

Right, then I would try something else instead 🙂 As this is a very manual process that requires expert level knowledge.

[languid hearth]

Btw do you know any book which gives comprehensive knowledge , (both theoretical and code ) about real time rendering , effects and those types of Fluid similation types , i really want to know about all these subjects

[bleak gyro]

Hi folks, I'm working on some hitscan (raycast) weapons, and am looking for a range of Niagara bullet/tracer effects for them. Strangely though, I can't seem to find any in the Unreal Marketplace.

Something bullet-y like this would do it: https://youtu.be/GS_OU3H1luc?t=33, but would love to have a range of more pimped up ones available too.

Anyone any idea if they have a special term I should be using to search for them? Any ideas where I can find/buy them?

[bleak gyro]

Or if anyone knows of a good tutorial that'd be good too!

[bleak gyro]

Also known as 'Bullet Trails" I believe.

[sleek linden]

Hello everyone, hope you are doing well. I'm having an issue with some particles that I spawn via C++. When I go far away from my world origin, the particles don't show up in my game... Any idea how to resolve this ? Thanks !

[bleak gyro]

@sleek linden , sounds like a you need to increase the Max Draw/View distance

[sleek linden]

hey @bleak gyro can this setting be found in the particle editor ? I have looked in the details but can't see this setting :/

[bleak gyro]

Are you using Cascade or Niagara?

[sleek linden]

cascade 🙂

[bleak gyro]

I'm not a VFX ninja like others on here, but I believe that in Cascade you can search for LOD, then set up an array of LOD DIstances. If you exceed the distance your highest LOD, then the PFX won't be drawn.

[sleek linden]

just tried that out, unfortunately no good results :/

[bleak gyro]

Ah sorry, hope someone more clued up than me can offer some other advice. Good luck!

[sleek linden]

thx for trying bro good luck with your projects

[celest birch]

Hello guys, i have a strange problem, i made a blood particles that splash when enemy is hit and when those particles collide with ground i create a big blood decal on the ground and it looks awesome, but when my framerate is <60 fps the particles collide with ground event does not fire so the decals are not spawn. any ideas how to fix it ?

[true quarry]

I'm not sure it's relevant for particles but continuous collision detection (CCD) helps with missed collisions

[glad badger]

How can I make particles fade out in the end?

I've got this particle system, added Color over Life

And as I see it's already goes from 1 to 0

But no effect

That's how I made this material

Help pleeeaaaase

[fossil swan]

add a particle color node.

[glad badger]

Won't it just recolor the whole image?

[quasi mulch]

No, it allows you to control color and opacity inside the particle system, in your case just multiply the RGB output with the RGB output of the ParticleColor node and the alpha output with the alpha

[fossil swan]

that entirely depends on how you set it up

[quasi mulch]

well,I guess it will recolor the image if you multiply with the RGB yeah, if its grayscale, otherwise it will tint if it's a color tex, but in your case if you just multiply the alpha it will allow you to control the alpha in cascade

[floral gorge]

hay EmberGen is live
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVfFX02Rl3Q

[glad badger]

Soo I made this, multiplied Alpha channel with Particle color

Looks like this

[cold sorrel]

Multiply particle alpha with the alpha

Don't randomly plug things in

[glad badger]

Like that?

[cold sorrel]

Yes

[glad badger]

Ehhhh

(that's not that material by the way, that round thing is another emitter)

That's how emitter should be, but it disappears

[thorny grotto]

I'm using cascade to make a bullet trail effect, and while it works well when the bullet moves slowly (as shown), it stretches out both the front and back when I increase the projectile speed. Idk why it is doing this and was wondering if anyone could help me (it is attached to the bullet projectile and the red outline around the bullet is part of the mesh itself with flipped normals)

(right now I have the bullets speed set to 100, but I plan on it being somewhere in the 2000-3000 range and it breaks whenever I do that

[thorny grotto]

https://ue4community.wiki/legacy/projectile-visual-effects-900bey6t This might help

(This is what happens when the projectile speed is set to be higher. the trail is much longer and it clips through the projectile its attached to)

[thorny grotto]

ok I seemed to fix it by changing the size over life value as well as enabling tangent recalculation

[little oriole]

this is basically a additve shader in front of a tranclucent shader, any idea how i can fix the sorting?

from some angles it works

[dim pendant]

@little oriole i think you can work around this by tweaking the bounds of of the effect, i think right now it goes invisible when you do not have the pivot in direct view right?

[little oriole]

I found it, you can sort the translucency in the mesh component :)

[upbeat gate]

How can I mask a depth stencil? I'd like to have my particles not affected by post-process if at all possible

[upbeat gate]

adding to this, how do I access this?

this only shows white

[dusky wadi]

Anyone know how to keep a spotlight from showing through a wall?

