I was a huge fan of the Infamous series and remember being blown away when Second Son launched. Ever since I saw the 2014 GDC talk by Matt Vainio on the Games' FX, I've wanted to recreate a few of them. While going after Neon Drain I tried to stick to some of the original techniques Matt outlined in his talk (Sampling the texture color from the sign, rotating meshes on the character with depth buffer interaction and playing with curl noise on various emitters) while also implementing a few of my own. I wanted to stretch myself with this one and learn some new techniques while exploring some new features in Unreal Engine 5.
I have huge respect for Sucker Punch and think they have some of the most innovative FX artists in the industry, hopefully I've somewhat done justice to these effects. So, here is my take on the Neon Drain FX with a couple additional tributes to the game. I even created a coffee shop brand to go along with it! Hope you enjoy my sense of humor...
A HUGE thank you to Aaron Gallant for your amazing sound design skills and special shout out to Chris Meredith, Endre Eikrem, Miles Maxwell and Taku Wanifuchi for your advice and feedback along the way. Couldn't have pulled it off without you guys.
Sound Design: Aaron Gallant - https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-gal...
Animation/Character: Mixamo.com
Additional 3D Assets: CGTrader.com
Programs Used: Unreal Engine 5, Niagara, Blender, Houdini, Substance Designer, Substance Painter, Photoshop,
Matt Vainio GDC Talk - https://youtu.be/o2yFxPY2b1o?t=1053
Worked on recreating and embellishing on the Neon Drain FX from Infamous Second Son in Unreal Engine 5