LogInVFX Artist Yi Shan Liao shared a brief overview.
How do you create your blood-splatter hit effects? It's a widely used effect, and there are many different techniques to achieve it. Yi Shan Liao shared an interesting comparison of several approaches along with brief explanations. Each method has its own advantages and drawbacks: there's no single "best" way, the choice ultimately depends on the project's context and specific requirements.
Flipbook is a simple method suited for distant effects or basic needs. It uses very little FPS but comes at the cost of large texture files, limited viewing angles, restricted playback speeds, and so on. Texture Threshold is another simple technique. You can create textures either by hand-drawing or using footage, and then have the shader read the grayscale values in sequence. Unlike the Flipbook method, it supports slower playback. However, since the texture defines the shape, it restricts variability. This approach works particularly well for watercolor washes, but it shares similar drawbacks with the Flipbook technique.
"SequenceMesh" involves creating fluid models in 3D software, which demands significant skill, but the models themselves aren't limited by viewing angles. This method bakes each frame of the fluid animation into separate models and combines them into a single Static Mesh. With recent support from LiquiGen, the sequence can now be stored in the vertex alpha channel, greatly reducing the time needed to arrange UVs. However, SequenceMesh requires careful management of the model's vertex count. Generating too many vertices at once can consume excessive RAM and may cause the game to crash.
D-VAT is another advanced technique that requires technical expertise. It supports longer animation sequences, making it ideal for large, repetitive effects like blood splatter. However, it comes with vertex count constraints, higher vertex counts and extended animations require higher texture resolutions. Also, this method is GPU-intensive. When using D-VAT on mobile devices, it's important to carefully manage texture sizes, as it isn't well-suited for lower-end handsets.
If you're a VFX Artist looking to improve your work, we recommend checking out Tuatara's tips we frequently share, like like faking lighting on particles, a breakdown of a raindrop shader, ways to add variation to panning textures, creative distortion effects, and chromatic aberration. Chih-Yu Hsieh, known online as geodraws, also has excellent tutorials, particularly on how math can improve your VFX work.
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