I am a visual effects artist currently working at Weta Digital in New Zealand. There are a few of us here who have formed a gamedev collective.
We are interested in doing tutorials on UE4 and FX workflows and I thought it would be a good idea to gauge feedback on what kind of tutorials people want to see. We have many years of VFX experience and are currently learning how that can translate accross to games. We are happy to share our skills which we feel would be useful to the community.
The idea is to put them up herehttps://www.youtube.com/user/DokipenTechTutorials. There are no videos up yet but expect some to go up in the next few days (my first one on building a road tool is nearly ready). Feel free to subscribe so that you get updates when the videos go up.
Different types of screen overlays would be awesome; similar to the inky/splotches in Mario Kart, various visual effects from Grand Theft Auto such as in when it rains, and drops of water fall across the screen. The magnesium bomb from your demo reel is also quite cool!
One thing I’ve been struggling with personally is the effect you’ve got for the Wolverine clip with the sword - subtle distortion, but noticeable - I guess being able to walk that fine line comes in time.
It sounds like you not only do effects, but also tools (given the road tool reference).
Idea 1:
So perhaps making a tool for various cloud setups would be nice? Both clouds that you don’t interact with, like those of a skybox, and clouds you DO interact with (fly through in an airplane and such). Big clouds, small clouds, stormy clouds, clouds with lightning streaking through them and maybe out of them, clouds that change over time maybe controlled in blueprint, etc. For clouds that you can interact with, having some sort of short lived trailing cloud/smoke effect attached to any character that moves through it would be cool (like they are dragging some of the cloud out with them as they exit).
Idea 2:
A lightning system that connects to objects near its point of origin, as seen here: Lightning effect using scene-probes - YouTube
Idea 3:
A flamethrower tutorial that does some of the more subtle effects of actual flame, like how fire sort of ‘curls’ back up and on itself when it hits the ground at force, as seen here: Flamethrower FX - YouTube
Idea 4:
A tutorial on how to use the material editor to get the most out of our fx work, like maybe how certain math functions can be used to produce certain designs or patterns, how certain expressions like depth fade can be used in unusual ways to get cool results, etc.
Idea 5:
Maybe a tutorial on how best to connect variables directly into a particle system from outside blueprints and such, and maybe a bit on particle instancing?
Idk, just a few questions i’ve had floating in my head for a bit. Looking forward to your tutorials, whatever they are directed at.
Nice suggestions, rain, clouds and lighting are all things I’ve been thinking about creating for a game concept I’m putting together. I have a few ideas for tutorials covering these effects. I also plan on showing something soon on using the phat physics tools combined with apex cloth, using cloth for more than just character clothing.
Funnily enough, I am working on fog/clouds on a movie project at the moment. We are investigating how to do them in UE4 at the moment. Sandmeister is pretty keen on that. I’m sure he can post in thi sthread about it.
I think either a beam emitter would get you most of the way there. Similar to the example that’s shown in Lauren’s c++ vids. The more advanced way is using an L-system like what was shown in the latest twitch stream. They can be used to create fractal lighting strikes. Need to do research on that.
The vid you link to is a fluid simulation. Currently UE4 doesnt do voxel grid sims. It can import a single frame of a vector field from a fluid sim to use as a force for particles but currently its not animated. I’ll definitely look at doing a tut to try and get that look with particles though. My Job is mainly working with fluid sims.
I’ve looked through the source code and there seems to be a reference to an animated vectorfield but not sure how that fits in to the editor yet. I’ve been programming a c++ fluid simulation program which is still wip but would like to get that into UE4 if its successful.
There are some tuts on how to get transparency working nicely with particles so that’s on the list and would probably come under the cloud stuff.
One of the things i’m doing is look at all of the components and how they can be used in blueprints. There is a particleSystem component so it wouldn’t be too hard to put together a blueprint that had exposed variables and controlled a particleSystem.
Thanks for the suggestions. will definitely look into them.
The ‘hot smoke’ was a fluid sim, and the subtle distortion was a compositing effects using the fluid sim as a driver to warp the plate photography. I need to look into UE4’s distortion capabilities and work out how to drive it.
