I created this example project for a Tech Art Class I gave for SAE School Australia (but gave the class later also at Enjmin, Nord University, Howest & Vertex School).

It is an extension of my previous project called “One Shader to Rule them All”. The basic idea of both projects: (Almost) all materials are based on only one (super duper) shader to speed up the creation of vfx materials. In addition I wanted to learn more about stencil buffers and challenged me by making a magical card with a little interior inside and a dragon being able to peek out of the card.

🔍 Details about Class Structure, Student Feedback, Price, …
🔗 Project & Breakdown on Artstation
💾 Download Project Files
📑 Visit WIP Thread

Idle state to show off the dragon peeking out of the card and sparkles & trails which have their origin “inside” the card and can extend into the “outside”.

Breakdown

The use of UV Distortion for fire was inspired by the work of Johan Karlsson: https://realtimevfx.com/t/sketch-10-jqarlsson/4235/16

For a quick setup for these swoosh-trails, I’ve made a Blueprint allowing me to deform a tesselated plane via spline.

This idea was inspired by the Portal from Chris Murphy: https://youtu.be/WzeeXMcui_0

Tutorial about the displayed particle gate: https://youtu.be/h_t0c2J8bBE

The updating is all done via Blueprint events which are called from the sequencer.

A small overview about the many iterations I did for this effect. More details in my WIP thread: https://realtimevfx.com/t/simon-trumpler-vfx-sketchbook/4177/314

Thank you for looking at my breakdown! I hope you liked it :)

Have a great day,
Simon

Sources & Inspiration

3rd Party Meshes

Quadruped Fantasy Creatures: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/7f7775996f7442b187f6fa510ec9d289?sessionInvalidated=true
Infinity Blade Grass Lands: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/infinity-blade-plain-lands

3rd Part Textures

Noise Textures by Luos: https://luos.gumroad.com/l/bouSt
Noise Textures by Niels Dewitte: https://www.nielsdewitte.be/index.php?page=Pages%2FVFExtra.php
Noise Textures by 1MAFX: https://1mafx.gumroad.com/l/14Noise
Stylized Meadow Grass: https://www.texturecan.com/details/287/
Sandy Trail: https://www.texturecan.com/details/265/
Sky Photo by Dewang Gupta: https://unsplash.com/photos/aATI6lXTPqE

Inspiration

One thought on “The Unreal Stencil Dragon”

Unreal Engine 22. August 2023 at 21:39

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Simonschreibt.