I’m currently trying to develop a Tower Defense and would like the enemies to look sort of like creatures consisting of smoke. I think this will save me a lot modelling work, since very rough models will suffice if everything is covered in smoke.
I know this is possible with the legacy particle emitter, but I am having a hard time finding the right settings. The thing is that there have to be about 200 characters on the screen at once (since it’s a TD) and so far I only managed to make the smoke completely cover up the model without hiding its defining features by using a huge load of particles (500+).
Could anyone give me an opinion on whether what I want to achieve is even possible and if yes, how?
Is there a workaround of some kind so that I don’t have to use that many particles?
2)Then make an enclosed cylinder, a squashed sphere or shape of your choice, in Blender, Maya
or other 3d application.
Import the simple 3d model shape into Unity’s and put it/parent it etc. around one of your creatures.
Put a material onto your simple 3d shape.
Import the smoke animation and plaster it onto the simple 3d modelled shape, that you made in step 2.
And Yippee!You have a scary smoke creature form the lands of smokiness.
You might want to check out this Texture Animation Tut in Unity.
This tut helped me understand texture animations…
He has another one too.
If you want to make fire monsters, portals or lava looking creatures.
And you don’t want to use alot of particles, or no particles at all etc.
This technique might help.
Note: You need a good artist, or yourself, to pull this off too.
Note: They use a similar technique to this when making special effects for console games.
Okay, so I checked out the tutorial and got it working the same way he did. He is trying to do something really simple though, he just has a flat texture that needs to be animated. How can I do this on a more or less complex object, though? If I take a cylinder for example and plaster a smoke animation on it, it will look like this: Imgur: The magic of the Internet
I want the texture to be wrapped around the object. And it shouldn’t be just 2-3 instances of the texture per side of the object, if you know what I mean. It needs to look organic and the borders of the texture should not be visible. I think it would be best if different instaces of the texture would kind of move across the object? I don’t know, it’s hard to explain. Do I have to design a different kind of texture depending on the shape of the object?
Edit: I’m really not sure if this method is the way to go. Wouldn’t it be easier to assign some volumetric fog material onto the objects? I could add some particle effects for flavor afterwards. Is that even possible in Unity? Some way to create volumetric objects in unity?
In your 3D application software. Remove the caps, or delete the center vertices, on both sides of the cylinder.
Or in other words, remove the top or bottom of the cylinder.
It should now look like a tube or pipe or an empty toilet paper roll!
If you want, you could get creative and widen the top, to make it look like a tornado or vortex etc.
Or adjust the tube/pipe to suit your needs.
2)UV unwrap the tube/pipe model in your 3d application.
After bringing in or importing, your tube into Unity.
Add a material that supports transparency, or other, to the tube/pipe model.
Then add, your Fog/mist animation to the tube/pipe model.
If you want, you could make your 2d smoke/fog/mist animation, with an alpha transparency channel in every frame.
In your 2d software.
PS: The other technique is to use a 3d sphere model.
But that trick requires some more work, skill and a bit more imagination.
