Duration: 3:21

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More of our assets: http://u3d.as/cxf

This video shows how I assemble a simple ice magic effect in Unity. The sequence is inspired by "Blizzara/Ice 2" magic effect from Final Fantasy Tactics (1997). This is not an exact replica of the original effect because the old one used animated texture for the revolving icicle. I did my own 3D icicle mesh in Blender and import it to Unity to make this effect camera-panning-proof.

As shown in the very beginning of this video, If you want all particle emitters of 1 effect to simulate together during the preview without "playing" it, you first create a particle system prefab but uncheck/remove all its particle modules, then put all your particle prefabs (which actually emit particles) under this parent prefab and you're good to go. This practice is solely for removing the artists' trouble of "playing" the scene whenever they want to inspect the composition of the whole effect. If you're concerned with the final program size, remove this "empty" particle system component from all parent effect prefabs before you build your program.

If you are preparing particle effects for mobile game, pay attention to the quantity of alpha blending objects (including additive and premultiplied) because the more layers of superimposition of alpha objects, the higher demand of performance. If you want the best performance on mobile devices, avoid alpha blending altogether.

Creating icicle mesh in Blender and its texture:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIEHoi18r1U

Unity web player:
http://www.geocities.jp/ifurkend/unity/blizzara.html

Unity package (requires Unity 5.1):
http://www.geocities.jp/ifurkend/unity/Blizzara_glass_unity5.unitypackage

Sorry for making this video plays too fast (only 1 frame was captured every 250 ms) because I don't want to bore anyone who already has some knowledge of the Unity Shuriken particle system. You can pause the video and switch to HD resolution which should be clear enough for anyone to inspect the UI in the video.

I have revised and updated the web player and package so the effect at the end of the video doesn't look exactly the same.