In this blog post I’ll be covering the VFX work that I have done while working on Manas, a USC AGP project in Unreal Engine 5. All the VFX was completed in Unreal’s Niagara and/or Cascade systems
Wind Ambience
This effect was created using the Niagara system. It is the combination of two effects, the wind lines and grass. The wind lines are actually meshes with a transparent texture being swept across their UVs
Blood Splatter
This effect was created using the Cascade System. It uses a material input which contains the blood design. Emitter settings can be adjusted to switch between a burst or flow pattern.
The blood material itself was created in Photoshop. An initial noise pattern created and then edited. A normal map, alpha, and roughness map is generated and then inputted into the Unreal material.
Sword Swipe
This effect was created using the Cascade system. Animations in the video are from Mixamo. The sword is from the Unreal Marketplace.
Two things are necessary to create this effect: A ribbon particle system and three bones on the animation. The first bone is placed on the models hand, the second at the start of the sword blade and the third at the tip of the blade.
The effect is then placed between the two bones on the blade and it follows any swing movement that the player makes.