[Save $600 offer !✅] Particle Dynamic Magic URP -Advanced FX Framework (Decal, Particle, Spline, AI)

UPDATE:

The new "Fire & Ice: Advanced propagation effects" system will be coming in late July and the code has been finilized and is beeing optimized and tweaked to perfection.

The new packs after v1.4 will be:

Particle Dynamic Magic (70-80$ TBD) - This will be the v1.4 of the current pack and will include everything, the new Propagation module and the coming DX11 effects in v2.0.

Particle Dynamic Magic Lite (50$) - This pack will be the current PDM pack at a lower price, updates will still be available for all included modules and new features will be introduced (which will also come to the main pack above of course).

Fire & Ice: Advanced propagation effects (40$) - The new advanced effects module will also come as a separate pack and will probably not be in the particles section, since the effects are supporting gameobjects fully and many of the most spectacular effects are based on gameobjects.

As always, the new modules to the main Particle Dynamic Magic pack will be free for all customers (as all new module ideas i come up with). Thank you for supporting the pack and allow it to grow and make it this far

Features list (including v.1.4)​

 

I wouldn't suggest calling it particle dynamic magic lite. Lite was the term introduced when apple said they didn't want things called demos. In effect most things called lite are usually free. Perhaps you could call it Core instead of lite. Also I would suggest that if you want to create lower priced versions you instead separate it into modules. I would have though it would make more sense to produce one pack that contains splines and turbulence , one pack that contains emissions from meshes and images and a final one that contains the propagation effects.

It might also be an idea to create a free package as well as a promotion tool. Perhaps you could release a small pack that only handles emission from non skinned meshes and doesn't contain the source code for free and mention the more advanced packs are available in its description.

Also as you add more and more features I think it becomes more and more important for you to add an editor menu that you can use to add simple examples of particle systems to a scene from rather than having to look at the example scenes. The reason I say this is that because you package contains so many different scenes it might be difficult for users to find the best one. Also some users may not realise that some of the scenes are separated based on which version they were introduced in.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions, i agree with everything

The separate module packs is one idea i still plan to follow, but since the propagation system has gone so far, i think it is best to separate it first and provide it as a separate pack right away, so that the "Core" and "Propagation" packs together will be the same as the main Particle Dynamic Magic pack, without the DX11.

I think this would be more clear for starters, and then i could break the "core" further.

I am already working on a wizard that will add basic splines and setups for mesh effects and transitions, so that is on the way. I had postponed that until i had a complete picture of all the features so i can make it properly.

The "core" naming seems like a good idea, the other one would be "Indie" i guess, but core seems better.

I will upload a demo of Angry Bots using the new propagation impementation, if you like i can PM the first version to see how it will be like and tell me what you think of it .

 

UPDATE:

v1.3.5 is ready and will be submitted this week. It will include fixes in masked emission scaling (simple mesh), updates to Turbulence (more noise options and local manipulation samples) and many new ready scenes and demos, including new Turbulence samples and new Swarming behaviors interactive scenes.

v1.4 is also in a very advanced state and is planned for late July or early August. Demos of the new features will come soon, including an actual in game implementation in Angry Bots.
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UPDATE:
The new Turbulence demo has been uploaded:

Turbulence demo (updated):
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/79230236/TURBULENCE/PDM_TURBULENCE_Demo.html

Includes more showcases of local vortex control and new effects, plus extra noise options. The scene will be included in the coming v1.3.5 update.

 

UPDATE:
New transition samples included in v1.3.5, skinned to skinned mesh transition, from conformed or free body emissions.

 

UPDATE:
Almost all the Advanced Propagation and Collision effects have been implemented in Angry Bots and a demo should be ready this week.

Particle to Particle collisions will be used in corridors to supress fire throwers to pass, ice melting will also be used in corridors to melt the ice to pass, i am not sure about the butterflies taking to the air dynamically as you throw particles, but i guess these are parts of the Angry Bots world .

A few more effects and i will start on the GUI that will cycle the effects properly. Have been working 16 hours straight on the effects, implemeting in an actual game is very fun, plus reveals what extra is needed in order to be perfect for every use case.

