UE5 Ice/Freezing Effect
Freezing effect done in Unreal Engine 5.
Loosely inspired by the Ice Beam from Metroid Prime or Stasis from Destiny 2, I wanted to further expand on an effect I had made in a previous project on Source engine. One demand was, that I wasn't going to rely on a material function and thus limit what targets I could apply the effect to.
It's a simple blueprint actor that is attached to the frozen target, creating a second skeletal mesh, inheriting the target's original mesh's model and master pose component for animation states. Added on top are Niagara particles to round things out. The icicles are roughly oriented to match the freeze projectile's impact direction, indicating ice build-up.
The whole effect is very light-weight and I overall really liked how it turned out.
Freezing effect caused by a projectile impact.
Combination of Blueprint dummy actor, Niagara mesh and sprite particles.
Shell mesh can be applied to any skeletal mesh.
Specific to UE5:
Although subtle, I really like how Lumen is able to properly reflect the emissive from the character's armor onto the icicles.