Overview
Thanks to Pawel Margacz and Joseph Harrison for the feedback and guidance.
At first, the project started out as a single fire meteor but as I expanded my skills I decided to take it further and create an AOE ability. The idea was to create a multi component effect in order to expand my knowledge on how everything works with each other (Blueprints, Niagara, Materials etc).
At first, the project started out as a single fire meteor but as I expanded my skills I decided to take it further and create an AOE ability. The idea was to create a multi component effect in order to expand my knowledge on how everything works with each other (Blueprints, Niagara, Materials etc).
References
I started gathering references of fire meteors. Things I deconstructed from the references were:
I figured out the different components of a meteor,
- Head
- Trail
- Impact
- Ground Crack
- Area of effect
Things I kept in mind,
- Rotate the meteor to give it a more believable look as it pierces through the air.
- Create cracks in the meteor to indicate the fire inside
- Add fire on impact
- Make the meteor hit diagonally
I figured out the different components of a meteor,
- Head
- Trail
- Impact
- Ground Crack
- Area of effect
Things I kept in mind,
- Rotate the meteor to give it a more believable look as it pierces through the air.
- Create cracks in the meteor to indicate the fire inside
- Add fire on impact
- Make the meteor hit diagonally
Meteor Reference
Meteor Reference
AOE Disc Reference
Meshes
All meshes made inside Houdini
Impact Rocks and Debris
Head with vertex color
Smoke
Meteor
Meteor (Exploded View)
AOE Disc with vertex color
Smoke mesh:
- bubbly shaped mesh to create a stylized smoke look
- taken from my Arcane inspired smoke project.
Meteor mesh:
- fractured a sphere in Houdini using RBD and added material slots (inside and outside) to be used in engine.
Head mesh:
- will wrap around the meteor
- taken a sphere, blasted the bottom half, stretched it and added a vertex color to be used in engine.
Rocks and Debris:
- very simple polygon shape
AOE Disc:
- indicates the impact area of the fire meteors
- used Labs disc generator and added a vertex color to separate the edge from the center
- bubbly shaped mesh to create a stylized smoke look
- taken from my Arcane inspired smoke project.
Meteor mesh:
- fractured a sphere in Houdini using RBD and added material slots (inside and outside) to be used in engine.
Head mesh:
- will wrap around the meteor
- taken a sphere, blasted the bottom half, stretched it and added a vertex color to be used in engine.
Rocks and Debris:
- very simple polygon shape
AOE Disc:
- indicates the impact area of the fire meteors
- used Labs disc generator and added a vertex color to separate the edge from the center
Textures
Ground crack texture I created in substance designer
Trail textures from Pawel Margacz (Patreon & Youtube)
Blueprints & Materials
![[Meteor BP] - Spawns the ground crack and explosion upon colliding with a trigger volume](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/723d4601-edca-4a78-8c09-373cc932d6af/585c203c-edd0-4f35-9b12-d817cfcf8469_rw_1920.png?h=717b790098368abbc13b323b5ab9caef)
[Meteor BP] - Spawns the ground crack and explosion upon colliding with a trigger volume
Spawner BP to spawn meteors with a range for the delay
![[AOE Disc Material] - Using vertex color to control the opacity and color of different areas of the disc](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/723d4601-edca-4a78-8c09-373cc932d6af/554b13b0-24da-43e7-989e-1f3e692e4cb3_rw_1920.png?h=e2c2e652980d7daf584170622c4a63b0)
[AOE Disc Material] - Using vertex color to control the opacity and color of different areas of the disc
![[Ground Crack BP] - Animating the ground crack from the BP using a timeline node and the erosion parameter from the material](https://cdn.myportfolio.com/723d4601-edca-4a78-8c09-373cc932d6af/a64be3e3-c99a-4ebd-b342-452bde37559e_rw_1200.png?h=c1826ad01b4fdbc3dc407e83e46389af)