In real time VFX, there are a multitude of special tricks that may be used to create effects. Examples are shown below. These are not comprehensive, but are intended to give you ideas on how to create your own meshes, UV’s, and textures for use in real time VFX. Many of the examples shown are demonstrated in Unreal Engine 4, but are easy to create in other software packages through the same/similar processes because it is all math!

INTRODUCTION

Intro To Visual Effects (UE4 Cascade Intro)

Intro to Visual Effects (UE4 Blueprints)

4 Phases To Creating An Effect

Don't forget that Substance Designer is fantastic for generating noise textures!

• 33 millisecond cap for everything if game needs to run at 30 FPS. 16 ms cap if game needs to run at 60 FPS. 1/0.016 (1 second divided by 16 milliseconds per frame) = 62.5 frames or 60 frames per second.
• Earth gravity equals (9.81 meters/s)/s.

BLUEPRINTS (Unreal Engine 4)

Construction script blueprints happen as soon as an actor exists, or when one of its properties are updated, or when it is spawned at run time. This is useful for setting up dynamic textures or setting random rotation to meshes at the beginning of their lives. These things show up as soon as you place them in the editor. The construction script fires only at the beginning of an actor's life.

Event Graphs do not happen until the event fires. Event graphs can happen as often as you like, for as long as you like.

General Info

After Effects Motion Table

Blending: Linear Burn vs. Color Burn

Camera Depth Fade