Niagara effects for lightning and storm magic: a lightning bolt, ball lightning and a thunder javelin with their impacts, a cast, forked lightning, a beam, chain lightning, a flash step, a storm circle and a gale, weapon and armour enchantments that charge the gear with a storm, a storm slash and a thunder strike, a thunderbolt called from the sky, a walking line of strikes, a nova, a thunder blast, Wrath of the Storm, a static field, a lightning rod, shock, stun, overload, a lightning cage, overcharge and a storm curse, a storm aura, a static shield, orbiting ball lightning, a thunderstorm, a tornado and a storm portal. The lightning is drawn in frames: bolts and arcs re-draw themselves many times a second, strike again and leave an afterglow, and every strike burns a branching scar into the ground. A kit of meshes comes with it: a tornado funnel, a thunder javelin, a lightning rod, three rocks and an arc ring.
WHAT'S INCLUDED
- Projectiles: a lightning bolt with arcs writhing behind it, ball lightning inside two turning rings of lightning, and a thunder javelin in gold, each with its own impact - arcs leaping over the ground, the ball collapsing into itself and discharging, a gold bolt answering from the sky where the javelin lands
- Casts: a fork of arcs snapping out of the hand, looping forked lightning that opens toward its target, a looping 10 m beam, chain lightning leaping from target to target, a flash step that leaves in a bolt, a looping storm circle under the caster, and a gale of wind, dust and charge
- Weapon enchantments, shown on a simple sword included in the pack: the blade stormcharged - dark storm steel with lightning veins crawling over it - with arcs running up it; the charge climbing the blade until a bolt comes down on its tip; and the blade discharging in arcs and sparks
- Armour enchantments, shown on a simple armour on a stand: the plates stormcharged with two rings of lightning turning round them; the charge climbing from the skirt to the neck before a bolt strikes it and the rings snap into place; and a static shell bursting out when struck
- The storm coating is a material: put it on your own weapon or armour as an Overlay Material (its Coverage makes the charge climb the mesh), or set an enchantment's coat to your mesh
- Weapon attacks: a storm slash (a crescent of force with arcs leaping off it) and a thunder strike that sends lightning running out along the ground
- Strikes from the sky: a thunderbolt with a leader that draws itself down before the stroke, and a thunder walk of five bolts coming down in a row
- Area spells: a lightning nova racing out over the ground, a thunder blast that pulls in before it goes off, a looping static field, and a lightning rod that the sky strikes again and again
- Wrath of the Storm: cloud spirals together overhead, small bolts test the ground, two leaders come down, then a 15 m bolt that re-strikes three times, with rain after it
- The scar: every strike burns a branching figure into the ground that glows, cools and fades
- Status: shocked, stunned, overload (a charge that builds on a target and goes off), a lightning cage, overcharge (a buff in gold) and a storm curse - a small thundercloud of its own that rains on a target and zaps it
- Looping effects: a storm aura, a static shield, orbiting ball lightning, a thunderstorm with rain and four spots struck again and again, a tornado with lightning inside it, and a storm portal
- Storm cloud and the tornado are one funnel mesh with a cloud material turning on it: standing, it is the tornado; squashed flat overhead, it is the disc of cloud over the thunderstorm, Wrath of the Storm and the storm curse
- Projectiles and looping effects run while they are active: attach a projectile to your actor and deactivate it on hit, and its trail fades on its own
- Impacts follow the surface they hit: turn them to the hit's normal and their bursts work on floors and walls alike
- Scale the actor and the effect scales with it, keeping its timing
- An overview map that fires every effect on a loop, the projectiles flying in and striking the ground, the enchantments on the sword and armour, and a sword wearing the storm coating as an Overlay Material
TECHNICAL DETAILS
- Niagara systems: 40, all CPU; the three projectiles, forked lightning, the beam, the storm circle, the blade and armour enchantments, the static field, the lightning rod, shocked, stunned, the storm curse, the aura, the shield, the orbs, the thunderstorm, the tornado and the portal loop; the rest are one-shot bursts
- The sword enchantments run along the system's +Z from its origin (the grip) to 1 m: attach them to a weapon socket with +Z along the blade. The armour enchantments sit around the origin: attach them to a chest or spine socket
- Scalability: every system has a Niagara Effect Type - one for the bursts, one for the looping effects - with distance culling and instance limits
- Materials: master materials for additive glow, translucent glow, drawn lightning (bolts, arcs, circles, rings), procedural arcs, plasma bursts, storm cloud, the scar, solid lightning, the static shell, charged rock and metal, the tornado funnel, the storm coating and the demo sword and armour, with their instances, plus the overview's ground material
- The strobe: the bolt, arc and coating materials re-draw themselves on a stepped clock. Strobe Rate sets the redraws per second; the bolt material picks another bolt from its atlas on every step, the arc material draws a new path between its two ends
- The arc material draws one to three arcs along a sprite, pinned at one end or both: stretch a sprite between two points and it is a lightning beam between them. On the arc ring mesh it runs round the ring
- Colour: the lightning takes its colours from a ramp texture - a storm-blue ramp and a thunder-gold ramp on their instances; every material that draws colour has Hue Shift and Color Tint parameters - set them on an instance to recolour every effect that uses it
- Textures: two 4096 x 4096 flipbooks (a plasma burst and smoke, 64 frames each), two colour ramps, an atlas of four bolts, an atlas of sixteen small arcs, an atlas of four arc bursts, the Lichtenberg scar, lightning veins, the storm circle, a sawtooth ring, a slash, a vortex, a light shaft, a streak, a ring, a trail, glow, spark, mote, sparkle, flare, beam and noise textures
- Meshes: a tornado funnel, a thunder javelin, a lightning rod, three rocks, an arc ring, a sphere, and the demo sword, armour and armour stand, which have simple collision
- LODs: none on the meshes, which are all light; every system culls by distance through its Effect Type
- The lights' specular is off, so a low camera sees no bright streak on the ground
SUPPORT
Questions or a problem with the pack: write to me through my Fab seller page.