Completed summoning & attack VFX
Overview
Role: Solo Developer
Tools Used: Unreal Engine, Blender, Photoshop
Intent
This project was inspired by a random sketch I made for Inktober a few years ago, a skull shaman/witch doctor type character (seen below). I wanted to learn the basics of making real-time VFX and also start learning Unreal Engine more properly, so I created a VFX concept for an attack that might be realistic for this skull shaman character!
Inktober sketch of Skull Shaman
Process
Concept
This attack VFX is driven by the idea of the skull shaman having summoning magic. The attack follows a sequence of events where the skull shaman does a summoning ritual to materialize a giant skull spirit, which then takes a life of its own and launches itself towards the target and explodes on impact!
The original concept had a swirling cone of magic emitting from a magic circle, but in the final version I changed it to open a hole in the ground as if the skull spirit were being summoned from the underworld instead.
3D Models
Render in Blender of Skull Shaman character fully textured
360 of the summoned skull spirit
Shaders + VFX Process
Planar dissolve in ghost material
Swirling noise in ghost material