Visual effects create atmosphere, magic, and impact in any game. On Day 19, you’ll explore Unreal’s Niagara system—used to create everything from simple sparks to complex magical explosions and weather effects.

You’ll begin with Niagara System basics—what emitters are, how particles behave over time, and the Niagara Editor interface. Then, you’ll build several starter effects: fire, smoke, sparks, and a magic projectile trail. You’ll learn to manipulate particle attributes like velocity, color over time, spawn rate, and life span.

We’ll explore particle events—like a fireball exploding on impact—using collision modules and Blueprint triggers. You’ll also dive into using textures, vector fields, and lights inside particle systems for richer visuals.

The session also includes GPU particles vs. CPU particles and performance considerations, which are critical for large-scale or VR games.

By the end of the day, you’ll be creating custom visual effects from scratch, fully integrated into gameplay and events—perfect for action sequences, magical gameplay, or environmental ambience.