[LIVESTREAM] Sr. VFX Artist Bill Kladis joins to talk all things particles! - Apr 2, 2015 @ 2PM ET

[Ivey]

WHAT
If you've been using the Unreal Engine for any sort of VFX work, you're probably familiar with ImbueFX, Bill Kladis' site for learning resources dedicated to the dark art of VFX / particle systems in UE. We're really glad to have Bill as part of the Epic family, and he's going to do a quick live tutorial on properly using refraction with particles, demonstrate some of the new features in Cascade being used in the new UT release (blueprints, lit particles, etc) and demo Jon Lindquist's new animated particle system being released with 4.8. Join us!

WHEN
Thursday, April. 2nd @ 2PM ET - [Countdown]

WHERE
www.twitch.tv/unrealengine

WHO
Chance Ivey - Community Manager - @iveytron
Bill Kladis - Sr. VFX Artist - @imbueFX
Olaf Piesche - Sr. FX Programmer - @olaf_piesche

Questions on VFX? Let's hear em!

Edit: The YouTube archive is now available here

[Devero]

Man I've been waiting for this for so long! This will be a great stream!

Thanks!

[Questions]
1)Niagra? Any update on this?

2)For GPU particles, what are some future plans for these? Will we be able to do random subUVs in the GPU particles roadmap? =)

[Bill Kladis]

Oh wow, it's finally happening!

I am really looking forward to this live stream. If you have any questions ahead of time for the Q&A, please post below and I'll try to answer as much as I can.

[ayretek]

had me worried, kept looking for a stream to be announced.

was looking for something on a really good subject and you did not disappoint.
will definitely try to be there for this one.

[Lovecraft]

Wow! That's exciting. I am looking forward to the stream. Here are some questions that I've had recently....

1. Since you are demonstrating Refraction in Particles, I was wondering if you could also touch on Chromatic Aberration in particles?
2. Follow-up, When doing Chromatic Aberration can they be made in UE4 in such a way as to change based on the lighting in your scene, or is there a way to pass a "light vector" through the material in order to fake it reasonably?
3. When is it best practices to use Mesh Emitter with an animated material over a Sprite Emitter with static material and animated movement?
4. For a character magic-like lighting bolt attack effect would you recommend using a beam emitter or a series of sprites with an animated material, and why - with the nature follow-up how?

[Martin Egger]

I am in, need a brain of a Particles Guy

[Zurael]

explosions and clouds! how to like a pro please!
thanks!

[iniside]

Ok this is very important and serious question!

Any more tutorial for ImbueFX, or some nice tutorial for Epic channel from you Bill ? Man your introductory tutorial for Cascade, was awesome. Even I could do particle after watching few movies, which is achievement in it self!

Can't wait for tutorial from you for Niagara

[TheJamsh]

Ace! Been a long-time follower of Bills & bought everything I could from ImbueFX, this should be really sweet!

A few questions form me I suppose are:

- What (if anything) can we expect to see from IFX in the future? I learned a lot of more advanced tips from that website and keep looking for new content. Easily the best VFX tutorials out there for UDK and UE4, very keen to see more like that!
- As we're talking particles, is there any news to come on Niagra's development?
- Anything about Cascade you'd like to see improved or worked on, anything you're helping with right now in that regard?
- How did you swing such an awesome job!

Also, sorry to go off the format slightly but I think I can answer two of these:

Wow! That's exciting. I am looking forward to the stream. Here are some questions that I've had recently....
1. Since you are demonstrating Refraction in Particles, I was wondering if you could also touch on Chromatic Aberration in particles?
2. Follow-up, When doing Chromatic Aberration can they be made in UE4 in such a way as to change based on the lighting in your scene, or is there a way to pass a "light vector" through the material in order to fake it reasonably?

1- Chromatic aberration isn't part of UE4's renderer, but you can fake it. I did it here, but you need a translucent material so that you can sample the scene and use the translucent-specific nodes. No light-vector involved, Aberration is caused by looking through a lens at something, the light itself doesn't have any effect on it.

2- You can pass in a light-vector to materials easily, check out the material on the engines' "BP_SkySphere" asset, it simply gets the rotation of a light actor, converts that to a vector and updates the parameter of a material. Material Parameters and particularly Material Collection Parameters are really powerful, it's worth reading up on them!

[Bill Kladis]

Awesome questions so far everyone!

For those asking about an update on Niagara: Olaf Piesche (programmer on Niagara) will be joining us in the Q&A session at the end to answer questions and provide an update.

It just keeps getting cooler!

[Lovecraft]

Hi TheJamsh -

I've seen you're video before and it was what I was using as reference in some of my current projects, but allow me to clarify a little more, I was looking specifically for something more defined and less aberration more chromatic. More like the sharp edge of a prism and less like the actual lens distortion. That's awesome though thank you for the help, great community here.

EDIT:

For Olaf -

When Niagara comes out will we need to go back and forth between Niagara and Blueprints or will all of the functionality be in Niagara?

[Chad]

Hi guys,
I can't wait to watch the stream. My 1st question is are there any plans to update Cascade with a node based UI like Particle Flow or Thinking Particles?

2nd question If you want to work at Epic or in the Games Industry as a FX Artist what kind of effects should you create for your demo reel and how long should the demo reel be? Should it include a breakdown?

Thanks Very Much,

Chad

[kamrann]

Hi Bill.
I'm not sure, maybe your focus is more on the visual side, but if you could talk a bit about particle collision handling that would be great. In particular, I'd just like some info on what level of collision feedback is reasonable to do through a particle system, in terms of sending collision event data back to the game. The particle collision event which is exposed to blueprint has less information on the impact than is available for normal collision primitive events. If the intention is for particle collision events only to be used for cosmetic game effects, can you give some pointers on what approach to take when we need in-depth particle collision info to affect game logic? Not use a particle system at all? Perhaps combine a particle system for the visual effect with some invisible actors used for collision?

Cheers.

[TheJamsh]

I'm logging into Twitch, but for some reason it won't let me connect to chat. If I don't sign in it's fine... looks like I might not be able to chat much again this week

EDIT: Fixed!

If anybody is experiencing problems with the Twitch Chat, try changing your password. You had to change it thanks to a recent security update on Twitch, but if you login with Facebook credentials (like me), it won't prompt you.

[ianoreo]

Bill mentioned a tutorial or something like that regarding building a sort interference / noise pattern with sine waves. Would love to check this out!