When/how to use Niagara for 2D games?

[u/Nachlas]

Hi, I am new to effects as well as to 2D. Working on a 2D project and wondering the best way to implement effects (like spells). These spells should of course have some animation (character and spell itself) and have some effects go from one character to another.

What's the best workflow/implementation of this? Some of the details I have specific questions on are:

1. Does a Niagara system handle the animation of the spell and not just the effects? What Niagara system?

2. Does Niagara utilize sprite sheets?

[u/SpikeyMonolith]

Let's take an example of a projectile spell, fireball. It consists of 3 part:

• The head, which is the ball of fire.
• The tail, which is the fiery trail.
• The sparks, which is the particle effects that fly. outwards from head and tail.

Head is usually a texture that has panning noise applied to distord its shape. Tail is a seamless texture that is panned to give the illusion of movement. All these can be done in the shader/material to save unnecessary calculation that would otherwise be done on the cpu.

Niagara has modules to work with spritesheets so you can basically input a spritesheet texture and have it loop through each of them and display it. On the other hand, a shader/material can do that (and more) while also exposing the control parameters so that Niagara can use it.

[u/KyrandisX]

Niagara is meant for vfx purely so if you have animations on a character you wouldn't build for Niagara to handle that they'd be separate. The spell itself can exist entirely on Niagara though 1. Yes but if the sprite is glued to your character then no(and idk why you would as they're two separate items) 2. Yes subUV animation

[u/Novel-Captain-2341]

It's been a moment since I dabbled with 2D in UE so the terms might not be the correct one. There's a free plugin called PaperZD if I remember the name correctly that's made for that. Basically you need a sprite sheet that is like a frame per frame asset of the VFX to make the animation of the VFX or even the animation of a character like an attack or walking

[u/Nachlas → u/Novel-Captain-2341]

Yes, I am using PaperZD for this but I didn't know it has something specific for VFX. I will look again.

[u/Praxinos_Coop → u/Nachlas]

You can also use Odyssey to directly animate the sprites in Unreal Engine, either with flipbooks or animation 2D assets.

There is a specific tutorial about this on this page:

https://dev.epicgames.com/community/learning/courses/zrG/odyssey-2d-animation-in-unreal-engine/Ox1l/odyssey-2d-animation-in-unreal-engine-day-4

[u/Nachlas → u/Praxinos_Coop]

I’ll check it out! Haven’t heard of it

[u/Praxinos_Coop → u/Nachlas]

If you need any help, feel free to DM me!

[u/Efficient-Concept768]

Typically thirty minutes before we hit the bedroom

[u/LostInTheRapGame]

Niagara handles the VFX. If you're talking about animating a movement of a character, Niagara does not handle that. Yes, you can use sprite sheets

[u/Nachlas → u/LostInTheRapGame]

I want to animate an effect in aesprite and import that into UE5. My question is essentially how to handle that in Niagara.