Hey everyone trying on Unreal 5.4, when you get to 11:13, your lightning is going to go crazy because the effect is drawing the beam every single frame. Switch the offset to Random Range Vector and change the Evaluation Type from "Every Frame" to "Spawn Only". I think what's happening is the new default has been changed to draw every single frame but we just want to have it evaluate on spawn. There's probably a cleaner way to do this but I've found this method allows me to get a better result. Awesome video by the way Enrique, keep it up 💪
The most useful thing I learned from this video you didn't even mention: that you can edit a niagara system while PIE is running and see the changes in real time. Somehow I never considered that.
Yep man, awesome! Please continue. You are one of the few people I found who has really nice aesthetic taste mixed with great tech. knowledge (AND making tutorials!).
Such a cool implementation of the line trace! Your videos have really helped me level up my logic when it comes to Unreal and programming in general, can’t thank you enough for these! 🙏🙏🙏
This is so cool, I have an energy ball that has some lightning texture moving over it, so it looks electrified, and this adds so much character, now it's zapping everything in its path.
at about 12:06 i had to also tick the Absolute Beam Start to get it to work or the beams went totaly mad hope that helps some one or everyone tells me what i missed
This effect looks great, but something seems to affect the calculation of the end tangent the farthest away from the scene origin you get. My arcs bend up like crazy when I go a few thousand units away from the origin. Any ideas?
Awesome Video!!! Had an issue with the beam tangent... I assume it was because I was doing this in a level with world partition. I will get back later if I get different results in a basic level. Thanks!
@@LevelCapGaming I did! I currently am on a trip and can’t look at the project to jog my memory, but I believe it had something to do with the tangents in Niagara. I’ll set an alarm for when I’m back next week to take a peek and I’ll get back to ya!
Thanks a lot! That is most usefull tutor for me. It is very interesting and beautifull effect. Might also be usefull to have a more tutors about this effect, like widenig a parameters, make richoshets and other cool stuff. You did a great job, man!
Great vids !!! + one subscriber ! However I cannot have a single arc after adding the jitter + adjust the properties + disable tessellation (tried this on ue 5.1 and 5.3). Did I forgot something right here ?
Thanks for the nice comment! Without more info I'm not sure; I would try undoing a couple steps and doing them again, maybe try to run it again after each individual step, so you can find out the exact point of failure. Les us know if you find out the issue! :)
Is there any way to have the beams start and end on the static mesh it's applied to, rather than on the environment? Sort of how you'd imagine it'd be on a character model or more detailed object.
Everything is working perfect, I can see the lightning properly working while I am pressing play. But I just want to see this play on my sequencer. Iam doing the same old niagara track thing its working for my other niagara stuff which are already in sequencer, but for some reason I cant see this playing in the sequencer even when I am bring only the niagara component to sequencer I am not at all seeing it. But I can see the effect properly when I am clicking the play button on simulation. Help me to get this work in the sequencer please.
Could you slow down the pace of the tutorials? It's really quite difficult to keep up with the mouse and the steps. I watch a lot of tutorials, and I've noticed this here. Your speaking speed is great.
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work anymore in 5.4. It seems that Niagara's Beam Emitter Setup has changed and now the vector position information from the event graph doesn't plug into the Beam Start and End positions cleanly. It's insistent on converting the vector into a position instead of just using the vector as a position. I can't seem to find the right settings to make it work.
I tried changing the jitter offset to Random Range Vector, then I changed Evaluation Type from Every Frame to Spawn only. This seemed to provide a bit better of a result, might be worth a try.
Great tutorial! I have just finished part 1, but is it possible to instead of having a random direction for the end point, can you input coordinates for where you want the lightning to strike? or select a specific mesh for it to hit?
Yeah absolutely! When choosing a random direction for the trace, you can replace that with a fixed vector, or find the direction between the source and target objects by subtracting their positions. Good luck! :)
This tutorial is fantastic. I have the electric arc working great. My only trouble is that it will not spawn from the sphere. It spawns away from it. Any ideas on what to look into?