[unreal thorn]

#graphics

[uneven pulsar]

can anyone help me with my doubt is it better to use niagara or cascade for particle for android

[summer ginkgo]

I would like to make this particle system destroying itsself after like 0.3 seconds so it isn't a loop anymore but just a single shot.. how do i do that?

[summer ginkgo]

pls halp 😦

[modest fog]

in the emitter's "required" section you need to set emitter loops to 1 (default is 0)

[summer ginkgo]

thanks remster

[idle crater]

anyway to transform to view space?

in material

try to port Unity shader to UE4 material

but can't find node for it

[uneven pulsar]

Is niagara expensive for Mobile devices

[cold sorrel]

You've spent days asking and ignoring answers to this question. You could have tested and verified it 100 times yourself by now.

What does expensive mean to you?

How many ms? How many particles do you intend to use? How complex is your logic?

We can't answer beyond saying, Niagara will work. The rest is up to you.

[fossil swan]

yea @uneven pulsar read some documentation and follow some guides on how to profile. asking the same question for the Xth time is rather frustrating.

[winged nymph]

GPU emitters can't use cutout? Is there any work around for this? Or should I just not care?

[cold sorrel]

They can't?

[analog onyx]

Cant they ?

[cold sorrel]

Since when?

[winged nymph]

It's not working for my GPU emitter

[analog onyx]

I.. think I used cutout on GPU emitter before

[winged nymph]

I could be doing something wrong

[cold sorrel]

Either way, use cutouts for emitters with few particles, use gpu particles for emitters with many particles.

[winged nymph]

nah I must be doing something wrong, they aren't working on CPU emitter either

[cold sorrel]

I'm guessing you ticked the top tickbox.

That one is borked af

[winged nymph]

the material cutout tex?

[cold sorrel]

yer

[winged nymph]

I was using Alpha, but the texture doesn't have an alpha

[cold sorrel]

lol

[analog onyx]

grief

[gritty coral]

how do i destroy an emitter, ive tried the 'destroy component' node but it doesnt seem to cut it. its an emitter thats set to loop infinitely and i wanted to control it with a 'switch'

[upbeat stirrup]

Does anyone here know how i can achieve the particle effect shown in this video?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=demw3U1ODAM

I mean the magical "link" particle

how is this done? how i can create a particle like this that links 2 actors together?

looks like someone had similar question here

https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/paragon-phase-link-how-to-setup/119852

anyone knows how to do it?

[analog onyx]

@upbeat stirrupWhats the big deal? Just splinedeformed mesh ?

[upbeat stirrup]

I dunno, is it?

That’s what I’m asking, i don’t know much about vfx and I want to make something like this. So I’m looking for a tutorial or some explanation how to achieve this

[heady sandal]

Anyone know if it's possible to use animated Substance materials in Unreal?

[modest fog]

You can import substance designer files and expose their parameters in unreal with this (free) plugin https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/substance-plugin?sessionInvalidated=true but not sure about animation (i assume ramping up and down parameters will create animations, but it's probably expensive at run-time)

[modest fog]

I think it's using ribbon particles connected between 2 objects, with some extra effects to make it curvy. This tutorial does the same thing, but with electric style arcs instead of the splines (it's the same principle, though) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SajyFZ35OBI

[willow whale]

Not sure if this its the right place. My question concerns the Houdini Engine for Unreal. I have been experimenting with HDAs working fine as long as they are "static". Now I tried to import a HDA which uses Dynamic Nodes and it can't be displayed. Does anyone have experience with HDAs in Unreal and can tell me if it is even possible to render Dynamic Simulations from HDAs in Unreal?

[tardy dome]

@upbeat stirrup if you download phase the particles are included 😛

[upbeat stirrup]

materials are included yeah but they are all separate

there isn't a "link" particle

that's ready to go

[tardy dome]

it prolly uses some game logic

[upbeat stirrup]

yeah and that's what i need i want to achieve this result

i need to know how it's done and how to set it up

[tardy dome]

havent checked much of the particle stuff from paragon,. moving all particle stuff and material functions to some display project is kinda on my todo list tho

[polar condor]

can someone tell me what can I use in Niagara to replace this module?

[brittle remnant]

@upbeat stirrup In the case of paragon it's just a mesh stretched between two actors with some vertex offset materials on the mesh. You could do something much fancier with spline meshes but it looks like they went a more simple route here.

[lavish parrot]

Using Niagara, using the Scale parameter for SpawnSystemAtLocation() gives me strange results, both with using Global and Local space on the particle system. Is there a way to scale particle systems predictably?