Thankfully the impelementation in Angry Bots has been a breeze so far, since i had the effects setup for the showcase demo of v1.4.

 

UPDATE:

Changes for v1.3.5 so far.

This version will offer some extensions and updates to the current scripts and two new demo scenes with multiple examples (Turbulence demo and Flocking demo).

Changes in Attractor
- Added more noise and Turbulence options and a new demo

Changes in Transitions module
- Added user_timer option, to individually select the time between each target transition for better scheduling.
- Added time_to_next list, where the individual times are declared.

Changes in Masked Emission
- Added a check if pixels != null, in case the item has no texture.
- Masked mesh emission now scales properly with object first and then with the offset variable.

Adding new "Flocking" demo, with repel / attract / swarming / circling (so far, will add many more) for real time flock behavior simulation and manipulation.

Added "DisableAttractorPDM" script, for enabling/disabling the various interaction/manipulation nodes with the mouse.

New Turbulence demo scene will be included in the pack
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/79230236/TURBULENCE/PDM_TURBULENCE_Demo.html)

Also adding a whale flock sample, with the free asset below
https://www.assetstore.unity3d.com/en/#!/content/3547

There is some extra things i would like to do too, i am not sure if will come in v1.3.5 or 1.4 or after 1.4, but i think
will be useful

Planned Changes in Splines
- Multithreading for spline calcs as option
- Real time spline painting, with conformation to surfaces
- Script to extrude spline to mesh
- Add collision detection code
- Particle script: Per segment particle control
- Particle script: Support multiple splines with one particle pool

The changes to Spline should be easy to do, since i have most code already implemented in other classes (Multithreading in Attractor/Turbulence and painting in Gameobject/particle painter)

 

UPDATE:

The Prefab Manager base is ready and extending it with all effects. Will be released with v1.4 and the new Propagation systems.

Since there will be a very big number of samples, i separated the menu in 10 categories, for easy browsing.

Suggestions and opinions on the Manager arrangement would be most valuable

 

That prefab manager looks like a smart addition. That layout looks fine also those spline additions sound great to.

 

Indeed, thanks for helping make this pack even better, will be very nice to have all effects accessible from one place and this could open the way for more possibilities later, like extra parametrization steps and more.

I have populated the Spline section, now moving to Auras and Flows, will post pics with progress

Also this is a cool way to organize the effects in a way such that i can create a catalog PDF with all samples later, for reference

 

UPDATE: The 2ond prefab menu has been populated (Auras and Flows). Titles are still WIP

 

Rippling water shield, before and after collision
Hi everyone,

One question about Pro effects for the pack. I would love to provide a nice refractive water shader for the sphere shield effects, i can make one through Shader Forge starting shader.

There is no way for me to test the shader though, since i dont have Unity Pro, so would anyone with Pro and the pack be interested in helping test the effect with the water shader ? I can send a scene with the shield effect and the shader and will need a project with the rest of the pack to run.

Thanks

EDIT: I post a pic of the current water shield prefab i will include in the Prefab Manager, the shield has dynamic procedural rippling to emulate water effect, plus texture cycling and a refract shader would complete the effect.

 

I have pro so I could test it if you want. I think you can request a new trial version of unity pro if you want to try it yourself though. I think there is also an editor flag you can change so that the render texture effects even show up in unity free editor you just can't compile a project with them in free.

 

Thanks , this would be most valuable, since having a working refraction means i can add some very cool effects, like new portal effects and heat from fire etc, besides the water.

I will upload the prefab with the shielded hero and the shader to apply and PM the link here, is that ok ? Or you prefer to send through email ?

Also i will check the trick with the Editor switch, this would make things easier for the other effects.

EDIT: I cant find the flag that enables Pro effects preview, probably that was a bug that got fixed, i remember i could use Pro effects at some point in free and then was removed .

 

UPDATE:

Multiple gameobject scatter from one pool is finilized and will come in v1.4. Gameobjects can be dynamically changed through the provided scripts and adjusted for any distribution pattern.