I think i figured it out in 5.4. Under Beam Emitter Setup, it needs to have Absolute Beam Start Enabled. I also had to switch Conversion Operation to World Position Vector. It’s working.
Weird! That BP node has been in Unreal for a few versions already (docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/BlueprintAPI/Niagara/SetNiagaraVariable_Vector3/). You might want to disable the contextual node lists, so ALL nodes are displayed. Alternatively, you can try creating the node from a Niagara system, hoping that the context identifies it and shows you the correct lists.
You need to drag the line from the node-output and then search for Niagara Variable Vector 3...If you just right-click, you wont find it. Believe me, thats the solution.
To change the shape, the main change that you probably will need to make is to adjust the start position for the line traces, so the arcs start on the surface of your mesh. Not sure about using path tracing on this, haven't tried but as far as I know, it should be possible?
For sure! Shouldn't be too hard, you need to change the trace directions on the blueprint, and the rest is only a few small tweaks on the Niagara system, to align the ribbons with the camera plane
My multiline trace by channel outhits wont connect to the break hit result for the Niagara lightning arcs, says only exactly matching structures are compatible... Ive never see that before! dang it, Im stuck somehow right around minute six/ The outhits box is a dotted square! What a fantastic tutorial.. Im sure I must have done something wrong somewhere! LOVE your work sir!
Great video! After making the ball of lightning I wanted to try it on a skeletal mesh, but it wouldn't work.. Do I need to change anything in the particle itself?
Thanks! Emitting FROM a skeletal mesh should work "as is", just make sure that you cover with the collision with itself. Emitting lightning TOWARDS a skeletal mesh will require to adjust the part where the line traces are fired to find the collision points, just make sure that the traces can collide with your mesh.
i haven't done the other chapters yet but the lightning comes from the sky if i put it on my level with large scale landscape (idk if thats the issue) 🧐
This video is fantastic and I appreciate the background on every step. However,, every time I try to change the Sprite Alignment Binding to the ImpactNormal parameter or, when I try to add the Light Render my project crashes with a a 439 error. EDIT - I think I have narrowed it down to the fact that it was on the 3rd person template. Is there any reason you are aware of that would cause it to crash on the 3rd person template and not on any other map?
Thank you! Do you know if I would be able to feed the light renderers values into another Niagara system to light fluid sims? I've only seen implementation of directional lights so far.
TBH I'm not 100% sure from top of my head, I think you are right, and the systems have implemented only directional lights, but I'll spend some time looking into this.
if i replaced the mesh in the blueprint with something like a skeletal mesh for a character would it still work? also this is very cool to see, keep up the great content!
Yeah, the source mesh is just decoration and should not affect the result. If you use very large geometry you might want to tweak the start position for the traces, so they don't come from the same area of your mesh
I’m trying to connect last trace to subtract node but it’s say; Float (double precision)is not compatible with time span structure. And I followed everything you did. Im new to unreal Fx so it’s kinda strange and fast
Ok I’ve finally figured it out. Had to start all over cos the video was fast for a beginner like me lol… I realized I didn’t do something right. Thanks 🙏🏾
@@EnriqueVenturaGames I finally got to test the lightening but it’s not looking like yours. Mine is looking like a major glitch and shooting all axis. I just don’t know what to do at this point. Do you have a telegram or discord group for communication and feedback?
Sadly I don't have any official groups yet; here are some suggestions in the meantime: To find if the problem is on the Blueprint side of things, I would use a bunch of prints, traces and variable watches to make sure that your values are correct. On Niagara is a little different but you can use the attribute spreadsheets after a capture to debug the values. I would also test one step at a time to see exactly where the issue is, probably replacing the texture on the ribbons with a default UV coordinate to see exactly how those are mapped. Hope this helps!
