Unity VFX Graph - Meteor Effect

1. Introduction: On these lessons, let's see up to create an awesome meteor effect with its impact and all of it in it. Hi, I'm Gabriel Aguiar, founder of Gabriel Aguiar Broad YouTube Channel, where we teach visual effects on games in Unity in real and in GoTo. And we also have one of the biggest libraries of visual effects, assets ready to be used in games. I'm also the founder of Golden Bug Studios, where we are developing Rabbits tail. Today, let's create this awesome meteor from scratch with Unity VFX Graph and Shader Graph. We're also going to use Blender and material making for textures. We will show you how to build everything. So without further ado, let's get on with it. 2. Meteor, Impact Area and Trail: Let's begin by creating a visual effect graph, right click Create. We can begin with the minimal system and call it V effect graph score meteor, underscore tutorial or V two in our case. Once you open it up, we can go ahead and rename this graph. It's going to be for the meteor. We can say the bound modes is manual, increase the size to 100 in X Y and Z, independent of the camera position, we still see the effect happening. And we want to begin by emitting something. In this case, a constant bound rate of one particle. That particle itself is going to leave 5 seconds. We can already go ahead and dragon drop the VFX Graph to the scene so we can see what's happening and reset transform. So it's at the center of our scene. And now we are going to output a mesh for the meteor itself, and we are going to select the output Shader Graph, so we can use a Shader with our mesh. We can take care of a few things like the size, for example. Let's say it's one. Here we go. Now we can see we have a cube. This cube will not work as our meteor. So we need to build a mesh to model a mesh, and we are going to use Blender. It's very easy to pick up and we will try our best to guide you, and you can delete everything and only leave the cube. And with the cube select, we want to add a modifier called subdivision, which is going to increase the polycot of our cube. As you can see, now it's kind of a sphere. So if you are worried about polycunt, be careful. Need another modifier called displace, and this modifier needs a texture to work. So you can press this new button, and it will create a texture, and that new texture is completely back. We can access it down here. If you click here, here we go. And what to say the type is noise. And as soon as we do it, the displaced modifier, use this texture to displace the vertice accordingly, creating this very spiky ball, which is pretty cool, but it's a little bit too much. Maybe you can decrease the strength right here to around zero at four, zero t six, with a mid level of 0.3. And then we can use shade smooth. You can go up there in object if you don't find it with Space and then we can apply the modifiers from the top to the bottom on this arrow. Let's rename this to meteor 01. And in file, we can go ahead and export as an FBX. Make sure you have selected objects turned on, and you can export this directly to your project. Now, back in Unity, we can replace that cube with our newly made meteor mesh. Here we go. Let's make sure the scale factor of the meter mesh, we import this 100 and then press Apply by the way, or you can increase the set size to 100 but either way, what we need now is to improve its aspect. It's looking weird. So let's create a new shader. We are going to create a final shader, a very basic material. Can double click to open it up, and what we need to do is turn off cast shadows. We don't need these to cast shadows for now and enable support VFX Graph. That's very important. So it works with VFX Graph. And in here, let's search for a frenal effect node. This one right here. We want to color it, so let's create a color property that we can set the mode to HDR so we can control the intensity, and the default color is white. We can dragon drop it and multiply these two together so we can tint the fnol effect. Connect this to the base color, and from here, we have this power property that we can control. As you can see, it's very useful. So let's create a float for a frenol power with a default value of four. Drag and drop it, connect it right here, and that's it for our Shader. It's very straightforward, as you can see, and it's going to do wonders. If we go back to VFX Graph, don't forget to save the Shader, by the way, Fernl shaders. As soon as we do, it's black in the center, but very white around the edges. We already have a default color that we like to use here, but feel free to try a different color, obviously. It's going to be a bright orange. Here we go. And that's beautiful. Great. That's one of the first steps. Now, what we need is to say that this is a meteor that comes from the sky. Can do it via script, obviously. But for VFX learning purpose, let's do it inside VFX Graph, the motion, the velocity, the collision detection. So let's use a set position in initialized particle, and from here, we can control a vector tree. It's going to be our spun position. -40 in the X and 30 in Y, so it's way up. Dragon drop this to the set position. Here we go. The meteor is up there in the sky looking good. To make it move, we are going to use set velocity in the update part, so it continuously moves, something like 40 on the X and -30 on the Y, and it will land right here. Once again, if you are using a script to move the meteor, you don't need this set velocity as well. All right, looking good. That's the motion we want. Now, let's work on detecting collision with a collision shape set to plane. Where the lifetime loss is going to be one. Basically, the meteor will immediately die as soon as it collides, as you can see. And once it collides, we can spa a collision effect or several collision effects. And to do so, we can trigger event when it dies. Let's do exactly that so we can spa a few more effects. Every right click, we want to add a template, a minimal system for our impact area system. In order for this to detect the trigger, you need to use a GPU event. Let's already set the bounds mode to manual, 100 in X, Y, and Z, so it's visible even though the camera might be outside of this area. And let's connect trigger event to the GPU event. And we also want this impact area system to have a lifetime of zero so the particles immediately die and so we can trigger another event on die. We are doing this because there's a limit of eight events that can be spun by system, and it is a workaround. You