Grass and cubes are all from one pool and controlled together. The ice and butterflies are separate pools, since we need the butterflies to be affected by forces and fly away from sprayed positions and ice to melt away.

All bahaviors like grass wind motion, butterflies flying away and ice spread and melt are handled by the Propagation system and all paramaters are exposed for easy manipulation of any of the effects.

 

UPDATE:

Another section of the Prefab Manager has been filled, Turbulence samples are readilly available in one click

Also all samples for the new Propagation/Collision Fire & Ice system are ready and working on impementing them in the manager.

 

UPDATE:

Some new samples that will go in the Prefab Manager, dynamic pulsating galaxy and lights, plus new procedural mesh emission samples

 

Hi everyone,

About Pro effects for the pack, in Shader Forge FAQ it states that:

"Yes! Pretty much everything works in Unity Free. There are no limitations imposed from my end, however, there are limitations by Unity, such as not being able to use deferred rendering or render textures. That said, I am forcing Render Textures (Pro-only feature) to work in Unity Free too, so they will appear to work, but they won't work when you make a build."

Does this still apply, anyone know ? I took it from: "http://acegikmo.com/shaderforge/faq/#"

I have installed Forge and i dont see Refraction enabled for example, just a black color

If i manage to see the effects, i can make some major Pro specific upgrades to the effects with cool heat effects for fire and refraction effects for water.

EDIT: I found it at last , i just had to try to edit the shader and now i can preview it !!!!!
Amazing things are coming

@IanStanbridge, thanks for the help and bringing this to my attention, i would not have searched otherwise

 

UPDATE:

Water shield effect, first version

Collisions will make it ripple. Particle effects have not been added yet.
.

 

More Refraction effects, Portals and Bubbles

 

UPDATE:

More samples towards the 200+ prefabs goal for the new Prefab Manager. Targeting vertices dynamically with particles in procedural and animated/skinned meshes.

Let me know what more samples and funcionality you would like to have ready in the Manager and will try to put it in until release.

The ice melting and the new Propagation system demos and samples have been implemented and all is going well for the release at end of July.

The incoming demos will include:

- Dynamic Flocking behavior and control (fishes and birds)
- New Transition samples
- Propagation/collision Fire & Ice systems, gameobject and particle spraying, ice melting and sprayed butterflies take to the air with local overides and much more dynamic effects.
- Implementation of Propagation system in Angry Bots
- Refractive Water shields and portals (plus non Pro versions that still have cool bubble and procedural rippling effects)

 

UPDATE:

New Transition samples, including use of refractive ice (pic above) and other special effects like glow

 

UPDATE:

All the v1.4 features have now been implemented and the release is going to come at the end of July. Demos with the new features will come next week (and a few this week).

Make sure to grab the asset before the price goes to 70$. Lower priced modules will be available after this release. This pack is 4 packs in one (Splines, Gameobject emission, Turbulence-Transitions-Forces and Fire/Ice dynamics-Advanced propagation and collisions) and after DX11 implementation will be 5 packs in one.

The packs after v1.4 will be:

Particle Dynamic Magic (70$ TBD) - This will be the v1.4 of the current pack and will include everything, the new Propagation module and the coming DX11 effects in v2.0.

Particle Dynamic Magic Core (50$) - This pack will be the current PDM pack at a lower price, updates will still be available for all included modules and new features will be introduced (which will also come to the main pack above of course).

Fire & Ice: Advanced propagation & collision effects (40$) - The new advanced effects module of v1.4 will also come as a separate pack.The effects are supporting gameobjects fully and many of the most spectacular effects are based on gameobjects.

Also the Core pack will be split later in two packs, for even lower price, one with Splines (TENTACLE) and one with Turbulence-Forces-Mesh emission. Both will support gameobject emission.

The prices above are not final and if there is a big demand here to keep the price to 55$ for a while longer, i will consider keeping the more indie frinedly price, so if you plan to get the asset soon but cant now, please let me know and if many customers want to keep it low for some more time, i will do so.

