LogInIndie developer fraduss created the effect for a game.
They say there are only so many things you can watch forever, and one of them is fire burning, so indie game developer fraduss is on the right track with their cool flame effect.
The developer created this paper burning system for their game using shaders and VFX in Unity. According to fraduss, the flame spreading is entirely mesh-based, its quads are "rotated toward the camera using a simple logic (their pivots are at the bottom center of the quad). So when you rotate the paper, the flames will still appear to rise upward."
It burns in a specific pattern based on the mesh shape provided by the developer.
"An invisible mesh appears in the areas where the burn will happen. Throughout the burn process, I apply a noise deformation to the edges of this mesh, which creates a more natural burning effect."
There is also a second camera that renders invisible meshes separately. Its render output is subtracted from the paper’s alpha, "creating the effect of holes forming as the paper burns."
"The paper needs to be marked as static when baking the lighting. This allows the paper's shadow before burning to be captured in the lightmap. However, after the baking process, the paper should be made non-static to allow the shader to work correctly during gameplay.
"In other words, the holes created during burning won’t affect the shadow, which can result in a strange visual appearance."
fraduss is one of the creators of Toy Shire, a tower defense game that lets you grab your old toys again to engage in an epic battle. I suppose the paper burning effect will be featured in Bluespy Studios' next project, which is yet to be revealed.
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