will see in a moment, which means basically this system doesn't need to render anything. We don't need the output. What we need is to make sure that any particle that spouns from this system spouns where the meteor collided. So let's make sure set position is set to source. An update particle now, we can trigger another event on die, one particle for the count. Scopy and pastes, we are going to do this again now for particles. In this one, we are going to spun 150 particles. Even if you use a subsystem where we don't want to span 150 particles, we can limit the count of that subsystem. Okay, now that we have these two place holders, the impact area and the particle system, we can begin spanning effects based on the collision of the meteor. Let's copy the particle system and call it the impact beam. We can connect the trigger event. Limit the part because it's spun with a capacity set to one. It will only spa one particle. To make it visible, we need to output something. Let's use an output particle and lit. This system doesn't need to trigger anything. We can remove the trigger event on die. It's going to have a short lifetime of 02. We can already see a tiny particle spawning, so let's increase it with a set size to around 15 here we go. Big flare, a big flash, a big impact beam. It's rotated sideways. Anytime you see anything rotated sideways, you can use an orient block so you can orient the output. In this case, it's going to face the camera position. It's always going to look at the camera. We can also enable use soft particles, so we don't have an art edge whenever it touches the ground or any other tree object, and it can be additive. Let's give it a color. We already have this predefined color that we tested. Feel free to copy it or test a different color. It's going to be super bright, by the way, a bright orange. We don't want it to disappear out of nowhere, so let's use a set size of our life where it's big at the start and then it shrinks. It's overwriting the set size we have set previously, so let's make sure we set it to multiply. Here we go. That's an impact, strong impact, looking good. We can copy and paste this system for the ImpactFlare, connect the GPU event. And the main difference is the texto itself. We are going to create a texto similar to this one, and this is the kind of text we can easily create with material maker. In case you don't have it, go get it. It's awesome. It's a note based tool to create textures and materials. And once you have opened it up, you want to begin with a shape note. If you select it, you can preview it in the preview to the window. Basically, we want a circle, a big one with an ard edge, zero, and we go. We want to connect it to a circle splatter. It's basically going to replicate that circle several times, in this case, 50 on the count. The rings is the number of rings for the circle pattern. We can set it to one because on the scale X, if we set it to zero.02, here we go. We can see all the circles we are spawning. We can shrink them also onto scale Y to zero at seven, and the radius of the circles pattern can be zero. Incremental rotation, set it to one. You can see all of the circles we created. We can also say the incremental scale is 02. It will grow slowly. What's important is that random rotation down here is something like 30 and random scale is 0.3, for example. Are all white, but with the random value set to one, you won't notice that some of them are dimmer and the other ones are brighter. We want some gray scale values on our texture, so it isn't fully white. This is an awesome node. The circles platter, as you can see, super powerful. Now let's add the glow. We can use another circle for that, but first, we need to blend it. So let's use a blend node and then create another shape node where we increase the feather, so it becomes smooth circle. And if you connect this to the layer one of the blend and then sec the blend node, you can see these two together. And here we go. We have a glow. Thing with this blend mode is that you can select the blend mode. If it's multiply, screen, overlay, let's set it to multiply, so it's a little bit brighter at the center. And then we can also blur this with a Gaussian blur with the grid size of 2048 by 2048, maybe decrease the sigma, so it isn't that strong of a blur. And if you connect these to a colour ice, now we can control the intensity of the white values, as you can see. What's important is that the black key, you set the Alpha to zero. So it's transparent. Maybe it's a little bit too wide, but feel free to try it out, and then you can go up here on this button and select export this texture, give it a name, select the destination, and export as a PNG. And then you can assign it right here. And basically, we are going to use this for an impact on the ground. So we can remove the orient block, increase a little bit to size, remove the use soft particles. We are going to make it parallel with the ground. So as a matter of fact, let's use a set angle and rotate it 90 on the X. Here we go. We are going to see something on the ground. You can adjust the brightness here. What's important is that on the sides of life, it grows in the beginning and then it shrinks. It grows fast, and then it shrinks slowly, curve similar to this one. So you get this type of effect, as you can see. It really looks like an impact on the ground. Alright, looking good. Now, let's add some sparks to this. Let's move on to the next system. We can copy and paste the impact beam and rename it to sparks. So really impactful sparks. Connect the GPU event first. In here, we can increase the capacity to 60, and the lifetime is going to be random because there's going to be a bunch of particles flying over. Between zero dot five and one dot five, now there's a bunch of particles in our preview. They are huge, so let's make sure on set size, we say they are random uniform, between zero dot five and one dot five. In this case, we don't want the set position to be inherit from the source. We want the set position to be crazy, so they move all around. So let's use instead set position shape. In this case, a cone, we want them to spread all over. Let's just open this and say the base radius is smaller, 03, but the top radius is bigger, one dot five, as you can see, on the scene view, we have a big con. We just need first to say the position of this cone is going to be on the source. We can use a good position, set it to source. Here we go. From here, we need movement, speed. There's this very andy module called