Quick Start Video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8MrAn0uNYs
Leave a trail of real, frozen poses behind any character: dashes, dodges, blinks and teleports.
Open a montage, add the ANS_AfterImage notify state over the dash and drag its end to where the move slows down. That is the whole setup. While the window plays, the character leaves afterimages behind; each one is a frozen copy of the exact pose at that moment, at its old position, and fades on its own. You see it right away in the montage editor's preview, before you even press Play. If the montage is stopped or interrupted, the trail stops at once.
It works on any Skeletal Mesh: no component to add, no base class, no Animation Blueprint changes, no GAS. Weapons, armor and other meshes attached to the character are captured too.
FEATURES
- One Anim Notify State is the whole workflow, on any montage or animation sequence
- Real poses: every afterimage copies the character's evaluated pose, including attached skeletal and static meshes
- Three original looks: Spectral Echo (cold blue glow), Shadow Remnant (dark smoke with a violet edge), Ember Residue (burning orange with embers)
- Data-driven presets: duplicate one and edit emission, lifetime, colors, edges, opacity, dissolve, embers and more
- Per-notify overrides with a checkbox: change one value for one notify without a new preset
- Emission by time, by distance or both; spawn interval, minimum distance, teleport distance
- Lifetime, fade duration, optional fade curve and a cap per trail
- Fades near the camera, keeps the same brightness in dark and bright scenes
- Bring your own material or add a small Niagara accent
- Shown in the montage editor preview while you edit
- Blueprint and C++ API without animations: Start / Stop After Image Trail, Spawn Single After Image, Clear, active count
- Lightweight: no tick while nothing is active, pooled meshes, no per-frame material instances, a hard cap per world
- Full, documented C++ source
INCLUDED
- Runtime code plugin with full C++ source
- ANS_AfterImage notify state, AfterImage subsystem and Blueprint function library
- 3 presets (Data Assets), 1 master material, 3 material instances
- Demo level (Demo > L_AfterImage_Demo) with the three looks
- Quick Start, Settings, Customization, Blueprint and C++, and Performance guides
TECHNICAL DETAILS
Modules: ModularAfterImageFX (Runtime)
Dependencies: engine modules and the engine's Niagara plugin (enabled automatically). No third-party plugins, GAS or Enhanced Input required.
Platform: Windows (Win64)
Engine versions: 5.6, 5.7, 5.8
Networking: visual only. Notifies run on every machine that plays the animation, so each client draws its own trail; dedicated servers create nothing. No replication code.
Performance (UE 5.6, RTX 4060 Laptop): one character dashing adds about 0.2 ms game thread; capturing a reused afterimage takes about 4-8 microseconds. Full measurements in Docs/5_Performance.txt.
Code plugin: use "Install to Engine" in your Fab library, then enable it per project in Edit > Plugins. Works in Blueprint and C++ projects; no C++ writing needed. Plugin content appears in the Content Browser under Plugins (enable Show Plugin Content).
DOCUMENTATION
Included in the plugin's Docs folder (start with 1_QuickStart.txt).
Tutorial video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8MrAn0uNYs
SUPPORT