Introduction

Welcome to the Course


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Thank you for getting VFX Secrets, and welcome!

This course will teach you some techniques to create visual effects, abbreviated vfx, in godot.

Visual effects contribute a lot to a game’s appeal and feel. They are all sorts of animated elements that help give visual feedback to the player, or breathe life to the world: explosions, projectiles, waterfalls, splashes, spells, and more.

It can be hard to know how to create each of them. There is no straightforward process or method: it depends on the effect you’re trying to create.

But there are plenty of general tools and techniques you can use. As a technical or VFX artist, you slowly learn these techniques to combine them in creative ways later.

Effects breakdown

Here is a quick look at the effects you’re going to create in this early-access release.

Starfield

In this tutorial, we present the usage of GPU-based particles for environmental effects, using emission shapes, scaling curves, angular velocity, and parallax layers to create a starfield background that repeats across the screen.

You can see the starfield effect in screenshots below.

Ghost Trail

The ghost trail, also called after images, is a common effect used in action games to communicate speed. It’s the copies of the characters when you dash in Celeste or running in the 2D Castlevania games on Game Boy Advance. For this effect, we’re going to use the particles’ color ramp and Align Y property to create a trail that follows a sprite and fades out.

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Laser

Using multiple layers of particles, a line, and a raycast, you’re going to create a controllable laser beam that collides with walls and other objects.

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Explosion

Learn to create an explosion with this common layered effect. Kaboom, baby!

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