Magic Arsenal - Particle FX

LOL, sometimes the answer is so simple you overlook it. Thanks

 

Will this asset be available in version 2019.4?

 

Hi, I think it should already be compatible.

 

Does magic arsenal work with URP, looks great but my project is in URP. Will everything convert?

 

Hi, I'll be uploading an update shortly with an URP upgrade pack.

You can upgrade it yourself as it uses only Standard Unity shaders, but it doesn't always look great right away. You'll have to boost the whites in the Materials to get it similar looking to Standard.

 

Thank you Archanor, I believe this pack will suit my game.

 

My shaders are still legacy after using you upgrade file.
This is with a fresh install (on 2020.2).

 

@drallcom3 The URP upgrade uses legacy shaders as they're compatible with both Standard, URP (HDRP as well, I think). Did you have problems with it in 2020.2?

 

Not at all. I just assumed the upgrade would use the new URP shaders. Doesn't look like the upgrade even does anything.

Anyway, using proper URP shaders (on the right) your effects look even nicer.

 

@drallcom3 Oh, that looks a lot clearer indeed. I'll have to look into adding another upgrade with the latest shaders.

 

It's
URP particle unlit
with
Blend mode: Add
and
Color mode: Multi
in case you're interested. Also the screenshot has bloom added.

 

@drallcom3 I just spent about a week upgrading the asset to look better in URP, it uses the latest shaders now Also fixes some scaling issues that has been lingering.

See the new updated WebGL demo

Edit: Mini video of new effects

v2.7 (Unity 2019.3 and up)

This update features a new and improved URP upgrade, new effects and optimization

- Added Orbit Sphere FX (10 prefabs)
- Added Beam Blast FX (10 prefabs)
- Added Slash Hit FX (10 prefabs)
- Added Curse FX (10 prefabs)
- Added Aura Cast Small FX (10 prefabs)
- Added Earth Prison FX
- Added Earth Spike FX
- New URP Upgrade using latest shaders
- Optimized lightning textures to reduce overdraw
- Updated effects to scale more easily via Transform
- Updated effects to have Apply Active Color Space enabled by default
- Updated effects to use latest Standard Particle Shader
- Increased resolution on some textures
- Fixed arcane sound effect
- Fixed demo scene errors

 

awesome! The new demo looks pretty good.

 

What? Not only didn't you unexpectadely convert all effects, you also added a ton of new ones!
You're awesome, man.
The updated demo looks good. A lot more HD.

What is the orbit sphere intended to be for? Shooting at someone? Orbiting around someone?

 

It could be used as a projectile or a power up floating around. Orbiting around a player could work since there's a particle trail attached.

Otherwise the orbiting trails could be cut out and put around a character as an aura or buff.

 

Hi @Archanor,

Could you help me with this : I would like to make part of the aura transparent and rendered which is behind the cube.


Thanks in advance for your replies.

 

@RatBytes Hey. I'm not exactly sure what you mean.

Do you want to render the aura over the cube at all times? I think you need a custom shader for this.

 

Yes, I want aura to be rendered.
Similar to the response at this link :
https://answers.unity.com/questions...13.326074461.1592821563-1746821530.1592821563

I tried that shader, but then the aura does not get rendered at all.
I am still a noob at shaders

 

Hi, I'm using Magic Arsenal with Unity 2019.4.29f1. When I look at Arcane Missile prefabs in the inspector I see what is in the picture. A message about the material "with incorrect Vertex Streams:". There is Apply to System button to fix it but I don't like pressing buttons unless I know what they do. Was wondering if you're seen this and any suggestions you might have.

 

That's a good question which I don't have a definitive answer to. Even though this warning shows, I have seen no issues with the effects in builds. To get rid of the warning completely, you have to open the prefab and click 'Apply to Systems' inside each material.

If you make a new particle system with a new material with the Standard Particle shader, you'll get the same error for some reason. (This is tested in 2019.4.24f1 LTS)



@richardkettlewell Do you have any advice here? Is this considered a bug or should I be clicking 'Apply to Systems' for all my 500+ prefabs in my assets?

 

Thanks for getting back. Ok I'll just use the button to fix it. The difference in renderer after the fix is in the picture. From my limited understanding, I think these streams need to be specified in the renderer when building the particle system. The documentation for Custom Vertex Streams says "Configure which particle properties are available in the Vertex Shader of your Material. See Particle Vertex Streams for more details." Maybe the renderer uses these for optimization when they're specified... who knows.

Here is some info on the streams in case you're bored and have nothing to read
https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/PartSysVertexStreams.html

 

Thank You for getting back with the information. It's great to know what happens under the hood. I've actually did that comparison in the previous post and it was Position, Color and UV that were added to the Particle System. After the fix I don't see any issues so things do look fine. I'll leave it to Archanor to decide if he wants a bug report for this... Regards.

 

Archanor I had a quick question. I'm using these missiles in a 2.5D game and they are fairly small in my game. So if I take all the arcane missiles for instance they seem very similar in my scenario. Because of this I wanted to adjust colour on some of the ones that are of same type (eg. like arcane). To for instance make the smaller one a big darker, or colour more reddish. Do you have a suggestion on the best way to achieve this? Would it be changing color on the arcane_sphere texture for instance (for normal arcane missile?)? Thank you for your time if you can spare some. Regards.