set velocity from direction. Let's first say it's random. The speed 5-15. Here we go. They go sideways, as you can see. But if we say the direction blend is zero, they go everywhere and they follow the cone shape, which is exactly what we needed. Now, we just need to make sure they come down eventually, right, because they are flying away as if there is no gravity. Thankfully, we have the update particle where we can say they have gravity. The default gravity is that bad, but maybe we want them to go a bit up. So minus eight will do the rich just fine. Now, one thing we want to do is stretch these particles. So the orient block is going to be a long velocity. As you can see, if you look closely, they are aligned with our velocity vector, which is great. Let's take advantage of that by saying the set scale on the X is going to be zero dot two. And on the Y, they are going to be two, and they look like this, as you can see. Now, they are obviously way too bright, but let's decrease their intensity over lifetime with a set color of life. We are going to use these keys right here to fade them. It's bright in the beginning and then they fade out. But as you can see, it's overwriting the previous color. So let's make sure right here we set the composition to multiply. Here we go. This way, they fade out at the end. We can also adjust the size of our life with a curve similar to this one. So they are big just for a tiny moment, and then they shrink down immediately. Here we go. Looking good. Let's rename this output to sparks just in case we need to reorder all the outputs are rendered. And now let's copy this entire system control C, control V for the sparks sideways. We want some sparks to be closer to the ground. They will be very impactful. For now, let's connect only these new sparks. Let's also connect this position source right here. We want these particles to be really fast. 02, 1 second. They have a short lifetime, and we are going to flatten this cone. So it's basically a circle a top radius of 01. So let's increase their maximum speed to 25 here we go. And instead of gravity, we want them to be parallel to the ground. Let's use a linear drag. Here we go. And when they hit the ground, they really expand those parts. Disable soft particles, so they don't blend with the ground. Really nice. You can make them a tiny bit bigger, maybe two on the maximum size. Looking good. Let's see how everything is together and bio very impactful. Indeed, it's a meteor, so that's how it should be. Super impactful. Now let's work on a few more elements. For example, the meteor should leave a trail of smoke and fire and even particles. So for that to happen, let's go back here to the meteor system and create a new trigger event over time. So it keeps emitting particles, basically, since we want to leave a trail. 100 for the rate should be enough. Let's copy this impact area system and call it the trail system. Connect this new trigger event and increase the capacity to 100 as well. We want to make sure the lifetime is random. Something between zero dot eight and one dot five should be enough. In this case, we not need position from source. We can use a set position shape sphere, so it's bound in a sphere like shape. But for the position itself, here we are going to use the position of the source. Get position, set it to source. And connect right here, we want the shape, this sphere shape to follow the meteor. Now, let's output something because we want to see how this looks, right? So let's use an output particle and lead quad. Here we go. And it's leaving a trail of particles. That's exactly what we need right now. From here, we can do a lot of stuff. We can indeed use a SmokeFlipbook. So let's see how to create a SmokeFlipbook with material maker. It's a quite powerful tool. For example, we can use let's search for FBM and use this node right here, the three D text PM. If we select the preview we have, and we can adjust the scale to four. Cut it in half, but with a lot more iterations, so it's a little bit more detailed, like eight. From here, we can apply this text basically. And we are essentially going to animate the eighth by using a math node where it's going to keep on adding time this velocity. We can use the dollar sign, time, multiply it by zero at one, and it will animate the text, as you can see. You can make it slower or faster. It's up to from here, we can begin to shape this, for example, with a circum, essentially by connecting these directly to the edge map and increasing the value to two dot seven, so it's smoother, and that's it. We could leave it as it is. It would look good. We could connect to a colorized node and clamp some values. But we can take this a step further. If you connect this to a power node, which is inside a math node, create this very opaque filling. And then with another math node, we could animate this on the B value, a little bit faster this time, and then connect a line from here to a text three D apply and connect the result to the eighth math. What this will do is distort the smoke, animate the smoke even further. And then all we need is to connect this to a shape, one, one, multiply these two together with a math node and then use the colorized node. You could directly jump to the colorized node before using the power node, and it will look good as well. Let's begin clamping some values. For example, dark values, we could clamp them, and then we could make the white values even more pronounced by pushing this key to the left. Let's just make sure that blacky has an Alpha value of zero, so it's transparent and that's it looking good. The way we export this is up there on this button instead of image is animation. And in here, we can select the resolution. 