Thank you for sharing this amazing knowledge, man! Perfect effect, but I'm trying to make the same one but with multiple lines spawning at one time. Tried to use Multi Line Trace by Chanel, but in that case, it's unable to connect with Break Hit Result. Could you help to sort it out, please
You can do it, just do multiple line traces within a for loop. A multi line trace is not what you need; the difference with a normal trace is that a multi line won't stop after the first hit, returning instead ALL the hits in its path (which doesn't seem to be what you are looking for)
how do I make the electricity hit geometry in a scene? For example I have a radar I want it to be around but not sure if this is just made for planes to hit off. My line trace color is green and urs seems to be red
The line trace is red from the start position to the first hit, and it is green from that point. If yours appears green from the beginning, looks like it might be hitting the projectile itself. Make sure you ignore this collisions :) (More info about traces here: docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/InteractiveExperiences/Tracing/Overview/)
Hey man, I'm gonna be doing this tutorial along with your other parts tomorrow. I've not watched the video yet, not sure if it's covered, but is there a way to make it so the lightning just strikes a single spot, like real lightning? I've about 15 hours in Niagara so I'm still learning all the contexts etc
ty very much I have a question if you don't mind I have a problem in which my beams turn into multiple when I add jitter location I wonder if you have any solution for that I use 5.2
Hi! This looks fantastic! My 13 years old son developing his first indi game. I am trying to help him. He thinks that this suits his game perfectly. Can we use this logic in our game? We dont have so much money but we can pay alittle bit if you want
You can scale the particle system directly, but you will also need to scale the line traces for the primary and secondary arcs, and tweak a few values. Finally, you might need to update the textures if they are going to be seen at that scale. The whole thing shouldn't be complicated to enlarge though.
Not sure what you mean: if you are talking about the width of the bolt, you can change it on the Niagara ribbon properties; if you were referring to the line trace lenght, the target point might be wrong, or the raycast might be colliding with other object first
I am having problems with my traces it doesnt pop out like youra for some reason I have been following tutorials for a coulle of days now specifically this same video
Hey everyone trying on Unreal 5.4, when you get to 11:13, your lightning is going to go crazy because the effect is drawing the beam every single frame. Switch the offset to Random Range Vector and change the Evaluation Type from "Every Frame" to "Spawn Only". I think what's happening is the new default has been changed to draw every single frame but we just want to have it evaluate on spawn. There's probably a cleaner way to do this but I've found this method allows me to get a better result.
Awesome video by the way Enrique, keep it up 💪
The most useful thing I learned from this video you didn't even mention: that you can edit a niagara system while PIE is running and see the changes in real time. Somehow I never considered that.
Yep man, awesome! Please continue. You are one of the few people I found who has really nice aesthetic taste mixed with great tech. knowledge (AND making tutorials!).
Thank you, I will! The next one might take an extra week though, I am still a noob when it comes to Houdini :)
Such a cool implementation of the line trace! Your videos have really helped me level up my logic when it comes to Unreal and programming in general, can’t thank you enough for these! 🙏🙏🙏
Thank YOU for the feedback! :)
just got addicted to your channel. you're THE GOAT!
Welcome aboard!
This is so cool, I have an energy ball that has some lightning texture moving over it, so it looks electrified, and this adds so much character, now it's zapping everything in its path.
Happy to hear that it was useful! :)
very cool to see how you used this in your later videos, will definitely try to implement something similar
Go for it! :)
Awesome tutorial .thanks .
looking forward for the next ones
More to come!
at about 12:06 i had to also tick the Absolute Beam Start to get it to work or the beams went totaly mad hope that helps some one or everyone tells me what i missed
This effect looks great, but something seems to affect the calculation of the end tangent the farthest away from the scene origin you get. My arcs bend up like crazy when I go a few thousand units away from the origin. Any ideas?
Awesome Video!!! Had an issue with the beam tangent... I assume it was because I was doing this in a level with world partition. I will get back later if I get different results in a basic level. Thanks!
did you find out the solution to get it working in a level with world partition?