[celest oasis]

Did they move Face Mode for cascade particles?

can't find it. Shouldn't it be under required?

[fossil swan]

it should be, but its not named like that.

maybe this help
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MBr_0Nf4t0

[fringe flare]

Anyone ever figure out how to have Water Body Custom below 0 on the Z axis?

[dusk wharf]

hey guys, im trying to achieve this type of lighting from the game Control. would anyone here know how to make the light falloff have a different color from the center like in the picture?

[dusk wharf]

I figured it out. the solution I went for is overlapping 3 lights one for each channel

in the light function you can put a texture if you want your colored lights to have an image

[brittle remnant]

3 overlapping lights is rarely ever going to be performant enough if they all cast shadows.

[dusk wharf]

unfortunately this seems like the tradeoff for now, still looking into more performant and viable methods to make this work better.

[river mist]

Does anyone know how I can up the emission without having the details wiped out?

this is a material with a opacity mask

[rapid blade]

I have a simple fire particle system for a torch that I want to use frequently in my world. The shader complexity of the particle system, however, has a tendency to tank my fps from time to time. Any suggestions on how to fix that?

[next radish]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LenQBp5FsN0&t=16s Hey
Does anyone know how to make multiple interactions like this ? I know I can use multiple sphere mask but I want to avoid this method. Tried google it and looks like there is HLSL way, where you can create array inside HLSL code and then use that array using blueprints but cant figure it out :/ Is there anyone who can help me ? 😦

[analog onyx]

@next radishYou have a choice between suppling several locations and using several spheremasks, using decals, using render-targed based approach. The only really practical approach is just using decals, let it be decal actors, mesh decal or whatever. Rest are not scalable.

[next radish]

@analog onyx Thank you for answer, all I want at this moment is multiple sphere mask in my material :/

[analog onyx]

@next radishWell, no problem with that at all, just pass as many sphere locations as needed.

[faint aspen]

Hi,
I'm trying to search for why my explosion fireballs are all black when placed in level but they are fine in the particle editor

This is what I see in the particle editor
https://i.imgur.com/L1qVunx.png

and this is how I see it in the level
https://i.imgur.com/767Wgq0.png

I can't find a variable or parameter to never make it black or let's say Always Emissive

[analog onyx]

different exposure levels?

[faint aspen]

What do you mean?

the main post process ? You mean to see if there's something wrong there?

[unreal grotto]

Anyone has a clue on if its possible to make a flamethrower like RTCW? I'm working together with a friend of mine but we're stuck

https://streamable.com/vt1eot thats what we have atm

Not too bad but you notice the particles not being connected like in RTCW.
My friend was thinking of using Ribbons or spawn a spline when holding trigger (like a spider web) and attach the particle to the spline

[primal parrot]

@unreal grotto id say try to make the bulk of the flames a ribbon with a nice flame texture but a bit solid, and emit particles with velocity off it that have a matching flames texture

also animated flames, as this looks like a smoke puff fireball... if you want more realism

[chilly night]

https://youtu.be/nP3ovZk5mog saw this and it looked really cool, wanna try something like it. what sort of “skills” in the vfx would i need to learn to make something like it?

[unreal thorn]

Maybe your light sources are way too bright, and the auto exposure is too extreme.

[fossil swan]

@chilly night one of the reasons nobody has replied so far is because it boils down to years/a lot of experience.

[cold sorrel]

And that the question is too vague. There's nothing special going on there. It's just textures, masks and glow control. The particle movement is very simplistic.

[unreal thorn]

In other words, there's no one strict steps or one tutorial fits all solutions that needs to be followed.

[cold sorrel]

Just build it, and ask questions where you get stuck.

[unreal grotto]

Thanks for the tip, the idea is to make it as optimised as possible first while looking decent and close to the one from RTCW

it's also for a vr game (forward rendering) so overdraw is a huge issue there but my buddy KENNITHH knows what he's doing, our main "problem" is just making the first part look connected and ribbons could indeed be the solution to that

[civic grove]

I'm in the same situation as a lot of the people above recently posted. I bought this vfx pack for unity a long time ago, and I want to learn how to recreate something like it in unreal. It's the very stylized flame thrower animation on the far left. I have it time stamped. https://youtu.be/zz3d5zVPyKs?t=61

Sorry if this is a noob question. I'm still very new to unreal and 3D game dev in general. Is this something that would typically be made in Blender and then imported? Or could this be made in Unreal?

[cold sorrel]

You would build and prep the meshes in blender.

