James ÅkessonTechnical Artist

Wind Shader & Interaction

Different shaders and effects I made for the wind in a game project.

Year
2022
Kind
Shaders
Made with
Unreal Engine
Live
Re-created on the landing page
Grey mannequin character with a glowing cyan chest emblem standing in a field of bright green grass bending in the wind, with wind-blown trees and a dark tiled wall behind under a cloudy sky.

This effect consists of several components: shaders for the grass, trees and most objects that would move with the wind. They are controllable by a single directional vector, and parameters like speed and rate of gusts, among other parameters, are available to the user. I've also incorporated wind forces that inherit the same values to be able to simulate objects blowing in the wind.

Exposed parameters:

  • wind direction (a single vector)
  • speed
  • gust rate and strength

Later on in the project, I took inspiration from Ghost of Tsushima and made the wind move towards the objective in the game. You can see the red dot indicating the objective in this case. The wind redirects the player towards the objective when they have strayed too far from their path.

(I added arrows to the wind to visualize it more easily)