@@LevelCapGaming I did! I currently am on a trip and can’t look at the project to jog my memory, but I believe it had something to do with the tangents in Niagara. I’ll set an alarm for when I’m back next week to take a peek and I’ll get back to ya!
Great Tutorial!
Hello! Thank You for your tutorial! I am learning a lot, very clear and easy to follow
Thanks a lot! That is most usefull tutor for me. It is very interesting and beautifull effect. Might also be usefull to have a more tutors about this effect, like widenig a parameters, make richoshets and other cool stuff. You did a great job, man!
It's so cool, I just wish I could remember what project I did this in the first time :)
not getting line trace to work any ideas. really cool work thanks bro
Hey Enrique,
Can we make this a scalable? Local Space option just makes the beam sit still.
Great vids !!! + one subscriber !
However I cannot have a single arc after adding the jitter + adjust the properties + disable tessellation (tried this on ue 5.1 and 5.3). Did I forgot something right here ?
Thanks for the nice comment! Without more info I'm not sure; I would try undoing a couple steps and doing them again, maybe try to run it again after each individual step, so you can find out the exact point of failure. Les us know if you find out the issue! :)
@@EnriqueVenturaGames I solve the issue by adding a shape location in the particle spawn. That's weird !
Is there any way to have the beams start and end on the static mesh it's applied to, rather than on the environment? Sort of how you'd imagine it'd be on a character model or more detailed object.
Everything is working perfect, I can see the lightning properly working while I am pressing play. But I just want to see this play on my sequencer. Iam doing the same old niagara track thing its working for my other niagara stuff which are already in sequencer, but for some reason I cant see this playing in the sequencer even when I am bring only the niagara component to sequencer I am not at all seeing it. But I can see the effect properly when I am clicking the play button on simulation. Help me to get this work in the sequencer please.
it's valueable video!! I like it!
Could you slow down the pace of the tutorials? It's really quite difficult to keep up with the mouse and the steps. I watch a lot of tutorials, and I've noticed this here. Your speaking speed is great.
Noted!
I had to watch at half speed and still paused all the time to keep up. Good tutorial though.
Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work anymore in 5.4. It seems that Niagara's Beam Emitter Setup has changed and now the vector position information from the event graph doesn't plug into the Beam Start and End positions cleanly. It's insistent on converting the vector into a position instead of just using the vector as a position. I can't seem to find the right settings to make it work.
oh that's why the other tutorials werent working too :/ damn idk how to make a electricity effect yet I need one..
I'm having the same problem. Would love to hear if anyone is able to find a solution for this!
I tried changing the jitter offset to Random Range Vector, then I changed Evaluation Type from Every Frame to Spawn only. This seemed to provide a bit better of a result, might be worth a try.
Hi, is there something similar to this achievable only with niagara? I mean for the "2 points colliding to terrain and creating a lightning" part
Any tips for adding this onto the third person character?
Great tutorial! I have just finished part 1, but is it possible to instead of having a random direction for the end point, can you input coordinates for where you want the lightning to strike? or select a specific mesh for it to hit?
Yeah absolutely! When choosing a random direction for the trace, you can replace that with a fixed vector, or find the direction between the source and target objects by subtracting their positions. Good luck! :)
This tutorial is fantastic. I have the electric arc working great. My only trouble is that it will not spawn from the sphere. It spawns away from it. Any ideas on what to look into?
I think i figured it out in 5.4. Under Beam Emitter Setup, it needs to have Absolute Beam Start Enabled. I also had to switch Conversion Operation to World Position Vector. It’s working.
Hi how did you get the Set Niagara variable vector 3? its not on my list when I right click :( I am using UE 5.2
Weird! That BP node has been in Unreal for a few versions already (docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/BlueprintAPI/Niagara/SetNiagaraVariable_Vector3/). You might want to disable the contextual node lists, so ALL nodes are displayed.