The rest is Niagara

[civic grove]

I've heard of Niagara but I have no idea what it's used for lol

[cold sorrel]

Well. That

[civic grove]

So that is probably a good starting point

Ohhhh so Niagra is the UE4 vfx system? So I would basically make the mesh of the flame and animate it in blender, then add the "effects" to the animating mesh?

[cold sorrel]

The one in your video is just cubes being emitted and stretched with velocity. you could even use the built in cube. It was the other effects on the right that would need some blender work.

[civic grove]

ATM Im just aiming for that cube stretching effect

and it looks like it's using a gradient

[lean heron]

would anyone happen to know of some good places to find dirt mask textures (preferably ones ready to be dragged and dropped into UE)? 😄

[unreal grotto]

we usualy recommend this : https://vk.com/unreal4free (we being a friend of mine and I)

everything there should be legal to use

https://www.artstation.com/marketplace/p/ky9R/15-free-alphas-ue4-decals-pack this for example

[calm sphinx]

ermm can you not use an animated sprite for a gpu sprite particle in cascade?

[calm sphinx]

oh nm

actually .. dangit

[fair bobcat]

Is this the right place to ask for stuff like particles ?

[calm sphinx]

yes

[gentle holly]

is their a way to make a water leak with niagara flood over time?

[celest birch]

Any way to get volume scattering inside mesh? I want to create incluse amber and I need some density inside it

In Blender, I can do this easily and quickly, so I'm surprised that there are no volume scattering and density nodes in UE

[unreal thorn]

What do you mean? Are you referring to local fogs?

[celest birch]

I need to create amber inclusive

And I want to get some volume density to it

[lavish solstice]

I'm attempting to put together a cel-shaded shader, similar to Genshin Impact's characters, and i'm trying to understand how they've masked their rim light/fresnel

It seems like some kind of self occlusion, but really got no idea how that's done, if anyone has any clues, it would be much appreciated

[unreal thorn]

That's actually achieved with matcap blend.

[rugged radish]

Hey there, just checking in again if anyone knows some good flipbook creator tool.
Lets say I have some stockfootage from ActionVFX and wanna create flipbooks for that, or have a rendered sequence of jpegs from FumeFX...

[cold sorrel]

Slate

[unreal thorn]

The flipbook texture is basically grid of sprites split evently.

[lavish solstice]

Oh interesting, I'll have to look that up, unfamiliar with it. Do you have any recommended resources that go over it?

[rugged radish]

Found it.Looks great, but a bit pricey...

[unreal thorn]

Wait what? Pricey?

[cold sorrel]

If free is too expensive, this industry will be a bad time for you.

[unreal thorn]

Am I confusing UE Slate with something else?

[cold sorrel]

FacedownFX Slate.

A flipbook generator.

With more features.

[unreal thorn]

Oh, never heard of that software

[cold sorrel]

And if you need a commercial license, 150$ shouldn't really be an issue either for the studio.

Ah, it's been a standard tool for a few years now.

Pretty much since they added oflow mv generation.

[rugged radish]

I´ll check out the free version, its probably overkill for what we want, hence the comment about the price...
Does it come with an Unreal shader of sorts?

[cold sorrel]

O.o

A what?

It's a flipbook generator...

[rugged radish]

Yeah, it says right on the front page "Use custom shaders".

[unreal thorn]

If you want some example, look for the steam particle included in the Starter Content

[unreal thorn]

There is one used in VRM4U plugin, and I'm deriving from that material.
Here's how it applied to a character mesh.

[lavish solstice]

ok cool, i'll check that out, thanks heaps!

[unreal thorn]

Oh, BTW here's the material function.
The plugin is open source so I have no problem screenshotting the graph just for the matcap shader.

[lavish solstice]

hmm.. I don't think this is what I'm after, unless I'm misunderstanding. I'm looking for the effect that's masking the rimlight like here

[unreal thorn]

Maybe you got the matcap texture wrong.

This is how the matcap texture that I used looks like. Notice the thin colour inside the circle.

[lavish solstice]

how does it get masked by objects in front of it? like here

[unreal thorn]

Oh right, the matcap function is supposed to be applied in material's base colour input, not in post FX.

I'm not using post FX for cel shading at all.

Sorry for forgetting to mention that.

[lavish solstice]

that's alright, thanks for trying to help (: It was useful to learn the matcap method anyway

[lavish solstice]

is there a way to use reflection captures generated cubemaps in a material? say to color/tint a fresnel

[lone wing]

not from the material graph

[unreal thorn]

You can. However, it's not going to be dynamic, as it's basically dumping the captured reflection into a render target, then making a texture asset out of it.