1024 by 1034 is enough, and we can select where it begins, the frame it begins and where it ends. As a matter of fact, it's the second, two, and 3 seconds. And then on many images we want to output, in this case, 16, so it will be four by four as a PNG. Here we go. We have each sprite individually, and to put them together as a flipbook, we can use glue it. You can literally search Google for glue it, and then download it's free. And once you open it up, you can press the ad button, navigate to your smoke images and add them all. Number of columns is four. You can press the glut button. Here we go. Now, save it we can called SmokeFlipbook and the score four by four. So you know the columns and the rows are simply SmokeFlipbook 01. Feel free to decrease the resolution. This is a huge image, by the way. And then you can add it to the VFX Graph right here, SmokeFlipbook. You can use a set size to control how big it is. Let's make sure it's random. We want this to be 4-8. Here we go. We have an entire flipbook showing up. Fortunately, in VFX Graph, it's very easy to fix it. We can say the UV mode is a flip and we can even use flipbook blend frames. It will blend between each frame. You can also turn on new soft particles in case it touches any geometry. It will be smoother, the edges, flipbook size is four by four. And to animate this, we can use a set text index. And if you move it around, as you can see, it switches between frames. So we need to animate it. It's very simple. We can use a sample curve where the last key is going to be the value of how many frames we have, but we start counting out zero, so it's 15. And for the time, we use the edge over lifetime, basically how long the particle lives. And here we go. It's animated. Still needs a few adjustments. For example, we can make sure the angle is random on the Z axis. 0-360, here we go. We can also play with color. Let's make sure it's completely dark for now. And if you move the camera, as you can see, it's not facing it, so let's use a orient block up here and make sure it faces camera position. Otherwise, we see the quad and it's kind of weird. As it is now, it always has the same size. So let's use a set size of life. With a curve similar to this one. It goes from small to big, but feel free to try the up as it curve, but it goes from big to small, for example. And yeah, we need to make sure that the composition is multiply. Otherwise, it overwides the previous values. We can also make sure they fade over time. So let's use a set color of a life where the composition is multiply. Let's open the graded and make sure that it begins visible. Let's remove that key up there, and then it fades to transparent. And here we go, we have a meteor that leaves a smoke trail behind. Now, since we have a smoke trail, it's very easy to create a fire trail. So let's copy this entire system. Control C control V, called the output smoke. And the other one fire. Here we go. Let's connect the trigger on update right here to the GPU event, so it pounds. And for example, it's going to leave less, right? The fire leaves a shorter time compared to the smoke. Between 03 and Zoot seven should do the trick. Let's also connect this get position source to our transform position of the sphere. Oh, and let's remove this trigger event on die both on the smoke and on the fire. We don't actually need them. Push the outputs up here. Instead of being Alpha, we can make sure it's additive, so it's a little bit brighter. You could also try it with Alpha. It gives a different tone. Let's go with the additive, and then to animate the flipbook, we can use the same curve. Let's connect this right here. In terms of size, maybe it can be smaller, like three and six. It can have random rotation, yes, indeed. And as for the color, well, we have this color that we already tested. It's 800, 250 on the X, Y, and Z. I think it's a little bit too bright, but feel free to give it a try and we get this huge fire left behind. It's a very strong meteor. You can leave the size of life as it is. As for the color, you can say the mode is uniform. We can fade it with a curve, for example. It will look a tiny bit different. And then the curve is going to be this one big too small, and it fades nicely. You can control the fade with the handles right here. It isn't as bright as it was, as you can see. And if you put everything together, here we go. This is what we have very impactful meteor, beautiful one looking very good. So that's it for this lesson. On our next one, we are going to focus on working on the crater and all of its effects. 3. Crater and Finishing Touches: Right, so our next step now is to work on the crater as if the meteor pushed the ground around it. So we can copy this particle system that we are using to trigger other systems and call this one the crater. Connect the trigger event on di from the impact area to the GPU event, and this crater system is going to spun the crater and then some debris later on. We are using this technique so we can work around the limit of triggers we can use per VFX Graph, which is eight. So let's copy it again for the crater elements, all the elements of the crater, and then connect the trigger to the GPU event. Here we go. And now basically, in this case, for this system and all of the outputs that we are going to use here, we can set the capacity to only one particle. They can leave 5 seconds. And from there, we can output a URP let mesh so it can be influenced by the lights. And for the mesh itself, we need a crater. If you already have one laying around, that's great. We can show you how to create one with Blender, just in case you want dressed. Basically, you want an empty scene, and which shift we want to begin with a cylinder of around 16 vertices. If you enter mode, we can select the bottom edge loop and push it up with the cursor or with G value of one. And with S, we can scale this a value of four, press Enter. Let's scale the top part of this, more or less around here, value of two, and then we want to push this top face a little bit down. Now with control, we want to add one edge loop right here so we can push it down and scale it down a little bit too. Now with the top face selected, let's extrude this with E and then press scape so it stays on the same position, the new face, and we want to scale it down with S more or less like this and then push it down as well on the Z axis, and we have something very similar to a crater already. Now, what else can we do to improve this? First, we want to make sure that the origin is at the bottom. We can say origin to three decursor so we can scale it up and down from that point from that pivot. From there, we can remove this bottom face. It's not necessary. And if you want to increase the definition, the polycot, you can use a subdivision surface, modifier, increase the levels. And if you want to take this even further, you can use a displace. You can create a new texture. And then go down here so we can edit that texture. And basically, we want to say the type of this is a Voronoi. We can zoom in by saying the scale is one, and if we go back to the modifier, we can control much of this display influences the mesh. Something like zero at four should do just fine. Shade Smooth. You can go up there as well in object to use a shade smooth. That's essentially it. We have very