Alternatively, you can try creating the node from a Niagara system, hoping that the context identifies it and shows you the correct lists.
You need to drag the line from the node-output and then search for Niagara Variable Vector 3...If you just right-click, you wont find it. Believe me, thats the solution.
@@emrearslan9572 Thanks! Yeah the contextual node lists sometimes don't show important nodes; not sure if there's an easy fix, haven't looked into it.
thanks for the great tutorial! How to make the effect not from a sphere, but from a rectangle or any other mesh?
and it still doesn't work with Path tracing in 5.3?
To change the shape, the main change that you probably will need to make is to adjust the start position for the line traces, so the arcs start on the surface of your mesh. Not sure about using path tracing on this, haven't tried but as far as I know, it should be possible?
Great video, thank you so much! Is there a way to contain the ribbon effect to only X and/or Y? Like for a top down shooting game?
For sure! Shouldn't be too hard, you need to change the trace directions on the blueprint, and the rest is only a few small tweaks on the Niagara system, to align the ribbons with the camera plane
My multiline trace by channel outhits wont connect to the break hit result for the Niagara lightning arcs, says only exactly matching structures are compatible... Ive never see that before! dang it, Im stuck somehow right around minute six/ The outhits box is a dotted square! What a fantastic tutorial.. Im sure I must have done something wrong somewhere! LOVE your work sir!
The multiline trace returns an array, make sure you go through each element and use the break hit result on those, the issue could be there :)
I fixed it! I was using MULTI Trace accidentally.. THANK YOU! @@EnriqueVenturaGames
Great video! After making the ball of lightning I wanted to try it on a skeletal mesh, but it wouldn't work.. Do I need to change anything in the particle itself?
Thanks! Emitting FROM a skeletal mesh should work "as is", just make sure that you cover with the collision with itself. Emitting lightning TOWARDS a skeletal mesh will require to adjust the part where the line traces are fired to find the collision points, just make sure that the traces can collide with your mesh.
Is it possible to make the eclairs bigger or thicker, and if so, what parameter should be changed?
Need an updated video for 5.4+ 🥲
Hello, my lightning is thin and just a few segments. How may I add more segments to my lightning and make them thicker?
Wow great tutorial👌👍👊
Thank you 🙌
good stuff my man
I am unable to see the lightning at all for some reason, and I re followed all the steps twice now!! might you know the solution?
same
Same
this is real nice tutorial!
i haven't done the other chapters yet but the lightning comes from the sky if i put it on my level with large scale landscape (idk if thats the issue) 🧐
This video is fantastic and I appreciate the background on every step. However,, every time I try to change the Sprite Alignment Binding to the ImpactNormal parameter or, when I try to add the Light Render my project crashes with a a 439 error. EDIT - I think I have narrowed it down to the fact that it was on the 3rd person template. Is there any reason you are aware of that would cause it to crash on the 3rd person template and not on any other map?
Thank you! Do you know if I would be able to feed the light renderers values into another Niagara system to light fluid sims? I've only seen implementation of directional lights so far.
TBH I'm not 100% sure from top of my head, I think you are right, and the systems have implemented only directional lights, but I'll spend some time looking into this.
@@EnriqueVenturaGames Appreciate it a lot!
if i replaced the mesh in the blueprint with something like a skeletal mesh for a character would it still work? also this is very cool to see, keep up the great content!
Yeah, the source mesh is just decoration and should not affect the result. If you use very large geometry you might want to tweak the start position for the traces, so they don't come from the same area of your mesh
@@EnriqueVenturaGames thank you so much
I’m trying to connect last trace to subtract node but it’s say; Float (double precision)is not compatible with time span structure. And I followed everything you did. Im new to unreal Fx so it’s kinda strange and fast
Ok I’ve finally figured it out. Had to start all over cos the video was fast for a beginner like me lol… I realized I didn’t do something right.