[lavish solstice]

hmm, that might be alright for the time being. If it were able to grab the cubemap from the closest reflection capture that is

[unreal thorn]

That's not going to be easy on performance, even if you're going to be hacky about it via BPs.

When I say "not going to be dynamic", I really mean "not to be used for dynamic scenario"

[lavish solstice]

would there be a better way to color the rim light (fresnel in material or outline effect in postprocess material) based on the light around the character? like pointlights etc

[lavish solstice]

and, those familiar with outlines via postprocess materials, or just post process stuff itself, my outlines change thickness depending on screen resolution, is there an easy way to keep it the same?

[celest birch]

I am looking best way to create gun muzzle vfx

Any advices?

I need a start point

[grizzled saffron]

Hey everyone 👋
Can someone please explain me a little something about raymarching? I working on a blob effect, and followed this tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grmZ0I5-CgA

Thing is I can't get the same effect as in this video at https://youtu.be/grmZ0I5-CgA?t=2224 this timeline, although I think I followed all step by step:
https://pastebin.com/awwvkVkU The Script
https://blueprintue.com/blueprint/jq9fq9z6/ Material

Thanks in advance 🙂

[analog onyx]

@grizzled saffronYou do not give any indication of what is wrong though

[grizzled saffron]

Oh, my bad. I'm not getting same effect of waviness when I overlap the sphere (which has the material) with the floor for example

I'm getting this

But should get this effect

and later should go like this

And I can't get this working properly

[analog onyx]

If you are on 4.26.2, you can toss UASSET, it is just that building one would take time.

[grizzled saffron]

Well I'm on 4.26, but what do you mean about tossing UASSET?

[analog onyx]

sending it over

[grizzled saffron]

oh, ok 😄

one moment

@analog onyx

[analog onyx]

@grizzled saffronIt is working perfectly fine

Just adjust smooth radius

[grizzled saffron]

For real?!

[analog onyx]

[grizzled saffron]

It doesn't need anything specific set up on the scene?

[analog onyx]

[grizzled saffron]

[analog onyx]

Code itself has few issues

like not blending normals between sphere and the skirt

and generating normal of the sphere by offset sampling does not make much sense in the context, because you already know sphere normal from position of the hit and sphere center

etc etc

[cold sorrel]

Spheres are quite special case though 😛

[analog onyx]

thats because they are spherical!

[cold sorrel]

Spherical/specialical

I'm just saying offset sampling isn't a bad idea if you would like to expand to other sdfs at some point.

[analog onyx]

absolutely

[grizzled saffron]

I still don't get it. I played with smoothness and still no effect on the scene. what is this voodoo trick?!

Like, I do see changes in MI, but scene is like nah

[analog onyx]

What is the object you are applying the mat to ?

[grizzled saffron]

sphere

[analog onyx]

of what size?

[cold sorrel]

Ooooh

Hahaha

[analog onyx]

)

yeah

radius is hardcoded to 50

and stock sphere is 100 in diameter

so there is simply no mesh to show the effect on

[cold sorrel]

We're gonna need a bigger mesh

https://tenor.com/view/shark-jaws-attack-ocean-ambush-gif-5104844

[analog onyx]

Meshes? Where we are going we don't need meshes.

[cold sorrel]

He's breaking out of bounds!

Someone stop him!

[analog onyx]

Amazing article by Inigo Quilez btw.

https://iquilezles.org/www/articles/fbmsdf/fbmsdf.htm

[cold sorrel]

Oh, that's just All of his articles you just described.

[analog onyx]

Moral of the story, if you surface aint good enough, you aint using nough spheres!

[cold sorrel]

To be fair, it should probably not be a sphere.

Unless you have no plans on moving to other shapes.

[grizzled saffron]

I don't plan other shapes, all I need is to achieve this slime/blob effect that you can push around

[cold sorrel]

So did it work when you scaled the sphere up?

[grizzled saffron]

nope

well I achieved something, but totally not what I wanted :/

@analog onyx sorry to bother you, but can you please show a screenshot on how it looks on your end please?

[analog onyx]

https://gyazo.com/7b14c039011b5a6cefc962b3277cc9a1

[grizzled saffron]

and what smooth value did you use?

[analog onyx]

12

[grizzled saffron]

nothing else changed?

sphere scale?

[analog onyx]

nope

[grizzled saffron]

https://tenor.com/view/mrbean-hit-head-table-gif-9582280

[analog onyx]

It is not applied on the sphere

but on a cube

[cold sorrel]

Team Cube!

[analog onyx]

What is a cube if not a sphere with low subdivision ?

[cold sorrel]

Deep

[grizzled saffron]

for real?! damn this voodoo

[analog onyx]

Raymarching makes people happy

true story

[cold sorrel]

Not the people minding perf.

