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AAA Combat Prototyping Pipeline — Multi-Phase Ability Suite & System Architecture

Engine: Unity (Custom Pipeline / Unity Rendering Pipeline)

Tools: Custom ShaderGraph, Amplify, Advanced Velocity Curves, Maya, Animation Timelines

He-Man/THOR Lightning Ability References

Visual references utilized for the project, including the iconic high-contrast electric flow from He-Man’s sword-raise pose (Ultimate architecture) and the rapid, grounded seismic lightning fractures from the Thor encounter in God of War (Special Attack layout).

This case study breaks down the technical execution, asset reuse methodology, and visual pacing of an optimization-first combat suite engineered for rapid tactical readability and multiplatform performance deployment. This is the main character, Vander, developed during my tenure at Azra Games.

The Objective: To design a unified, high-fidelity visual effects language for a character's Special and Ultimate ability loops. The architecture requires tracking tightly along changing level geometry, communicating intense kinetic weight, and ensuring hitbox boundaries remain perfectly legible in competitive environments without cluttering the screen.

Technical Architecture & Asset Efficiency: Under strict performance guidelines, we engineered this system as a modular, reusable blueprint. Instead of creating distinct materials and mesh arrays for separate abilities, we designed a shared debris and lightning matrix. By passing identical sub-system parameters across different ability scripts, we built a highly efficient pipeline that handles both localized multi-projectile tracking and heavy screen-clearing explosions within a completely performance-neutral rendering footprint.

The Animation & Execution Breakdown: The portfolio showcase video details the operational mechanics across two distinct combat loops:

• The Multi-Projectile Special Attack: The first half of the sequence captures a cone-shaped tracking assault. Sourced from the primary Ultimate asset pools, the system instances three separate, ground-hugging projectiles expanding outward from the character chassis—mirroring the rapid, grounded velocity of Thor's ground strikes in God of War. To protect visual clarity, these projectiles deliberately skip a long ambient electrical burst trail, holding performance costs back until they trigger a sharp, high-contrast electrical shockwave exactly upon terminal impact with enemy hitboxes.

• The "AOE Ultimate" Terminal Blast: The second half of the capture deep-dives into the character's primary Ultimate transformation. Drawing deep inspiration from the high-voltage flow of He-Man’s classic sword-raise stance, vertical lightning arcs crash from the sky directly into the weapon geometry. This triggers a massive, expanding Area-of-Effect shockwave layered with a modular 3D debris matrix. To eliminate expensive transparency draw calls and prevent heavy GPU overdraw, all expanding energy paths are driven by hand-authored alpha-clip threshold shaders and custom material parameters before a negative velocity curve sweeps the debris away into dust.

1. Weapon Ambient & Trail: High-readability emissive particle arcs tracked directly to the weapon geometry to signal combat anticipation.

2. Ground Impact: Localized force realization blending modeled debris meshes with sudden camera-facing electrical sparks.

3. Ground Projectile (Special Ability): A duplicated three-axis wave that tracks terrain geometry. While I modeled the custom debris and lightning geometry, I collaborated directly with gameplay engineering to write runtime scripts that force the projectile vectors to seamlessly hug the ground collider data.

4. Terminal Blast (Ultimate Ability): A high-contrast electrical shockwave explosion that clears the game grid while ensuring absolute player readability during intense combat loops.

Technical Achievements & Optimization Matrix:

• Custom Alpha-Clip Shaders: Hand-authored custom alpha-clip threshold shaders for all modeled stone and ground debris meshes. This completely eliminated expensive transparency draw calls and minimized heavy GPU overdraw on mobile hardware.

• Volumetric Geometry Mesh Pipeline: Modeled complex, non-uniform shapes Maya, applying custom vertex-growth shaders. Utilizing structural geometry instead of raw 2D billboards preserved volumetric fidelity and parallax depth from every camera angle.

• Multi-Discipline Pipeline Integration: Worked hand-in-hand with system engineers to establish clean prefab execution, managing particle lifetime constraints and color-mapped materials to keep performance neutral.