Thanks 🙏🏾
Glad you figured it out! :)
@@EnriqueVenturaGames I finally got to test the lightening but it’s not looking like yours. Mine is looking like a major glitch and shooting all axis. I just don’t know what to do at this point. Do you have a telegram or discord group for communication and feedback?
Sadly I don't have any official groups yet; here are some suggestions in the meantime:
To find if the problem is on the Blueprint side of things, I would use a bunch of prints, traces and variable watches to make sure that your values are correct.
On Niagara is a little different but you can use the attribute spreadsheets after a capture to debug the values.
I would also test one step at a time to see exactly where the issue is, probably replacing the texture on the ribbons with a default UV coordinate to see exactly how those are mapped.
Hope this helps!
@@EnriqueVenturaGames okay thanks, I will give that a shot.🙏🏾
Thank you for sharing this amazing knowledge, man! Perfect effect, but I'm trying to make the same one but with multiple lines spawning at one time. Tried to use Multi Line Trace by Chanel, but in that case, it's unable to connect with Break Hit Result. Could you help to sort it out, please
You can do it, just do multiple line traces within a for loop. A multi line trace is not what you need; the difference with a normal trace is that a multi line won't stop after the first hit, returning instead ALL the hits in its path (which doesn't seem to be what you are looking for)
how do I make the electricity hit geometry in a scene? For example I have a radar I want it to be around but not sure if this is just made for planes to hit off. My line trace color is green and urs seems to be red
The line trace is red from the start position to the first hit, and it is green from that point. If yours appears green from the beginning, looks like it might be hitting the projectile itself. Make sure you ignore this collisions :) (More info about traces here: docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/InteractiveExperiences/Tracing/Overview/)
Hey man, I'm gonna be doing this tutorial along with your other parts tomorrow. I've not watched the video yet, not sure if it's covered, but is there a way to make it so the lightning just strikes a single spot, like real lightning? I've about 15 hours in Niagara so I'm still learning all the contexts etc
Yeah, you can easily replace the line traces where the random position is chosen, with whatever input method you need for your effect.
podrias compartir el proyecto buen hombre?
ty very much I have a question if you don't mind I have a problem in which my beams turn into multiple when I add jitter location I wonder if you have any solution for that I use 5.2
same question
Hi!
This looks fantastic!
My 13 years old son developing his first indi game. I am trying to help him. He thinks that this suits his game perfectly. Can we use this logic in our game? We dont have so much money but we can pay alittle bit if you want
You totally can, no need to pay anything! Good luck to both of you! :)
Thank you!! If the project goes in reality we are going to write here again!!@@EnriqueVenturaGames
Hey!. How could I make it so it targets actors as well? Thanks
You would need to adjust the line traces, so they search for the actors. Shouldn't be too difficult to achieve
Hello, I have a question: how to make this VFX scale to Ten times the original size，because I want to use it to a monster,can you give some guides？
You can scale the particle system directly, but you will also need to scale the line traces for the primary and secondary arcs, and tweak a few values. Finally, you might need to update the textures if they are going to be seen at that scale.
The whole thing shouldn't be complicated to enlarge though.
i have a bug that more than a partical spawns at the same time
I'm on 5.3 it doesn't work for me is 5.3 the issue it doesn't follow the line tarce
my line trace electricity is very small how can i make it big or change size
Not sure what you mean: if you are talking about the width of the bolt, you can change it on the Niagara ribbon properties; if you were referring to the line trace lenght, the target point might be wrong, or the raycast might be colliding with other object first
I am having problems with my traces it doesnt pop out like youra for some reason I have been following tutorials for a coulle of days now specifically this same video
ball lightning
i love u enrique
haha thanks! :D
Why does it sound like you are taking a piss in the background?
Lol, that was when using the old mic, the sound is coming from a small water fountain that I have set up for my cat :)
Boy this was hard to follow. Dang. Makes me just want to buy a marketplace asset instead.