After v1.4 the pack will offer Splines, Gameobject emission, Turbulence with dynamically controlled vortex creation, Fire/Ice realistic effects and propagation, Emission from mesh, image and painted positions, Advanced Transition effects from the supported emitters (mesh to spline etc), Music based effects, 200+ ready samples to use directly in the game with the new Prefab Manager, Angry Bots implementation to showcase the use in an actual title and many more, plus will offer DX11 in v2.0 as a bonus, working together in a united framework. All modules come with open code. Refractive effects for shields and portals for Pro users are also available in v1.4.

 

UPDATE:

Added some more transitions, with glow and ice effects.

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Transition particle from billboards to meshes on the fly, on live animated or procedural targets, or splines (which are also dynamic and can change during the transition)

UPDATE:

More features added in Transitions module, now particle systems can be changed on demand, instantly or with a smooth co-existing state between the transition.

This makes it possible to change the transitioning particle system as it moves from one emitter to the other dynamically.

 

UPDATE:

Smooth transition between particle systems has been added in the Transitions module.

The Transitions section of Prefab Manager has also been finished (pic above)

 

Some more effects for the Prefab Manager, procedural cube and sphere emission, combined with particles and multi orbital effects per gameobject particle, plus collisions, gravity and some turbulence

 

UPDATE:

v1.5 is getting closer to release and demos will come early next week. I just completed the Mesh category in the Prefab Manager, with 31 ready to use samples (pic above, some names are placeholders).

Also working on impact effects, fire and ice are already done and now going to bullets etc

.

 

UPDATE:

New toon effects module will be added to the pack. It will cover ice / fire / water / blast effects / vines coming from the ground and more.

The pack will be at the current low price for a few more days, so make sure to grab it before it goes up.

 

Particle Dynamic Magic 1.5 will be submitted at the Unity asset store soon. Get it low price today !!
(http://u3d.as/71m).

Demos will arrive this week.

New features include:
- Fire &ice realistic effects (propagation, stick to surface) with spray system and local overrides handling local alteration to the particle pool (ice melt on fire collisions, butterflies take to the air), freeze and burn gameobjects effects and more.
- Painted/propagated/projected/sprayed particle (or gameobject) transition and emission control, let them loose, emit, gravitate back to position or combinations.
- Real time particle type change during transitions between emitters.
- Gameobject support for particle transitions and the new propagation/collision system.
- Advanced collision effects (particle to particle collisions, with or without self collisions).
- an extensive toon particle effects collection (blasts, fire and ice, vines and more)
- new Prefab Manager with 200+ samples to insert in the scene directly, all with preview icons and description.
- Advanced flocks and dynamic flocking control.

Enjoy some of the most advanced and unique dynamic effects in the gaming industry, for the lowest price imaginable.

 

UPDATE:

v1.5 is ready for release and the first demo (the main one) is coming today. The pack will be submitted in the next few days.

There will be a total of 8 demos for this new release (Main Fire&Ice demo, Angry Bots implementation, Flocks with fish and butterflies, Amoeba 1.4, Turbulence 1.4, Transitions with particle change and gameobject particles)

I post some pics of the Unity Pro Refractive water stream effects, that i cant provide a demo for, since i dont own Unity Pro. This and Refractive shields and portals are the only part of the pack that wont get a demo, since Refraction requires Unity Pro to build to a demo.

The Prefab Manager will include 217 ready effects to use directly (including the new Toon effects bonus).

The price of the pack will be 70$ after the update to v1.5 and will increase to 80$ later.

 

UPDATE:
An image showing all the effects in the new Prefab Manager.
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That water looks nice. is the water one combined mesh or a series of separate mesh particles ? The reason I ask is that I don't think the refraction effect will work with draw call batching so if it is separate meshes it will produce hundreds of draw calls and have very poor performance.

It would be great if you added an option when emitting meshes to have them combined into one mesh for performance when using multi-pass shaders like that. Only make it an option though as I would have though when using a shader that can batch it would be faster without the overhead of being combined into one mesh if it didn't need to be.

