HLSL Combat VFX. Project 5, unreleased game
Basic combo sequence with two blades. Actual game speed.
Two-handed sword attack.
Attack phases: start, peak and dissolve. Both slashes are a combination of HLSL shaders. Two-handed sword is a powerful weapon and applies more visible refraction layer.
Various executions of fleshy enemies. The execution includes a special anointment with multiple powerful hits.
The fatality hit: fleshy and undead enemies.
The blood effect was created as a liquid simulation in Houdini, baked and then applied as a texture atlas in HLSL plus dissolve noise.
Blood splatter example and cell noise used for blood effects.
Destruction effects are created as a simulation in Houdini and baked as mesh for use in the particle effect. Mesh behavior was set in HLSL
Hammer combo: default combo and charged attack. Actual game speed. The third hammer attack has an additional ground destruction effect. The destruction is a baked simulation.
Ground hit effect - baked ground destruction simulation
Switch between two characters. Effects can be applied to the character even if the animation has been canceled. Position, rotation and behavior of mesh vfx are set in HLSL / C++.
Special attack damage over the circle. It uses the light component and is a combination of two effects: a ground impact HLSL shader and a charged circular slash, which are combined in a sequence.
For 2 years I worked on a beloved THQ Nordic IP project that was not released. I created all the VFX in the custom engine using pure HLSL code. The Project 5 was a top-down action-adventure with a focus on combat in a semi-stylized setting. During this wonderful work, I created all visual effects including environment, action, explosions, destruction and magic in HLSL only. We used a particle via code approach. This meant that I programmed the behavior and visuals of each emitter. The rendering was done on CPU and GPU using Vulkan API. The game was optimized for PC and consoles, including Nintendo. So all the VFX had to be optimized and compact.
The whole particle system from the rendering part to the interface was created by Jan Enders https://aldurethar.github.io/
Ground destruction and liquid splashes were simulated and baked in Houdini as well as curved slashes and VFX primitives. L
_____________________
This part shows combat effects for the main characters I created for this project, including sword, blades and hammer.