This is an effect I made in the fall of 2020 using Unity’s shuriken particle system. It’s used for the player’s secondary fire and it has a lot of moving parts to it. I made a model, a particle system, and a trail, then created a script so it would be easy to animate the effect through code after spawning it. The particle system spawns particles around the radius of the round, and the particles stay behind as the round moves to create a sort of dissipating trail. I do a lot to make the particles feel aggressive and chaotic. This includes things like adding noise to them, making them rotate randomly over time, and choosing a spawn rate and life time so that they look like they’re constantly churning.
Here’s some in-game footage showing off this effect:
Another related effect I’ve made is the energy shockwave that plays when you hit an enemy, which you can see more of here
Sasha Bond-Harris 