[grizzled saffron]

tbh I'm not even shader programmer, out tech artist is just a total noob, so I'm helping out

@analog onyx@cold sorrel thanks a lot guys

[analog onyx]

o7

[cold sorrel]

I take full credit.

At least for derailing.

[grizzled saffron]

still, why not working on a sphere... i'm gonna die with this question probably

[analog onyx]

Rendering slimy blob like that can be done to make performance-challenged people more happy, by using raycasting instead of sphere tracing. Now, there is iterative raymarching and evaluating distance at every step. But what can be done, is just find intersection of ray->sphere analytically. Gives you hit position and normal.

Now supply material with a dozen of spheres

raycast against every of them

[junior matrix]

Probably because the effect extends outside the sphere's "volume".

[analog onyx]

and take weighted average of all hits, weighting by distance, including hit against scene depth.

Same result as spheretracing, but faster

[cold sorrel]

Congrats. you've invented metaballslime.

The most lethal substance.

[grizzled saffron]

so... metaballs eh

heard of that before

gonna finish this crap, and then watch the live stream about metaballs. then gonna kill our tech artist after I'm done

thanks again guys

[lavish solstice]

is there a bit of math i can use in a post process material, to scale a number based on distance from an object masked by custom depth/stencil

need to make an outline get thinner over distance so it doesn't look like its growing, if that makes sense

[celest birch]

What is the problem?

[cold sorrel]

Whatever is plugged into the lerp is not a float

And you haven't plugged in anything to the middle input

[celest birch]

I just try to make a material by guide https://www.artstation.com/kanoba/blog/Ajpj/paragon-breakdown-001-ice-shader-part-i

Step-by-step and there is same plug

[cold sorrel]

Be that as it may, that's the problem

[celest birch]

Thanks

[celest birch]

Thanks all Its solved

[grizzled surge]

I have been looking everywhere online and I can't seem to find a really good water splash tutorial. Most of them online are just packs or small splashes. How can I make a big physics splash? I saw some in the Nvidia Flex showcase on unreal but that was 3 years ago and can't find it now.

[cold sorrel]

Simple answer: you can't

Liquids look trash in all games

[unreal thorn]

Fluid sim is still expensive and barely usable for real-time rendering (at least without prebaking it)

[primal parrot]

Houdini Flip sim for days and export Alembic 😉 For rendered Cinematics of course not Realtime 😛 5 years maybe? 10 hopefully!

[grizzled surge]

my issue is how to add it to unreal water without it looking weird

[unreal thorn]

#visual-fx message

[cold sorrel]

https://tenor.com/view/recursion-w-innie-the-pooh-comics-gif-10554963

[grizzled surge]

but what about the alembic method mentioned above

[unreal thorn]

It's not for ocean scale water.

[cold sorrel]

Alembic would only be viable for a cinematic.

And then you'd replace all the water.

[grizzled surge]

yeah this is a cinematic

not a game

[cold sorrel]

You would not use unreal water at all.

[primal parrot]

You "could" use a mask to try to blend it into a UE water

[grizzled surge]

I see

[primal parrot]

but it wont REALLY match up.. i mean good luck 😉

depends on actual scale and shot

[unreal thorn]

The problem is that Unreal's built in water is it's super experimental.

[grizzled surge]

God damn, I have no idea how to make that water in Blender to bring it to unreal and match it

[cold sorrel]

Oooof

And blender.

Rip

[primal parrot]

lol

[grizzled surge]

lol

[primal parrot]

Do you have a reference video of the look and scale you want?

[grizzled surge]

literally someone falling from space

into the water

one shot

wide

and a splash

same type of angle as above #visual-fx message

[cold sorrel]

Sounds like you have a few exciting weeks/months ahead then!

[unreal thorn]

Make the world smaller.

[grizzled surge]

i have everytinh else

but not the splash lol

[primal parrot]

ok, and what level of realism we need here?

[grizzled surge]

not to real, just something that looks good

I saw this and thought it was possible in unreal

[unreal thorn]

If you're going for 1:1 scale, might as well do it full in Houdini

[grizzled surge]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S8wq0dz1H4

around 1:24

[unreal thorn]

Alternatively, you could think like a filmmaker, and make the world smaller.

[grizzled surge]

That green sphere splash is all I need lol

so I figured this would work in unreal

[primal parrot]

Mate, you will not get something real enough in realtime for 5-10 years 😄

[cold sorrel]

I think you should go for Gameworks.

Shove it in there, compile it. Go!