detailed crater. Obviously, this increases a lot to plyicon, so be careful. As for U V, you can select everything with a while we are in edit mode and use the unwrap conformal, which is going to be fantastic for our case. It's going to wrap this as a circle and it's perfect. Ali's left is renaming this two crater 01. Then go to File IEport as an FBX. You can export it directly to your project, make sure selected object is on. And now, if we go back to Unity, we can add our crater to our output right here. You probably need to set the scale fact to 100 of the mesh, by the way, I forgot to show you. It doesn't need a base color map. You can remove this text. Don't forget to set the smoothness to zero, by the way. As for the size, let's try two. We could have applied transforms on bladder, but let's rotate it right here. Set the angle of -90 on X. Oh, yeah, it's transparent because the blend mode is Alpha, but we can set it to Opaq and with a set scale, we can control how tall it is on the Z axis. So let's take advantage of that and animate this value. Most of the time to animate something, we can use a sample curve. In this case, it's going to grow fast in the beginning. It's going to maintain that position and then it's going to shrink. That's the idea with this curve right here. It doesn't go above 025, for example. For the time, we can use Git age over lifetime, basically the lifetime of this particle, which is 5 seconds. Let's just decrease the rate of the meteor to 0.15, just so it matches here with our crater. Here we go. And then it shrinks. That's the general idea right here. Yeah, on the update particles, we can remove this trigger ventondi. We are not going to need it. Now, it's a small detail, but we can use set velocity just to push it down a tiny bit on the Y axis before we shrink it with the scale. We can even animate this value with a curve similar to this one. And then use the ge of our lifetime. Here we go. Let's put something else. Let's still use this part up here and move it to the right and then push another line for another output. But this time, output part called Shader Graph mesh. We are going to make sure that the meteor is there after impact. We can use the franel shade that we've made and replace the cube with the meteor. And say the set size is something like 08, and here we go. It's right there at the center of the crater. You can make it smaller or bigger, or in this case, we can actually animate the color. So it's really hot at the beginning, and then it cools down. You can, for example, begin with this color at 485 and one dot five, and we can multiply this, connect to the color. And since we are multiplying this, we can animate the B option of the multi only this way with a curve right here. We can say it's really bright in the beginning and then it cools off like this. Once again, to animate this, we can use the edge of our lifetime, basically, how long the particle leaves, and here we go. It cools off, as you can see. That's pretty cool. Let's just make sure it shrinks down as well. With a set scale, we can actually reuse this curve, Control C control V connected to the Y axis. But make sure these two keys their value is at one. And then connect the edge of our life. Here we go. This weight also shrinks down with the crater, it disappears. And lastly, we can also make sure it's completely random every time it hits the ground. Just like this. You can also use this on the crater. You can duplicate models by holding control and then dragging another output or to another initialized, and it will duplicate it. Here we go. Completely random the crater and the meteor, the rotation on the Y axis. Another thing we can take care is make sure that the crater is brighter at the center. So basically, that's put another particle in lit for the crater in the additive, that's the big difference here, and it's going to be really bright. And then we can select all of these modules from the existing crater. And while all in control, drag it right here, it will duplicate. Make sure you connect this curve to the Z of the set scale, and that's it. Now, as you can see, it's fully bright, and we are going to fix that in a moment. For now, let's make sure it fades. We set color of alive, switch the composition to multiply so it doesn't overwrite the set color, and we can actually use a curve. If we set the mode to uniform, we can use a curve similar to this one, but it fades sooner around zero dot six. And then we can adjust the handles for a smoother fade. Now, all we need is a proper texture to mask this out. So if you go back to material maker, we can actually copy these nodes that we used to create this texture. Paste it down here. Let's select the last node and make a few adjustments, for example, the shape could be smaller and feel free to adjust other settings, obviously. But in our case, we want to adjust colorize so it isn't so bright. This key can be around Zal at five. We are going to export it as a PNG, rename it to flare 02 as an image, but feel free to test different settings on each node. Once we go back to VFX Graph, and once you have assigned right there, this is the result you get. Basically, we are masking the rest of the mesh, and it only shows where the texture is bright, creating that very cool feeling where it's bright on the crater. We are leaving it gray on purpose, the crater, but feel free to add texture to it, so it matches your ground. Now let's do the same, but instead of being bright, it's going to leave a dark mark on the ground. So let's copy this entire output. Connect it from here, and one of the main changes is setting the blend mode to Alpha, saying the set color is completely black. Oh, let's not forget to connect this curve to the Z axis of the set scale. Can remove the color of life down here and replace the texture with another one, like, for example, a beam 01, which basically it's a very straightforward text. If you go back to material maker, we can begin with a shape and set it to a circle, and that's pretty much it. We need to decrease its size and then increase its feather, and that on its own could work, or you can improve it and use a Goshen blur with a grid size of 1024 by 1024. And then remove the black background with a colorized node by saying the black E as an Alpha value of zero. And you can export it as a PNG, call it beam 01, and there you have it. All we need is to say that the order of this output, the sorting priority is minus one, so it's rendered below. Here we go. And now we have the bright flare and then that