Fog of War CPU/GPU implementation using Niagara & JFA

[@b.blokzijl1189]

For anyone trying to implement this in UE5.4.4 or lower note that there is a bug with the array user parameter in niagara which breaks the FOW in standalone or packaged game (PIE works fine after opening the system). This bug is fixed in 5.5

[@TunaFunDev]

Binging through your stuff i wanna ask a vague question, i know my fair share of ue thats mostly related to gameplay/animation/ai etc but materials and vfx were always lacking, these seem to be completely different world - how does one even start going about it? I know that its mostly being curious and trying a lot of stuff overtime but knowing the entire rendering pipeline and what does what sounds unbelievably hard and time consuming, also math here sometimes feels totally random multiplying dividing and multiplying again :D

[@ghislaingirardot]

You summed it up pretty well. Being curious & trying things... I'm quite at the opposite end of the spectrum, I've done a bit of animation, some gameplay stuff but that's not where I shine at all, just because that's not where I put most of my time & effort into. Maths may seem random at times but it's pretty much always very very logical. So yeah, just have to dive into it and things start to click sooner or later.

[@funagengames1177]

Ghislain, would you ever consider doing a tutorial on Niagara custom module/scratchpad basics? Based on seeing how many cool things you've accomplished with Niagara I feel like there's a whole untapped world of possibility, but I haven't been able to find any tutorials or even decent documentation on working with custom modules.

[@ghislaingirardot]

The thing is, there's pretty much nothing to say about custom modules and Scratch Pad. They seem obscure at first but turns out, it couldn't be more straightforward and I feel like I've explained all there is to know about them in my Neighbor Grid 3D beginner to expert video. This video is packed with all kinds of Niagara tips so definitely go check it out.

[@funagengames1177]

@@ghislaingirardot ok, thanks for the recommendation, I’ll check it out!

[@juhltube]

Great job ! But, no obstacle support yet?

[@ghislaingirardot]

Ty! RTS-like FoW most often don't support obstacle. It's doable though

[@itay7]

Hi, I tried using your FoW plugin but I get a weird bug where the Active area around a participating actor is being offset (not centered on actor), and the offset seems to be scaled by a regular texture coordinate gradient, meaning scaling to view's size ratio. Please help!

[@ghislaingirardot]

Hi. That's weird. Does the same thing happens in the demo project I provided?

[@Madlion]

Very interested in data channels

[@Ukosh1337]

why dont you put in on unreal marketplace?

[@Ziboo30]

Version 3 will use Niagara Data Channel ;)

[@ghislaingirardot]

Hmmm, unsure :D It only works with Niagara CPU emitters, right? And I'm not sure what bottleneck it would solve here, the main bottleneck being the BP loop and you'd still need to do the BP loop to send data through the channel. I could be wrong tho, I have only seen a single tutorial about data channel

[@Ziboo30]

@@ghislaingirardot it works with GPU emitter. True that it wouldn't solve much, but I find them really cool, don't have to manage an array and can send a 1 frame event with all the necessary data

[@ghislaingirardot]

@@Ziboo30 Oh neat! ty for the info. I'll definitely need to take a look at data channels =)

[@xshaide]

Where did you learn all the things you know? Experience aside.

[@ghislaingirardot]

KZbin, Twitter, Tech Papers (Siggraph...), Tech Talks (GDC...), Discords, Forums... Most of all, being curious and trying things on your own