 

Quality = Fastest, One light source (Sun), no shadows

Quality = Fantastic (Best quality), One direct light source (Sun)+one point light, no shadows


Quality = Fantastic (Best quality), One direct light source (Sun)+one point light, no shadows, triple particles than pic before


Rainbow effects with point light

In theory gameobjects with the same material should batch by the default Unity system. Which is i guess what happens to the grass sample, it does not produce extra draw calls for any item that uses the same material. I cant tell about the spicific shader though, i will check it.

The water effect is done with mesh particles, not gameobjects. So they are batching with the default Shuriken system.

The next step is to do it with gameobjects, in order to add procedural water motion in each "bubble" to make it look even more fluid. This will be added in the next version (1.5.1).

The current solution gives a nice result and is very fast, so you can use that for mobile, the gameobject one will be focused more on looks than performance

I post a pic with fastest quality and one light source, i get 14 draw calls for the whole stream and surrounding items.

Note that the pic and performance above is based on the hardware of my early 2010 laptop.

Also this water is interactive with other particle systems, they will collide with it and also will push objects away etc (uses the same logic i use in the particle to particle collision system)

EDIT: I checked with the best quality and two lights and still get very low draw calls, i will check with shadows too and post more pics

EDIT2: I tripled the max particle count (3000 max and 360 rate from 1000 and 160 rate) and get 47 draw calls, like before, so draw calls dont scale with particle count, which probably means we get the best batching possible.

EDIT3: I get some cool Rainbow effects when using a point light, i will include this sample in the pack

 

The first PDM 1.5 demo is up !!!

This demo shows the major new additions to Particle Dynamic Magic, the new dynamic propagation, spray, painting, collision and fire/ice dynamics and much more.

Fire & Ice demo - Particle Dynamic Magic v1.5:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/79230236/PDM15/FIRE_ICE/PDM15_MAIN_DEMO.html
.

 

Very nice demo. Is it possible to vary the ice particle shape that sticks to an object or make it procedurally generate one randomly ? Or does the shape of the ice particle object always need to be the same shape for performance ? It would look better if all the icicles didn't look exactly the same. Perhaps make them smaller and have a pool of a few different shapes and then fire multiple particles out close to each other to vary how the ice looks sticking to a surface.

 

Thanks

I have this kind of cycling gameobjects in the pool, just not for the ice in the demo. There is a CycleGameObject script that will cycle randomly a pool of items and will instantiate one of them at a time (this is how i do the grass variation in the first demo stage)

This cycling also happens in the demo stage with the tentacles, all butterflies and tentacles are handled by a single script and pool and size variation is handled by local scripts on the gameobjects.

So it is easy to use gameobject ice with any ammount of variation, i will make sure to add some extra demos for this in v1.5.1. Maybe i will add extra variation with the procedural shape changer script and disable it as soon as the particle has changed shape to maximize performance.

Also i will soon post the Angry Bots demo, that shows the chain lightning and the effects used in a game.

 

One more demo for v1.5

Flocks demo - Butterflies
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/79230236/PDM15/FLOCKS/PDM15_FLOCKS_A.html
.
The white spheres are inactive, drag and press "D" button while in motion (or while holding the sphere) to activate/deactivate the corresponding forces.

Spray the butteflies to make them take to the air. These are all handled by one particle pool.

 

New v1.5 demo

Cartoon Effects
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/79230236/PDM15/TOONS/PDM 15 TOON.html
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More demos for v.1.5

Advanced transition effects, change particle system on the fly with smooth transformation and transitions with animated 3D objects as particles

Transitions demo: Enegry to Matter (Ice)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/79230236/PDM15/TRANSITIONS/PDM15_TRANSITIONS_A.html

Transitions demo: Animated gameobjects between procedural, skinned, projection and spline emitters
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/79230236/PDM15/TRANSITIONS/PDM15_TRANSITIONS_B.html

.
Enjoy

 

Another demo is ready, Amoeba v1.5

This is the showcase of various mesh emission effects. Many new ones have been added for v1.5. The effects are available in the Prefab Manager to directly put in the scene.

Amoeba - Mesh emission effects demo:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/79230236/PDM15/AMOEBA/PDM15 AMOEBA.html
.

