/visual-effect-graph

Unity's Visual Effect Graph playground

Primary LanguageHTML

visual-effect-graph

Unity's Visual Effect Graph (VEG) playground

Click here for 'Final presentation' slide

Availability

  • Unity 2019.3+: Both High Definition Render Pipeline and Universal Render Pipeline are supported
  • Unity 2018.3+: Only High Definition Render Pipeline (mostly for PC, console) is supported
  • Any Unity versions older than 2018.3: Unavailable

Setup

  • Unity 2019.4.1f1
  • Universal Render Pipeline 7.3.1
  • Install VEG 7.3.1 via Package Manager
  • Create a new VEG via context menu
  • Drag VEG into scene
  • Click Edit to open VEG window
  • Edit real-time

Terms

  • Context: Make up a chain [ Spawn -> Initialize -> Update -> (Quad) Output ]
    • Spawn:
      • When to start this chain ?
      • How many particles will be emitted ?
      • When each particle will be emitted ?
    • Initialize:
      • Max particles (Capacity) ?
      • Initial position, rotation, scale, velocity, ...
      • Lifetime
    • Update: How will particles be updated over time ?
    • (Quad) Output:
      • How to render each particles ? (mesh, material, shader, texture, color ... )
      • Facing behavior (Billboard ...)
  • Block: Is used to customize context
  • System: Is the chain [ Spawn -> Initialize -> Update -> (Quad) Output ]
  • Node: Custom nodes to feed value to blocks

External tools

  • VFX Toolbox:
    • Image Sequencer to make flipbook texture sheet
    • Houdini plugin to convert Point Cache, Volume Exporter file to use in Unity
    • Vector Field examples (.vf files), could be used as Texture3D in Unity
  • Texture3D Preview: Preview Texture3D which Unity does not support
  • Vector Field Examples: Beautiful Vector Field showcases
  • Vector Field Maker: Paid asset to preview, create and import Vector Field. Preview is rendered with arrows, which is more intuitive than Texture3D. This is just 1 of many tools.
  • SDFr SDF Baker tool, to generate SDF asset (.vf file) from static mesh

References:

Description Link
Quick introduction Creating explosive visuals with the VEG (Unity blog)
Official tutorial Introduction to the VEG in Unity 2018.4
Official documentation VEG 9.0
Blocks list (Out-dated) VEG 6.9 - Blocks list
Samples VEG Samples (Unity 2019)