dark spot, and it's super cool. Now as a good practice, you could rename this like crater mesh, then the meteor mesh, then the glow, and then the dark. This is very useful. So when you select VFX Graph, you can see in which order each output is rendered right here. So this is what we have at this point, and it's looking quite impactful. But since we have a crater, we have a meteor. It's so impactful, now let's at some debris, right? So let's find some room between the particles and the crater. And let's copy this parts, these two cut the debris. We can actually remove this entire system and we can connect from the crater, the trigger to the GPU event. We don't need that many debris. Capacity of 15 should look fine, and they can leave much more like 2.5 seconds and almost 5 seconds, for example. In terms of cone, the base radius could be smaller, as well as the top radius, and that's it, so they don't spread that much around. So don't need to move that fast, so maybe two and ten, we'll do just fine. We will see how it goes. We can increase the gravity to minus ten, and the new thing we can add is make sure that they collide with the ground. Remember, VFX Graph can only do basic collisions. So let's use a collision shape plane for the bound 03 and for the friction two. The friction stops it from sliding over. In terms of output, let's drag this to the right because we want to focus on the debris itself. So let's use an output particle, shade the graph mesh, and lead. Let's just disable the connection to the sparks for now. We go, we can see these tiny cubes scattering over the ground. They look great. One thing we can use is a set size. Let's drag and drop while holding control to duplicate it. Zero at four and one. I know they are kind of huge, but we are going to replace the mesh in a moment, and they can also have a random rotation. So let's just a set angle. Random, 0-360 on all of the axis. Here we go. And they can shrink over time. Yeah, Dragon drop this one while in control. Okay, let's fake something. Let's fake their rotation in the air with a set angle over life. But let's change the mode to uniform so it rotates on all of the axis random. Let's make sure they rotate from a value of 3,000. I know it's a lot, but they have to spin really fast, and then we are going to stop it. So you can press A to see all of the graph, by the way. And on the last key, the value is 200. Maybe that's a bit too much, but you could also make sure they stop rotating a little bit sooner, by the way, so they don't rotate on the ground. Either way, let's move on because now we want to also use the fennel shaders, so they are bright like the meteor, but we need a new mesh instead of using blocks. If we go back to Blender, we can show you how to create debris. It's a pretty cool technique. We can first go to preference and in addons, use cell fracture, so we can fracture objects. Turn it on, and then we can begin with Shift A and with a cube. Select the cube, and then search for cell fracture. A lot of settings in here, but essentially, we want to increase the source limit, and recursion is if you want to break more than the same fragment, you can say at least one time, and let's set noise to one, and let's see how it goes. We just need one or two fragments. For example, this fragment right here, we do just fine. Find one similar, and then we can invert the selection and delete everything else. Be careful if you have the crate or the met you are showing. Make sure you wide them. Otherwise, you will delete essentially, with this fragment right here, we want to go to object and set the origin to geometry, and then we shift as we want to say selection to cursor, so it goes to the center. Basically, we are trying to center this as well as the pivot of the mesh itself, and that's what we did. It's looking good. From there, you can rename it to fragment or debris 01. Forget to apply all transforms, or you can simply export as an FBX. Make sure you turn on selected objects and export to your project. Back to VFX Graph, you can replace the cube with the debris, and this is what we get at this point, as you can see, it's looking good. Now, let's reuse some of these nodes that we created for the meteor mesh, where it's bright and then it fades away by selecting these nodes, and then with Control C, Control V, copy and paste them right here, and then connect it to the color. So it looks like little bits of the meteor are scattering around. Nice. Looking good. We can actually delete these output sparks. Rename these to debris meteor. Now that we have some very bright debris, let's work on adding some normal debris as if the ground was breaking up. So let's copy this entire system. Connect the trigger to the GPU event, and let's work from the top for that let's disable the meteor debris and increase this capacity to 20. Maybe these ones can leave longer 45 and six. Let's connect the position source to the position of the cone. So it spans exactly where the meteor hit, and we can work on increasing the base radius as well as the top radius. So it's a larger cone essentially. As for the velocity, I wouldn't change it that much. Maybe the minimum can be three, but it will work just fine as it is. Let's try to increase the gravity. Maybe they don't bounce that much and have much less friction. Yeah, basically, they jump, and then they stop pretty much right there because they are heavy blocks or bigger blocks. In our case, we are going to use an output particle, URP lit mesh, but feel free to use a Shader Graph or something else to add texture to your debris. Let's disconnect this output and make sure the new one is set to uppack without smoothness, so it's similar to our ground, basically. And we can drag the set size, and we are going to expand the minimum and the maximum. So we have smaller fragments and bigger fragments. And we have a bunch of cubes right now, which, if it was a vaxll effect, would look awesome. Let's drag the size of our life so we can say that towards the end of the lifetime, they shrink. So basically, the time of the first key is going to be zero at night. Instead of cubes, we have already debris mesh, we created, let's use that one. Here we go. In this case, we are not going to use any text because it's a gray ground. That's what we are trying to mimic. You can also drag the set angle, so it's totally random, and here we go, it's looking good. We can delete this other output and call this one maybe debiezeGround. Let's reconnect this GPU event up here, and here we go. Both debris, some are