The Unreal Stencil Dragon

Project Files: https://simonschreibt.gumroad.com/l/rshvd
Booking Infos: https://simont.de/tech-art-course/
WIP Thread: https://realtimevfx.com/t/simon-trumpler-vfx-sketchbook/4177/314
Linktree: https://linktree.simont.de/

I created this example project for a Tech Art Class I gave for SAE School Australia. It is an extension of my previous project called "One Shader to Rule them All" (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/4XLk04). The basic idea of both projects: (Almost) all materials are based on only one (super duper) shader to speed up the creation of vfx materials. In addition I wanted to learn more about stencil buffers and challenged me by making a magical card with a little interior inside and a dragon being able to peek out of the card.

Total length of the class was 2.5h. Approx. half of it went into a breakdown of the project (looking at the setup of the project and how everything was animated) and a look on how to use the super duper shader to create different materials very quickly.
The other half was used to build a small flame shader fom scratch (no need for creating a fire flipbook). It thaught the main techniques of the super duper shader (uv offset, LUT, alpha erosion) and will help that people can open the super duper shader and actually understand whats going on in there.

Thanks to Fergus for suggesting me to the SAE school, to Lisa for managing everything and to Nibili and Mickaelle for giving be feedback on my class materials! <3

--- 3rd Party Meshes ---

Quadruped Fantasy Creatures: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/7f7775996f7442b187f6fa510ec9d289?sessionInvalidated=true
Infinity Blade Grass Lands: https://www.unrealengine.com/marketplace/en-US/product/infinity-blade-plain-lands

--- 3rd Part Textures ---

Noise Textures by Luos: https://luos.gumroad.com/l/bouSt
Noise Textures by Niels Dewitte: https://www.nielsdewitte.be/index.php?page=Pages%2FVFExtra.php
Noise Textures by 1MAFX: https://1mafx.gumroad.com/l/14Noise
Stylized Meadow Grass: https://www.texturecan.com/details/287/
Sandy Trail: https://www.texturecan.com/details/265/
Sky Photo by Dewang Gupta: https://unsplash.com/photos/aATI6lXTPqE

--- Inspiration ---

Sound by Daniel Hawk - https://twitter.com/DanIeLcanariass

A project I created for a class I gave to students of the SAE Australia and to learn more about the usage of stencil buffers and adding effects card games.

Idle state to show off the dragon peeking out of the card and sparkles & trails which have their origin "inside" the card and can extend into the "outside".

The use of UV Distortion for fire was inspired by the work of Johan Karlsson: https://realtimevfx.com/t/sketch-10-jqarlsson/4235/16

For a quick setup for these swoosh-trails, I've made a Blueprint allowing me to deform a tesselated plane via spline.

This idea was inspired by the Portal from Chris Murphy: https://youtu.be/WzeeXMcui_0

Tutorial about the displayed particle gate: https://youtu.be/h_t0c2J8bBE

The updating is all done via Blueprint events which are called from the sequencer.

A small overview about the many iterations I did for this effect. More details in my WIP thread: https://realtimevfx.com/t/simon-trumpler-vfx-sketchbook/4177/314

A tutorial I created while working on the project and stumbling across problems.