Sprint #1

Sprint Contribution – Meteor Rain VFX Niagara System

For this sprint, I worked on the Meteor Rain Niagara System. My main contribution was building and organizing a multi-layer VFX setup for the meteor rain effect, including the falling meteor trail, air particles, ground impact, smoke, shockwave, and ground mark effects.

1. Niagara System Organization

I organized the Niagara system into clear visual sections so the effect is easier to read, debug, and iterate on.

The system is separated into two main parts:

Air

• Meteor Rain particles
• Bright trail
• Dark trail

Ground

• Impact beam
• Shockwave
• Impact particles
• Smoke
• Ground mark decals / meshes

This structure helps keep the meteor’s full life cycle readable:
falling through the air → leaving a trail → hitting the ground → creating impact feedback.

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2. Air / Meteor Trail Setup

In the air section, I created the meteor rain emitter and added trail emitters to support the falling motion.

The Meteor Rain emitter handles the main falling particles. It uses particle spawning, velocity, collision, and death events to control how the meteor particles move and when they trigger other effects.

The Trail section contains two ribbon-based Niagara emitters:

• NE_Trail01_Bright
• NE_Trail02_Dark

These trail emitters receive location events from the main meteor particles and generate ribbon trails behind them. The bright trail gives the meteor stronger readability, while the darker trail adds depth and makes the motion feel more layered.

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3. Ground Impact Setup

For the ground section, I added several supporting emitters to make the meteor impact feel more powerful.

The ground impact includes:

• NE_Beam_01 for the vertical impact beam
• NE_shockwave01 for the expanding shockwave
• NE_ImpactParticles01 and NE_ImpactParticles02 for debris / burst particles
• NE_Smoke and NE_SmokePlane for lingering smoke
• NE_GroundMark01 and NE_GroundMark01_A for the ground hit mark

These emitters are driven by event handlers, mainly using death or location events from the meteor particle system. This allows the impact effects to trigger when the meteor reaches the ground instead of playing randomly.

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4. Event-Based VFX Logic

A major part of my work was connecting the emitters through Niagara events.

The meteor particle system sends event data when particles die or reach impact timing. Ground-based emitters receive those events and spawn impact effects at the correct location.

This makes the VFX feel connected instead of being separate random emitters. The meteor, trail, shockwave, smoke, and ground mark all respond as one complete effect.

p4v: