13-03-2022, 08:38 PM
(This post was last modified: 13-03-2022, 08:46 PM by Xanduffy.
Edit Reason: Whoops, tried to embed an image; Also mislabeled the main image
)
Hi Jose! Thanks for the quick response.
Regarding the white outline issue, I think it is a blending issue as I have smoothness at 0, and the effect does get worse the lower I set the thickness cutoff, pushing that to 5 has mostly gotten rid of it, but obviously limits the look of the fluid a lot. Changing around the 'basic blending' settings can get rid of it completely, but seemingly not while achieving the lava look that I have currently using this setup:
![[Image: image.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/nzDp8BWg/image.png)
Now where things get interesting is that while messing around with these settings I unwittingly managed to partially solve the other issue with VFX particles!
As you'll see in the image below, using the blend settings above allows some of the particles to render in front of the fluid. The flames are visible when blending towards the DST Color, while the previous settings which blended towards Zero occluded both the flames and the smoke. I'm not sure why this is happening, but I think the problem stems from the flames being set to additive blending while the smoke is set to alpha. I hope that information can reveal the problem quicker!
![[Image: vfxoccluded.png]](https://i.postimg.cc/4Nht8SwQ/vfxoccluded.png)
As for the idea of texture mapping, I had been learning about flow map shaders recently and experimenting with them in the shader graph, which started me thinking about somehow projecting that onto an obifluid surface, which in theory could blend much better with the flow of the particles, at least in somewhat predictable simulations. That is mostly pipe dreaming anyway as I have zero meaningful experience in writing my own shaders.
As for the more practical suggestions, the project I'm working on is quite stylized and honestly a certain amount of popping/pulsing is completely fine, flow map shaders have a similar pulsing effect when overlapping the flow out of phase. I'm after two effects specifically: mud and lava. The mud is clearly much easier to achieve though it is slightly difficult to find renderer settings that suit it as well as the lava. (The mud is intended to have a specific bubbling vfx graph attached so popping really doesn't matter there.) The lava is moreso the one I would like to somehow texture, and again the nature of the liquid, the stylized look and the intended flames/smoke effect may be enough to cover for imperfections in the texture.
As it stands though, using particle Z write and very specific colours has at least gotten the point across that it's lava, and looks quite good in motion too. The blending/occlusion issue is more of a concern.
Regarding the white outline issue, I think it is a blending issue as I have smoothness at 0, and the effect does get worse the lower I set the thickness cutoff, pushing that to 5 has mostly gotten rid of it, but obviously limits the look of the fluid a lot. Changing around the 'basic blending' settings can get rid of it completely, but seemingly not while achieving the lava look that I have currently using this setup:
Now where things get interesting is that while messing around with these settings I unwittingly managed to partially solve the other issue with VFX particles!
As you'll see in the image below, using the blend settings above allows some of the particles to render in front of the fluid. The flames are visible when blending towards the DST Color, while the previous settings which blended towards Zero occluded both the flames and the smoke. I'm not sure why this is happening, but I think the problem stems from the flames being set to additive blending while the smoke is set to alpha. I hope that information can reveal the problem quicker!
As for the idea of texture mapping, I had been learning about flow map shaders recently and experimenting with them in the shader graph, which started me thinking about somehow projecting that onto an obifluid surface, which in theory could blend much better with the flow of the particles, at least in somewhat predictable simulations. That is mostly pipe dreaming anyway as I have zero meaningful experience in writing my own shaders.
As for the more practical suggestions, the project I'm working on is quite stylized and honestly a certain amount of popping/pulsing is completely fine, flow map shaders have a similar pulsing effect when overlapping the flow out of phase. I'm after two effects specifically: mud and lava. The mud is clearly much easier to achieve though it is slightly difficult to find renderer settings that suit it as well as the lava. (The mud is intended to have a specific bubbling vfx graph attached so popping really doesn't matter there.) The lava is moreso the one I would like to somehow texture, and again the nature of the liquid, the stylized look and the intended flames/smoke effect may be enough to cover for imperfections in the texture.
As it stands though, using particle Z write and very specific colours has at least gotten the point across that it's lava, and looks quite good in motion too. The blending/occlusion issue is more of a concern.