How to achieve Ribbon Trails?

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:bust_in_silhouette: Asked By SupToasty
:warning: Old Version Published before Godot 3 was released.

How would I cause ribbon trails to appear around or above my attacking 3d character?

Do you have a visual example? It’s kinda hard to imagine what you seek.

Gokudomatic2 | 2016-05-10 06:31

Look at the trail made by links sword.

SupToasty | 2016-05-10 12:46

:bust_in_silhouette: Reply From: kapi

It is a curved plane. I’m not sure if a special a uv map is required to make the texture follow the mesh shape.

curved plane example

In Zelda’s specific case it is probably a programmatic mesh, calculating vertices and uvs on the fly. Keep a history of the sword’s global positions and calculate the mesh using it.

Or you can do the effect “embeded” with the character’s animation. This is much cheaper, but (depending on the overall animation and movement) it can look obvious thay the trail and the character form a single block. As far as I remember SSB does it like this.

The following post can shed some light on this issue:
https://forum.unity3d.com/threads/better-trails-unity3d-trail-replacement-trails-smoke-plumes-skid-marks-etc.235013/

Look at the comments here for an old Godot 2 plugin that does decent trails How to create a 2d trail - Archive - Godot Forum

With Godot 3 will be easier using particle shaders.

eons | 2017-04-21 13:24