[primal parrot]

Blender or Houdini, mesh it, export alembic.... mask the bottom of it to match a UE5 water.... then add some particles for maybe foam and bits 😉

[unreal thorn]

Just... Good luck integrating it. 😉

[cold sorrel]

Shhhhhh

[unreal thorn]

[grizzled surge]

ok appreciate the help

sounds like I have a lot of obstacles ahead of me

[cold sorrel]

Nah. As long as you are good at simulations this is a quick one.

[grizzled surge]

I thought so too!

I come from Blender/Cinema 4d so Unreal has been amazing so far

[cold sorrel]

Create the sim, export as alembic, recreate water shader, apply to alemebic. Done.

[grizzled surge]

this has been the only obstacle i cant figure out

[grizzled surge]

would blender be okay?

[unreal thorn]

Blender can do fluid sim, so go ahead.

[cold sorrel]

I haven't seen a good sim come out of it, but you could break the trend!

[grizzled surge]

im guessing houdini is ur choice

[cold sorrel]

You didn't need it to look real so it should be fine.

Yes

[grizzled surge]

alright

[cold sorrel]

For film/cinematic quality, Unreal does not have any real options for this so whatever solution you pick will be heavily based in the simulation you can create.

[primal parrot]

https://realtimevfx.com/t/ue4-how-would-you-make-a-huge-splash-of-water/1021/4

[cold sorrel]

Note how no endresult is posted in that thread xD

[primal parrot]

No but Luos video he posted with the particles is the nice bit Respecognize can add on top of their meshed splash

https://youtu.be/gtDpn9khb-k?t=14

[cold sorrel]

Yeah, but I would not recommend that method for this.

[primal parrot]

I just mean icing on the cake

[cold sorrel]

I'd use a hbjson to match the alembic

[primal parrot]

ah nice

good idea 😉 whitewater all the way

[cold sorrel]

Yeah. Seems odd to not go all the way if you are already paying for the abc I think.

[primal parrot]

Foam for Free 😛

[fossil swan]

jebus, havent seen that effect in ages.
its also very much overkill, even on current hardware :p

[primal parrot]

lol didnt notice how olllllllllllllld that is 😛

[cold sorrel]

Black background, glowy particles, millions of gpu particles. What more could you ever want?

Maybe some mathdots....

[fossil swan]

no mathdots on that one XD

[cold sorrel]

I noticed!

[fossil swan]

and its almost all flipbooks

(as gpu particles)

if you saw how I animated that blob you'd probably murder me

[cold sorrel]

O.o

[fossil swan]

bleepload of modifiers in max, attached to another bleepload of dummies that control the movement, and baked down to a vert anim

[cold sorrel]

🤢

[unreal thorn]

"Someone's gotta start somewhere"

[fossil swan]

hides

heh, long live backups
https://i.gyazo.com/0b92c661fbadd7fe23217f4b763b8463.gif

its not as bad as I remembered

[atomic fog]

Is there any way to do complex lightning branch using Niagara Ribbon?

[full kraken]

hey guys how do I make my render target constantly fade towards black? Clear color is black and I paint white to it, and i want it to constantly fade as i draw

[cold sorrel]

Build a solver with persistance

[full kraken]

not sure what that means but i'll research it lol thanks for pointing me in the right direction

[cold sorrel]

Here's an example on how to do it using Niagara, but you can probably set it up in a straightforward way outside it as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVKpofOj44c

[full kraken]

Awesome, thanks for the help! 😃

[desert rune]

bear with me, I'll try to get my goal across.

I have a ribbon in a third person game. I would like for the player to press "x" and then that ribbon will raise from a specific mesh and travel to, let's say the players right hand.

Eventually, I'd like to get the ribbon to go up out of the mesh and curve onto the horizontal axis while it travels to the hand, but I've been trying to figure this out for days and just cant wrap my head round it.

I've tried get splines to be made between the hand and the mesh for the ribbon to move along but I can't figure out how to make a spine between two points while the game is running.

[random saddle]

Nevermind I'm an idiot

[random saddle]

Hey, I've got a particle emitter that only spawns when it's looped, but if I set Emitter Loops 1, it just doesn't display at all?

Even when it's looped, it seems to always skip the first one.

[keen cairn]

Hey not sure if this is the correct channel to post this in but I have a post process material and when I apply it my HMD only renders it through the left eye and the right eye goes completely black (This is for VR) This is what the material looks like

does anyone know what the problem could be?

[lean heron]

hey everyone, i'm having an issue where one of my particle systems only activates when i translate it inside my level. i'm unable to activate it via Sequencer like any other particle system. anyone able to explain what's causing this?

[cold sorrel]

You have realtime preview turned off.

