I am making something like a top down RTS game like starcraft. I want to make more realistic explosions. I love the style made in starcraft 2, like in this example clip where the tank shoots the zerg. I like how bright glowing spheres go up (with smoke) and with like 4-5 debris fly outwards with a glowing trail, etc…
(see around 1:48)
Just wondering if anyone knows a script or plugin that can simulate the same thing?
Thanks
From what I can tell, and based on when StarCraft 2 came out, this is most likely a sprite animation. (Sorry if that’s a disappointment!) Most games, even today, use sprites as a significant part of explosions, because it is difficult to create them more “honestly”.
If you just want to achieve a similar polished look, you could search for high quality explosion sprites on 3d content sites (“explosion sprite sheet” etc). There isn’t a lot of great “realistic” stuff floating around for free but you might find something if you look hard, or have a more stylistic look in mind. Just as an example, here’s a really cool one (for sale) that claims to have an alpha map.
Three has a “Sprite” object that lets you present an animation always facing the camera.
I’d recommend you explore creating an explosion effect “manually” anyway, without relying entirely on sprites, because it can look really cool, teach you a lot, and be a fun and satisfying exercise. You will have to accept that you won’t make a “photorealistic” explosion this way, but that doesn’t mean it won’t look extremely awesome. I’d analyze some of your favorite explosions, frame by frame, and take note of what the main parts are, how they move, how the colors change, etc.
Typically there is one or more main “combustion” spheres, starting white and fading through yellow, orange, red, black. And dozens of “spark” and “debris” particles. There’s also sometimes a lot of black smoke by the end. You can procedurally model a stylized approximation of all of these things in code. The cool thing about this approach is that no two explosions need to be the same, because of random variations. You can also make a wide range of explosions (siege tank, bomb, grenade, …) by varying parameters. Doing this in 3d also means the explosion can look different from different angles (low to the ground vs from above).