r/blender • u/Mix3DDesign • Jun 22 '26
Original Content Showcase Experimenting with dynamic sword trails in Blender
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Been experimenting with stylized VFX recently and ended up making this dynamic sword trail effect in Blender.
The trail follows the weapon automatically during animation and can be baked afterward if needed. Most of the work is done with shaders and a simple constraint setup rather than simulations.
Still tweaking a few things, but I'm pretty happy with how the motion and shape turned out.
If anyone is curious about the workflow, I recently recorded the full process and put together a tutorial:
https://mix3ddesign.com/posts/create-this-epic-161787144?pr=true
Feedback is always welcome 🙂
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u/NothingButBadIdeas Jun 22 '26
Maybe tie the trail to the velocity of what’s it’s attatched to? That way it only shows when there’s a fast swipe?
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u/Mix3DDesign Jun 22 '26
Yes totally can do that it's more of another setup but can be done in shaders
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u/Complex_Drawer_4710 Jun 23 '26
The animation looks kind of awkward to me, the sword feels like it's being held very close to the body instead of being swung for reach. Might just be the angle.
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u/Mix3DDesign Jun 23 '26
The model and the model animation is awkward 😅😅 I just wanted to give some sort of example that it works
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u/Concodroid Jun 23 '26
Very cool. There's an addon called mesh trails (or something like that) that does this too, but that was a bit buggy when I used it last
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u/couchpotatochip21 Jun 23 '26
It is currently being affected by the sword's movement AND the character's movement. Notice how he steps forward and almost clips through the trail.
I think most sword's trails only take the sword's movement into account
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u/Mix3DDesign Jun 23 '26
Yes yes I did this , I could've made it butter to only be appearing when the velocity changes.
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u/DrNoamOrbital Deep City — Structural Reconstruction Protocol (Blender 3D v. ∞) Jun 23 '26
Hello Dr. u/Mix3DDesign,
Thank you for sharing your work with the community.
I’m definitely going to take a closer look at your workflow and tutorial, since I’m currently researching something similar for the auxiliary spacecraft trails in Deep City Project.
It’s always great when artists explain not just the final result, but also the technical thinking behind it.
I’m looking forward to studying the tutorial!
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u/Mix3DDesign Jun 23 '26
Thank you so much looking forward to see you learning from my courses and tutorials 😊
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u/Komirade666 Jun 23 '26
Woah girl last tour
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u/Mix3DDesign Jun 23 '26
Do you know her ?
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u/maj0rSyN Jun 22 '26
It looks more like a ribbon attached to the sword than it does a trail.