IRRATIONAL VFX
ROLE
Realtime VFX & Environment Artist
DESCRIPTION
Gritty, visceral detective scenario with supernatural horror elements. Contains Rat, Cockroach and Fly interactive particle systems and running water effects.
YEAR
2024
GENRE
Gore / Horror
PLATFORM
Unreal Engine 5
VFX BREAKDOWN
RAT MONSTER REALTIME VFX
The rats form the the shape of the monster, they squirm around inside the whole form constantly in motion. Rats fall from the body, run around and head back to the for to take their place back on the monster. This is only possible using Vertex animated rats.
RAT SWARM
The Rat Swarm is a particle system designed to avoid climbing walls and head in the direction they are facing. They are Vertex animated as skeletal meshes can not be used by a particle system, where Vertex animations are run on the GPU.
FLIES
Flies circle and dart around a set location. This was designed to be located over areas where flies would gather around. This is a particle system that reacts to getting too close to them. These flies avoid the player, and then return when the player moves away.
ROACH LIGHT AVOIDANCE
The torch light also causes the Cockroaches to flee from the area, this represents the natural reaction to sudden light. Roaches tend to avoid bright light, preferring to stay in darker areas. Switching the light from a general light to the one they react to to demonstrates their behaviour.
WATER PIPE
The Drainage Water was made using LiquiGen and imported into Unreal and a water shader was applied to give a realistic water effect that is not possible in engine to this level yet.
SHADERS, PARTICLES & CODE
RAT VERTEX ANIMATED MATERIAL
After converting the skeletal mesh animation to a vertex animation This is applied to a static mesh rat, and the animation is driven by the GPU allowing the rats to be used in a particle system for Realtime rat swarms and various other VFX related things,. This allowed me to form the Rat Monster.
RAT BEHAVIOUR NIAGARA
To setup the rat behaviour I needed to ensure that rats stayed on the ground, and could only climb on items that were of a logical incline or height. I then setup a curl noise force to make the rat movement back and forth at random.
RAT MONSTER NIAGARA
The Rat Monster is built up from several Niagara systems, the primary system is the rats that populate the skeletal mesh. The second system is there to have the rats fall from the monster, The third one is to make rats that surround the creature, running from and back onto the monster, and the final system creates smaller rats to help balance out the shape of the creature.