bright, others are not. And if we enable everything else, we get a pretty cool effect. Here we go. Very impactful. Let's work on adding a few more details like some floating embers, for example, we can reuse this park system. So let's copy it. Call it embers. We just need one of these systems, and we can connect the trigger, as well. Maybe increase the capacity. So there's a few more flying embers and they definitely need to live longer. So they stay there floating a little bit, like one and 2.5 seconds. The embers should come out of the meteors, so volume of the cone can be smaller, and we want them floating, right? So maybe the velocity is smaller, too, like one and eight. Now, in terms of update particles, we don't need to continuously push them down with gravity. We actually want the opposite. If we use a linear drag, they start slowing down. They still go up, but they slow down. And then if we want them to move around a little bit, we can use some turbulence. We need to adjust a few values here. For example, the frequency of frequent the turbulence is, let's set it to two, and the intensity only make it random. For the B option, random value 2-10. Here we go. As you can see, they are moving around, which is really nice in terms of motion. As a matter of fact, we can use the A option with a curve, so these turbulent slows down as they fade away. And the last key, we can push it back so it stops sooner the turbulence to zero at eight. To animate curve, we can use the age of lifetime. Now, as you can see in terms of motion, they are pretty much there. Let's take care of the aspect. Let's rename the output to embers and we don't want to stretch them, so we don't need to align them with our velocity vector. We can simply orient them to frees camera. And in terms of size, they can be smaller off of the size we have pretty much. We don't need set scale to stretch. And that's it. If we enable everything else, we get those nice flying embers coming out of the center of the crater of the meteor, and that looks really nice. It's a nice touch. We can also add a few more details to the crater, to the aftermath, for example, like smoke coming out of the impact. Since we already have smoke here, we can copy those systems, that group. Let's delete this system. Rename these to SmokeCircle or smoke crater and connect to GPU event right here. And we are already probably reaching the maximum of events we can connect to a trigger by the way. Way, in terms of capacity, we can leave it at 100. It's a lot, but it's VFX Graph, and it can handle it easily. The smoke itself can live longer 1-3 seconds, more or less. In terms of position, yeah, we want this to be a cone like the other stuff we have been adding to the crater. We can connect the source position to the position of the cone, right? So it goes to the impact position. I can have a very small base radius, but it can be wider at the top. It's a small cone but wide at the top. To make sure the smoke goes up, we can use again the velocity from direction and speed module, and it can be random with a minimum and maximum speed of four and 12, for example. That's disabled direction blend. Here we go. We have a bunch of smoke going sideways, as you can see. Let's make sure we slow it down. In the update particles, we can use a linear drag with a value of two. And as you can see, that's a huge difference, it looks much more realistic now. Maybe the smoke overall can be smaller each particle, 3-5. It's a nice smoke goes a little bit sideways and then it fades away. Let's add a few more details. Let's work on the trail. For now, it's a smoke and fire. What if we left some embers, some particles behind? That would look very good. So let's work on that. We can, as a matter of fact, copy the ember system, paste it right here, add it to the trail group, make room for this. And in here, basically, what we can do is remove this set position and copy with Control C control V. This position from the trail, it will save us some time. Let's push the set velocity below. We can also connect the source to the position of the transform. Oh, and before moving on, let's connect the trigger to the GPU event. This trigger right here. This way we can see how it goes. Here we go. It's already looking pretty good, as you can see. Maybe we can increase the capacity to 100. Yeah, so there's enough particles to spawn as the meteor goes. Here we go. And that's looking really nice. It's another detail, very easy one with what we already have. Now for something a little bit more complex, let's add a capsule to the meteor, as if there was a burning hour around the meteor. But first, let's make a few changes to the meteor so it's easy to visualize what we are going to work on. For example, we are going to need to add another output, a Shadograph mesh and lead. We can disable the triggers. Disable this set velocity, add another one that moves only on the X, small value like two, and on this output, we are going to add the capsule. It's a new mesh, so let's open up Blender again, and with Chief, we can add the sander. We are going to begin with this one. We want to make sure the CAP field type is set to nothing so there's no top and bottom face on the sander. Then we can rotate it with R on the X value of 90. Press tap to enter the mold, and we control R, we can add around four edge loops. Press Enter in the next scape so you stay in the same position. Let's just visualize the meteor here for a second. We want to make sure that it's closed at the front Dsuner. Basically, if we select this front edge loop, we can shrink it down almost to zero. And the next edge loop, we can push it a little bit on the Y axis and then shrink it down with. The next one, we can actually push it in front, but scale it up. This way, we can select the other three edge loops, push them back. Here we go. And then select this edge loop, push it to the front, scale it a little bit up, and then we can scale the other ones exactly like this, each one being bigger than the last one, but not too much. Basically creating this capsule right here, as you can see. And that's it. That's pretty much done. As for the UVs, we want to make sure that the front part of the capsule is the right side of the UVs, which is not happening. It goes from the bottom to the top, as you can see. So on the UVs, you can select everything and we rotated 90 degrees. This way, when we select this, it goes from the right to the left. We are doing this, so the shade that we are going to create works properly with the text that we are going to