 

Smooth Gameobject Melt mode (particles and mesh particles already have smooth mode)

UPDATE:
Scaling option has been added for gameobjects too (melt mode) in Propagation-collision system. I will test it and release in v1.5.1 soon after v1.5 is out.

 

Before applying the new optimization script to the gameobjects. Note that this low speed is only happening in Refractive material, in non Pro materials is very fast.


With the new optimization script applied to the pool gameobjects (Refractive material). The increase in performance is immense.


@IanStanbridge

I have managed to get draw calls down to minimum in gameobject mode, even with Refraction. Thanks for asking this, it will help the gameobject mode of the pack immensly

The trick is to add a script that batches objects dynamically in real time, I just tested it and works like a charm and the speed increase is phenomenal !!!

Pics above show the performance with the script applied to the pool of Refractive gameobjects (ice) and the performance without the script. I will test it extensively and will include it in v1.5.1 with ready to use sample.

Now i will work on water with this new system and see what i can come up with.
.

 

Sounds great it might also be worth making it so that you can vary how frequently the mesh is dynamically batched or even disable it if the particle system isn't moving at runtime. In my game I'm planning to have 800 game objects for example and I'm assuming that there would be quite a performance hit dynamically batching them constantly.

What is the plan with linking gameobjects to the system ? Is the idea that you would create a series of different types of gameobject prefabs that could then be added to a particle dynamic pool and emitted as particles at runtime ?

In my game the objects will be still most of the time but with certain conditions for example one of the game objects is hit the positions of all the particle game objects would move.

If thats the case then since I'm assuming there would be a big performance hit dynamically batching at 60fps it would be great if in my game I could tell it when it would need to enable dynamic batching and at what target frame rate and then the particle system it was attached to would then also set it's update rate to match.

In effect I would use the particle system to move the gameobjects in position and once they were in positon I would turn off the dynamic batching or perhaps freeze the particle system for performance. Then when an event was triggered in my game where all the blocks needed to move I would then turn the dynamic batching back on and tell it to set the update rate of the system to perhaps 20 fps because I'm assuming any higher would be too much for the cpu in my ps vita. In my game the camera is constantly moving and so if that was still set to update at 60fps the low fps of the other gameobjects wouldn't be as noticeable.

In my game for example I would be using one of your splines with a shader that doesn't need the dynamic batching and I would tell it to update at 60fps and another particle system attached to the other game objects that would need the dynamic batching which I would update at 20fps.

 

The pack is in the Asset Store front, very nice to see that , big thanks to the store team

@IanStanbridge

Seems like a great idea for further optimization, i will program that too and get back with numbers

I will check for position change and only update then as a start.

 

UPDATE:

Another demo for v1.5, Angry Bots implementation of Fire & Ice systems

Angry Bots PDM demo:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/79230236/PDM15/ANGRY_BOTS/ANGRY_BOTS_PDM1.5_DEMO.html

Make butterflies take to the air with spray, melt ice in corridor with fire, push fire back with ice thrower before corridor entrance (particle to particle collision) and spray fire and ice on the moving bots.

Use the right mouse button to fire the weapon with Particle Dynamic Magic systems and the GUI buttons to cycle weapon type.

Chain lightining is also in the demo. The wood burn sample is in the room beyond the first corridor.
.

 

New v1.5 demo:

Flocks demo - Fish
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/79230236/PDM15/FLOCKS/PDM15_FLOCKS_B.html
.

 

UPDATE:
The final v1.5 Turbulence demo has been uploaded:

Turbulence v1.5 demo:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/79230236/PDM15/TURBULENCE/PDM15 TURBULENCE.html

 

Spray and batch in real time until a number of particles is reached (around 35-40 fps while spraying), then real time batching stops (and goes to 50+fps)


Real time batching is reenabled when something dynamic happens to the particles , like move or change size/melt away like in the pic below, etc


UPDATE:

I have finished the batching system for the gameobject particles and now it dynamically batches objects when it is needed, in static case (particles dont change size, position etc) it will stop the real time batching and keep the last batched mesh, then resume the real time batching when dynamics apply again.
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This new dynamic batching system will come in v1.5.1