[lean heron]

the strange this is that i have it attached to one of my animated characters, and since the character is moving, and particle is "emitting", but i can only see the outline of the particle in normal viewport view. when i'm in game view i don't see anything.

[lean heron]

ah, where can i enable this?

[cold sorrel]

Press R

Or ctrl r.

Can't remember

[lean heron]

hrm, i have it on but it doesn't appear to have fixed my issue ☹️

[cold sorrel]

Is the system set to emit over distance?

[lean heron]

i'm assuming you mean LODs, yes? they do appear to be set up correctly

[cold sorrel]

No

On your emitter.

Are you using spawnrate?

Or emit by distance?

[lean heron]

looks to be spawnrate?

[cold sorrel]

Spawn per unit

That only emits if the emitter moves.

[lean heron]

ah interesting, i'll fiddle with the options in there

[lean heron]

hm, initially i tried just deleting the spawn perunit node but that didn't seem to work, and none of the options inside the spawn node have seemed to help either

i'm definitely missing something...

[random saddle]

Hey, all. I have a tiny brain and I'm trying to replace this texture sample with a world aligned texture, but I've got no idea how to do that.

[random saddle]

Essentially, I'm trying to plug texture coordinates into a texture object, and get its R value.

[unreal thorn]

Texture Object is basically textures that aren't sampled.

[bold zodiac]

hey, i have a problem with emissive decals. If the emissive value goes over 1, there are strange outlines appearing on other models thats within the area of the decal (even if there is no actual color there)

you can see on the side of the box, there is a whitish 1px line

[lone wing]

i dont remember where i saw it, but i remember if you do this to your textures

it should fix it

at some extra cost

[bold zodiac]

hmm, do i need to change some settings on texture sample? I had to change MipValueMode to Derivative to have the DDX DDY options appear, do i have to change anything else? it didnt change anything

[lone wing]

try this one

[bold zodiac]

oh, it did work! thank you!

[wet pagoda]

Hey does anyone know how I can get the second slot of additional textures in my material so I can use it like the first source texture. Thank you

[unreal thorn]

Make another Texture Sampler parameter and give it a different name.

[wet pagoda]

Sorry im quite new to materials, how do I do that?

[reef summit]

can someone point me a way to make a curved line in a material so that i can edit the curve

ive been banging my head for hours on this

hours of googling got me here

but no dice

was hoping to make an oscillating wave

[fossil swan]

@reef summit next time please dont ask the same question in multiple channels, thanks. ( #rules )

(special thank to @round fog who showed me this trick back in ye olde days)

[reef summit]

Thank you very much

[next radish]

Hey, I have one question about custom depth and custom stencil, I made night vision material and after using custom depth and custom stencil, this appeared on my empty level, (I'm not using skybox, its empty level) is there any chance to get rid of this green part?

[upbeat gate]

Could you add a big sphere?

hehe

I have a question, not too dissimilar. How would one go about excluding semi-transparent/translucent things from Post Processing? I tried using custom depth but it applies it to the whole object, so it won't work for things like masked particles.

[sleek lagoon]

what should i use to optimize particle effects such as smoke?

[cold sorrel]

A profiler

[celest birch]

does anyone know if you can do this in unreal 5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkEueafOvFg

or if theres another method of hiding parts of objects with meshes

[stark gale]

is there a way to make bent normal maps without baking a high poly to low poly mesh?

[cold sorrel]

#graphics

[finite lily]

hey all, I am using Houdini Engine to bake out a piece of geo that I am using as a static mesh location in niagara. This requires the mesh to have cpu access and I have to toggle that on, that's fine, but the issue I'm having is that if I rebake the asset with the hda to the same mesh it is requiring me to toggle that on again each time which isn't going to scale well with changes. Is there anyway to either set it on by default or only have to toggle it once?

also, let me know if there is a better channel for a question like this

[unreal thorn]

There's a dedicated #niagara channel, you might want to consider move the question there.

[crude jungle]

hi, how can I change HDA parameters via python? I tried set_editor_property but it gave an error "failed to find property"
also tried to use the Houdini public API to instantiate HDAs but it can't find the api. I use houdini engine v2 for 4.26.2

[mental harness]

I want to create a vfx (VHS static like the horizontal line of a vhs lag) that would be setup on my characters face and overtime, it would disappear. Is it possible? If so, how should I make it and even more importantly: Attach it and make it disappear?

To get it to disappear ill prolly hardcode it like I did my post process blend weight, i imagine that can work?

[lavish solstice]

is there a way to change the shape of a fresnel, to something like this?

doesn't have to be that extreme, just yeah if its possible to squish it like that

[unreal thorn]

Not matemathically, but this could be the job for material matcap