create as well. We want an horizontal pen, basically. Set just a little bit the UVs, so it matches with the mesh. Something similar to this. It will work just fine. In object bow let's make sure we apply rotation. And then we can rename this to Capsule 01 and export as an FBX to your project. And once we go back to it, we can add it right here. Not visible, so let's make sure we say the set size is one. You might need to say the scale factor is 100 if you select the meshing Unity, by the way. So it's sideways, as you can see, to align this easily, we can use an Orient block set to along velocity. Since it already a velocity, it will align with velocity vector itself because we modeled this capsule facing the proper axis. Now let's create a very simple pan Shader so we can scroll a text. Let's create a new Shader Graph URP unlit. We can call it the ScrollShader. In here, we want to say that the surface type is transparent, for sure. The default blending mode can be additive. Let's disable cast shadows, and let's say enable support theft graph down here. Here we go. Looking good. Let's save it. It's going to be a very straightforward shader. In this case, we need to sample a texter. So let's search for that and we can also expose the property for a text to two D. We can call it noise texture. It's going to be a noise, and we can show you how to create one with material. Actually a very interesting noise. You can begin with a shape node, set it to a circle. We're going to use a bunch of circles, smaller ones. We can increase the faith. Here we go. And then we can connect this to a tiler, and it will repeat this in a grid like shape. You can increase the t X and Y to ten by ten. Basically, a lot of circles, and they can overlap a little bit. No problem. You can increase that value. Want to make them bigger, zero at seven on the X and on the Y. We don't necessarily need fixed offset. What's important is the random offset. Let's set it to one and it looks like a Voronoi or some cells. It's pretty cool. But we need to say the random scale is above zero at seven, something like zero at eight, for example. From here, if we invert this, we get a really awesome effect. Here we go. Looks like skin under a microscope almost. And if we blur this, we get a totally different effect. But we don't want to blur that much, just a tiny bit. So let's increase the grid size to 2048 by 2048. And from here, we can use a colorized node. You can use one to intensify the dark areas or make it even more bright. In our case, we want to intensify dark areas. Something around these values, 025, maybe make the brightest spots a tiny bit brighter. Yeah, it's a little bit up to you now. But this is the workflow for this awesome texter. We want to export it now as a noise 2048 by 2048 and as a PNG. Back to ET, we can add it as a default to the noise texter and dragon drop this property and connect to the texter. Here we go. We already have the noise text. Now let's work a little bit more on the Shader. If we want to scroll this, we can use a tiling and offset node. It's very straightforward. We have the tiling to control how many times it repeats, and then we have the offset. Well, it offsets the text, right? We want an automatic offset. So let's use a time node. And in this case, it needs to be multiplied by a vector to, so we can control it speed horizontally and vertically. So let's call it noise speed. It can have a default value of three on the X, for example, and then we multiply this with time and connect it to the offset. And here we go, as you can see, it's scroll horizontally. From here, we can add, for example, color to this. We want to control the color of this. In HDR mode, white as the default, drag it and multiply it with a sample text, connect this to the base color, and to have transparency, we need to connect it to the Alpha. But first, we need to split this vector four. We have the RGB and A and A represents the Alpha, the transparency. We can connect it to right here. It's a very straightforward shade, but it's super powerful and very common. We can add it to our Shadograph this is the effect we get because we have this default dot as a texture. But now since we have the noise, we can replace it and hide it right here and we get this very cool effect. We need to work a little bit more on it. We need to mask it because we don't want to see the end of the capsule, right? We just want the front of the capsule to be bright. So we can copy this sample text to D because now we can create another text to the property for the mask. Can use this gradient right here, which is extremely easy to create on material maker with a simple gradient. From here, we can control very easily how that gradingt looks. For these peculiar gradients, we want the last key not to be super bright. And then add more or less a key around here, which is not going to be that bright as well. And then instead of linear because as you can see on the preview, it has a cut. We want it to be cubic and it's going to go smoothly from black to almost white. Free to try different gradients, and you will see how it affects the shaders. Now, let's export this as a PNG text to Unity and then add it to the mask as default and connect the mask texture property right here. And the way this works now, it's super easy. We basically multiply these two together, the mask texture and the noise texture, and then replace connection to the color, and that's it. If we go back to Veec graph, we can already see the mask in action. Now it's only a matter of increasing the brightness and choosing a color that matches something like this, for example. Very basic capsule. By the way, we could improve this in several ways. But since it's going to be super fast, it will be just fine. If we remove the set velocity and enable the previous one, and then we can enable the triggers for the trails, and we have a very simple capsule that really adds a nice touch. It adds that burning hour to the meteor, and then we have an awesome impact. That's it, folks. Now we have a working meteor effect done with VFX Graph and Shader Graph. You can still try to improve it and add a few more elements. Feel free to play along with it. We have seen a lot from modeling, from creating textures, shaders and in VFX Graph. I hope you have enjoyed guys. And we have plenty more of these effects, these tutorials, these lessons, where we create visual effects for games. So feel free to check my profile to find out more about it. So that's it. Thanks for watching and see you on the next one.