Anything related to space fx would be great too, its often a genre that is forgotten
Suns, planet shaders with good atmospheric effect, nebulae, explosion and shock wave like in your reel, etc
Some FX are so great now with tools like frost and krakatoa but are hard to translate in game engine so maybe an experienced guy like you will find a way
A good exemple would be that The Space We Live In - FULL HD Video - YouTube
Nice link TiGuy, love the work Matthias does. Pretty sure he just takes 3d photos of his brain and puts them in video, tho. XD
One other suggestion, however, would be to possibly explain how to get fx that are more along the cartoony look, specifically like in Epic’s Fortnite. I actually am currently trying to learn how to do fx myself, and as such have been taking short recordings of all the cool fx in the games i regularly play, then trim them down, look at each effect frame by frame, and write up a design document of how i believe that effect is made. After they are all written up, i plan to try and recreate as many as possible, though it may take a while (800 GB of video to go through). My point, however, is that while many of the fx I see I have a general idea of what to do, alot of the fx in Fortnite seem alot more… fluid than what I see in other games, and that makes me unsure as to what is actually going on. ><
Tutorials on environment effects would be great, and having them work together like turbulence/wind/cloth/dust/fog/trash. Getting the look of dense particles interacting with meshes, is it harder because unreal doesn’t use voxel grids or something? Apex tutorials and creative use of Apex cloth for things like hair??? Anything to do with realism and simulating dynamic/physically accurate things. Also, would really like to see what you can do with unreal when you ignore performance and pre-render something as if it were to be composited into a raytraced scene.
I’m currently planning some Intro to c++ in UE4 tuts. Lauren’s one’s were great but I want to talk about really basic stuff from the very beginning explaining how the architecture works and what all the macros do and how objects, actors and components are interrelated.
sandmeister is currently heavily working on cloth and clouds.
Another one of our guys is doing some cool things with razer hydra and using hand tracking to release projectiles.
Also of note, is that all have Oculus Rifts (those of us that don’t have DK2s on order). I wouldn’t be surprised if we showcase some stuff from that side of things too.
Since your so on top with effect - you are fitted to experiment with some visual effect regarding the locomotion/rotation/transition for the Oculus
There is a big need to come up with some god effect to enhance the player movement
e.g.
a) Some effect for when the players (camera) collides with objects
b) Dust or light trails following the players hands/arms under or just prior to turning
c) Effects on objects that have focus (that the player looks at)
d) Transitions effect for teleporting or zooming out/in
Yeah occulus stuff is on my list. These kind of things are what I’m looking into for a project of mine actually.
High on my list are dust, smoke and fire. Distorting the render is also a goal of mine. Mainly for heat haze but it could be used for other creative effects.
I always have a weak spot for big energy effects, like giant laser cannons, or the overly exaggerated energy stuff from anime’s and stuff like that.
I really enjoyed what I saw from your reel, some really professional stuff, and fantastic-looking to boot! I couldn’t make it through the video because for some reason every time I use Vimeo, it seems to actively demonstrate itself to me why it isn’t more widely used as Youtube. Refusing to buffer video while paused, for people like me who don’t have even close to a good internet connection, is something I will never understand.
Anywho, I’ll be keeping a close eye on your Youtube channel, there seems to be some great stuff there already, I can’t wait to see what else you have in store!
I think it would be nice to have some good general use tutorials!
Different types of fire: bonfires, torches, candle flames, etc.
Explosions
3.Waterfall
Fireworks
Lightning
Clouds
Maybe something with a silver lining as well? No clue how these guys did it, but these are the best real time clouds I’ve ever seen @ 1:15: https://youtube.com/watch?v=0ygZCDoCVec
Would love more VFX tutorials, they are definitely rare compared to modeling or coding. Especially rare are tutorials on effects that can be seen from inside too, often tutorials cover making an effect that looks good at a distance, but not how to make it look decent when the player runs through it (which happens a lot in first and third person games).
So I’ve been pretty slow getting any tutorials done, Dan is doing a much better job with his awesome spline mesh videos and his new c++ series. To get things started for myself I wanted to share this quick little test video of something I am working on:
The goal is to soon create a tutorial series that covers the creation of this physics driven player pawn, along with the creation of the springy skeleton blueprint. Stay tuned
Looking forward to your tutorials, whatever they are directed at.
