Creating Versatile Afterimage VFX With Unreal Engine 5's Niagara

VFX Artist HeyYo, whose DS-inspired hologram we featured last year, shared a demo of their new effect, aiming to create afterimage, the classic ghost-trail or motion-blur look where a character or object leaves behind faded copies as it moves. As the artist shared, it uses Screen Space with Niagara GBuffer access and includes some smart optimizations.

In terms of efficiency, keeping too many afterimages active at once can impact memory usage. While the CPU should manage it without issue, the GPU will incur some cost, though it should remain acceptable.

HeyYo intends to publish this asset on Fab, and hopefully, we'll get insights into how it was made. Check out HeyYo's other VFX projects available for purchase:

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