Unreal Engine 5:
Real-time Rendering

To make efficient real-time artwork, I explored the Niagara system, animation system, and material system in Unreal Engine. With the help of Blueprint, interactions can change parameters following my logic design, which makes wonderful real-time experiences.

VFX: Sword Trail

Niagara System:

Ribbon Renderer: to form a plane as the base for the trail.
Dynamic Material: the base color and shape of the wind. Panning noise forms the shape of the wind. A noise layer for normal, to make the moving refraction effect.
Particle Parameter: change material’s shading inputs with real-time parameters
Sprite: add additional particles to make it more dynamic.

Animation Sequence:

Animation Notify: trigger Niagara system.
Socket: to let the effect following weapon.

Material: Lava Transition

Material System:

Basic Material: defines lava and trooper’s body shader. Lava uses a panner mask to form the moving lava. Normal and base color uses proper textures.
Material Function: encapsulation the calculation and leave only parameters.
Combined Material: use a noise map and step function to binarize. Plug into Linear interpolation’s alpha channel to combine two materials. The material instance will use step value to control the combination.

Post-processing: Edge Line Scanning

Post-processing Material:

Edge Line: from SceneTexture get the SceneDepth value for each pixel. Transform the map and use the original map minus it. If there’s an edge, the SceneDepth value will change rapidly, so the minus result has a larger absolute value. Color these pixels and get the edge line.
Scanning: use a sphere mask to control SceneTexture. The not scanned area will output diffuse color.

Unreal Engine 5: Real-time Rendering