Tunnels VFX Progress 2

In this update, I explore using iridescent colouring and lighting for the main vein of my VFX part.

This I thought was great to show the transfer of people's souls but it's emotional energy the tunnels drain, not souls and the whiteness gives off too heaven-like, purity vibes whereas I want danger, dispirit, unnerve, wickedness etc. So then I looked at dark cosmic colours, I went with blue for sadness, purple for anxiousness and orange for energy.

Next Steps:

Figure out art style/direction I want to go with and how to mask the VFX so it looks like it's coming from inside the wall and travelling through it rather than being projected onto it.

Tunnels VFX Progress 1

Below is my first progress in experimenting with VFX in Unreal Engine. I have been focusing mainly on the emissive element. For now, I've made a quick place holder mesh in Blender (tutorial here) so I can see what it looks like on a tunnel shape and size. I also downloaded coal and dirt materials from megascans to act as placeholder textures.

To achieve the lighting above, I used a combination of the 3 tutorials below:

Making Cosmic Materials: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/making-cosmic-material-ue4-vismay-soni-1c/

Flowing Noise Tutorial:

Pulsing Light:

What I'm trying to achieve for now:

• A sense of energy, that this place is alive.
• A look of something unearthly - the ethereal element to 'hellscape ethereal'

Next steps for VFX:

• Working out some colour to represent negative emotional energy - dark iridescent.
• Make the veins look like it's carrying something inside them.
• Figure out a way to make the light look like its coming from inside the wall/travelling through the rocks.

Collaboration: VFX Star Wars Skits

Using the featured tutorials I created these visual effects of the Stormtrooper's gun shots and the two lightsabers glowing. VFX done by Paris and animation done by Polly.