 

This sounds like how I would do it!

I would make a copy of the texture, then change the hue in the texture and finally adjust the colors in 'Color over Lifetime' in the particle system if needed.

 

Thank You kindly...

 

@JesterGameCraft Also if you feel the original effect is too bright in the center, you can increase the color saturation/tint in the particle system.

 

I'll give that a try. Thanks again!

 

So I've spent some time playing around with the settings and I get close to what I want with the exception of glow. It is very bright when I try to adjust it's colour to a darker one it just fades away. I tried changing the albedo map to add more grey, changing rendering/color modes, HDR color as well as Start color in the particle system but when I make the color darker the glow just fades away. Any suggestions are appreciated.

 

@JesterGameCraft Since the material settings is set to be Additive, when you make the material darker, it'll simply fade out. If you set it to Alpha Blend, it'll show darker shades instead of fading out.

Try setting the material to Fade/Multiply instead of Additive/Multiply.

 

That did it. Thank You!

 

Sorry to bug you again but now that I have the effect that I want I see a sorting issue it seems. For instance ArcaneMissileSmall I made the changes but now I see the Trail and EmberTrail effect popping in/out of front of the MissileSmall main particle system. Sort of a sorting layer problem. These should be rendered after the mail swirl but they jump in and out of front of it when I move the missile around.

 

After trying many settings with limited success, it would appear that "Sorting Fudge" is the key to solving this issue. So far it looks like it's consistently working. What I found though is that I had to set the number to really high value. So for ArcaneMissileSmall sorting fudge is -2, but for ArcaneTrail and ArcaneEmberTrail I had to set the values to over 15 like 20 (seems high). Hopefully this info will help someone trying to do the same thing I'm doing.

 

Sorting Fudge is indeed the way to go here. It's like using layers for particle systems. The higher the number is, the further back it'll be rendered compared to other particle systems.

Sorting Fudge is not so important when it comes to additive textures, but once you changed to Fade, particles have a visible solidity and can hide other particles behind.

 

Thank You. I should be good to go now to make any changes that I need. Regards.

 

Once again Sir I seek your advice... I have everything looking pretty much how I want it with one exception. I'm using MeshGlow on one of my models and want to change the colour during gameplay event. After looking at Particle System and Material documentation I think the simplest option would be to convert all the Particle System->Color Over Time values to simple alpha (while color) and all Particle System->Start Color values also to white, also change all the textures to simple white colour alpha like glow01 is for instance. And then just change the Albedo colour to what I need via script at runtime. I know there is some work I need to do but then during runtime I think it would be simpler then trying to modify start colours and colour over time for some of the particle systems and swap materials, etc. Any thoughts/concearns on this approach?

 

Update: Well I tried it and it works, but the look is different since the HDR colour is applied to the whole map, where the original has centre white and edges coloured. So I guess the approach above will work but the look will be different. I think I'll create a different prefab of MeshGlow with a different colour then I'll just deactivate the glow with the colour I don't want and then activate the one I do want.

 

For anyone having trouble with beams not scrolling in URP, you can use these custom shaders. They come with Soft Particles and the Texture Offset which is no longer included in Unity's standard Particle Shader.

Import them to your project and you can find them in the shader library under 'Archanor VFX/Magic Arsenal/' .

Includes 3 shaders made with Amplify Shader Editor:

MagicBeamADD (Additive)
MagicBeamAB (Alpha Blend)
MagicBeamMUL (Multiply)

The earth beam uses AB and the shadow beam uses Multiply. The Additive shader is used for the rest of the beams.

If anyone care to test them out in URP, it would be most appreciated. I hope to add them into the asset soon.

 

Hi bro, it seems that it didnt work in my project, I has tried it in HDRP/URP projects. The material was still showing pink. By the way all the effects which I imported from this package can not work correctly,even if I click the "Apply to Systems" Button to fix it. Any idea on how to fix them?

 

@Burgezz What Unity version are you using?

The two first screenshots are not URP materials. Third one should work however..

Normally it should work importing the asset followed by the included URP upgrade.

You can also try updating URP in the package manager.

 

THX, Unity version is 2020.3.30f1c1 , and URP version is 10.8.1 - December 21, 2021. I think it's the latest version. How can I fix the problem in first and second screenshot, sor I just the noob in shader field

 

I find Edit>Render Pipeline>Universal Render Pipeline>Upgrade Project Materials to....can fix this "pink" problems. But the result looks still not very well.The effect showing blue is normal situation(You do have great work!!), I dont know why those in the HDRP project show so white, it just looks like add to more HDR.

 

@Burgezz When you created your project, which template did you use?

Also if you want to upgrade the asset to work with URP, find the 'MagicArsenal/Upgrades' folder and doubleclick the URP upgrade, then import it.

 

I am so appreciated. I used HDRP template, cos I am learning a effect tutorial which needs to create that kind of template.

 

@Burgezz Okay. I do not currently support HDRP for most of my assets, so unfortunately I can't help you with that. As far as I know there are no shuriken particle shaders in place for HDRP yet.

To clear things up, I support the Standard/Built-in Render Pipeline and URP (Universal Render Pipeline). HDRP is a different pipeline altogether.