Challenge: Add some magic to your scene

Exercise

·

Beginner

·

+60XP

·

30 mins

·

Unity Technologies

Challenge: Add some magic to your scene

VFX have the power to add intrigue, mystery, and whimsy to your environments. In this tutorial, you will attempt to add a sense of magic to your scene with fireflies, shooting stars, or some other effect of your choice.

By the end of this tutorial, you'll be able to demonstrate your new skills in particles and visual effects.

1. Overview

Now that you have a pretty good understanding of how Particle Systems are made, you are ready to create one entirely on your own.

On a digital project, VFX artists are usually given creative license as they bring their effects to life. In this challenge, your goal is to introduce a bit of whimsical magic into your scene using a Particle System.

2. Determine a creative direction

Your task is to introduce a feeling of magic into the scene. As a VFX artist, you might have some creative freedom in how you make that happen.

Think of magical or whimsical environments you’ve seen in games or movies. What made those feel magical?

For inspiration, watch this trailer for Ori and the Blind Forest, a game made with Unity that is full of these types of magical, surreal scenes.

Ori and the Blind Forest Trailer

From this example above, you might be inspired to create magical fireflies or shooting stars in your scene.

3. Create some magical particles

With your creative direction in mind, add a new magical Particle System into the scene. You could add fireflies, shooting stars, or some other whimsical element to the scene.

By the end, your scene might look something like this:

You should expect to spend at least 30 minutes on this challenge.

4. Challenge criteria

To successfully complete this challenge, your magical particles should:

  • Make your scene feel more magical.
  • Include some element of randomness (direction, lifetime, spawn rate, etc).
  • Change color over time (opacity or hue).

5. Next steps

Congratulations! You have completed the learning required for Core VFX.

You have the core skills and knowledge for one of the primary creative domains within the Unity Engine.

Now you’re ready to apply these skills in other projects! We can’t wait to see what you make next.

Optional Step

6. Submit your work

After you’ve fulfilled the requirements, please submit and share your project! Before you do though, make sure you’ve thoroughly tested it — or even better, ask a friend or family member to test it too.

Follow these instructions to submit your project:

1. Take a screenshot or screen recording of your project.

2. Add a submission title and description. Make sure to include the video recording. If you have additional details to share about your process or the project that you have created, you can share them in the description too.

3. Set who can view your submission:

  • Public: Anyone who views this tutorial.
  • Private: Just you.

4. Select Save and preview submission.

5. Check your submission preview and then complete the CAPTCHA test and select Submit and continue.

We highly recommend that you comment on at least one other creator's submission. Did they successfully complete the challenge? What do you like about the project? What would be a cool new feature they might consider adding?

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