Numen.
Energy and spells.

Quick start

1. Enable Numen Energy in Edit > Plugins and restart the editor.
2. Open the sample level /Numen/Maps/Numen_Showcase. In the Content Browser, use Settings > Show Plugin Content, then Plugins > Numen Content > Maps. It has 23 numbered booths, one per preset, with the settings written on the wall.
3. Turn on Realtime in the viewport (Ctrl+R) to see the energy move in the editor, or press Play and walk around.
4. In your own level, drop BP_Numen (Plugins > Numen Content > Blueprints) and pick an effect in its Preset dropdown.
5. Pick a colour set in Palette, or set the four colours yourself.

Blueprints

BP_Numen (Plugins > Numen Content > Blueprints) is the easiest way in:

1. Drop it in your level.
2. Pick an effect in its Preset dropdown. The list has all 23 presets. The settings change at once.
3. Tweak Volume, Motion, Look, Light and Bursts as you like. Scale the actor to make the whole effect bigger or smaller. Apply Preset brings the preset's settings back.

The Numen Energy component does the same on any actor of your own. All of it can be extended in Blueprints.

Spawn Numen is a Blueprint node for gameplay. It puts any preset at a transform. A Burst or Spell preset fires once and the actor removes itself when the energy has dissolved. Other presets stay until you destroy them, unless you set Life Span. For example: On Hit > Spawn Numen (Spell: Spell Hit) at the hit point. Change Preset and Set Palette switch an effect or its colours during gameplay, and Fire fires a burst or lights a fire.

Presets

Swirl

Burst

Flame

Orb and Field

Spell

Swirls turn around the actor's X axis (they face the actor's forward arrow). Side Hit and Blast fly along X, so rotate the actor to aim them. Shockwave spreads in the actor's XY plane, the ground. Flames sit on the actor, which is the ground. The other shapes are centred on it.

Make it yours

A preset is only a starting point. Every setting below changes the effect live in the viewport. Most of them (colours, intensity, size, speed and most shape settings) can also be keyed in Sequencer: with a sequence open, click the key icon next to the setting in the Details panel.

Bursts and Sequencer

Burst and Spell presets fire bursts, and Ignition lights its fire on the same schedule. The Bursts settings say when:

Fire works in every mode, on top of the scheduled bursts. Up to 8 bursts are drawn at a time (the youngest).

With Follow Sequencer ticked (the default), every Numen actor reads the time of your sequence:

• in the editor, it follows the Sequencer playhead, so scrubbing shows each frame exactly;
• in game and in Movie Render Queue, it follows the Level Sequence that is playing;
• without an open or playing sequence, it runs on the world clock.

To put a burst or a spell on a frame:

1. Scrub to the frame.
2. Select the actor and click Add Burst At Playhead. The trigger switches to Times.
3. Click again on other frames to add more. Clear Bursts starts over.

For full manual control, tick Use Custom Time and key Custom Time yourself. Time Scale gives slow motion, and Time Offset starts the energy further along.

Movie Render Queue. Each pixel marches its ray with a small random offset that changes every sample. Render with 4 or more spatial samples for smooth strands.

Settings

Volume

• Shape: Swirl, Burst, Flame, Orb or Field.
• Size: the box the energy lives in.
• Edge Fade: the energy thins out over this distance near the sides of the box. The distance wanders with the noise, so the sides never show as straight lines.
• Radius: the ring or ball radius (Swirl, Orb), a grown burst or how far a ring spreads (Burst), the base of a flame (Flame), how far from the centre a field stays bright (Field). Thickness: the ring or shell thickness (Swirl, Orb, a burst ring).
• Coverage: how much of the shape is filled; lower breaks it into separate patches.
• Swirl: Fill (0 = a ring, 1 = a disc), Arms (spiral arms, or lobes on a ring), Twist (spiral winding), Spin (degrees per second; Orb spins too), Streaks (strands drawn out along the ring).
• Burst: Growth, Life, Count, Spread, Stagger, Size Random, Velocity, Velocity Random, Drag, Hollow (a shell rather than a ball), Radial (strands stretched along lines from the centre; Field too), Ring (a flat ring that spreads out to Radius) and Stretch (each burst drawn out along its launch direction).
• Flame: Flame Height, Taper and Ignite (the flame catches over this time at each shot of the Bursts schedule or each Fire, burns for Life seconds, then dies down; 0 = always burning).
• Orb and Field with Radial: Stream Speed, how fast the strands stream out of the centre.

Motion

• Drift: the whole pattern drifting, in cm/s. Rise: upward drift (a flame rises at this speed).
• Turbulence, Turbulence Scale and Evolution: the big swirls that bend the shape, their size, and how fast the strands change.
• Flicker: quick random changes of brightness (also on the light).

Look

• Intensity, Palette, Core Color, Color, Edge Color and Heat: brightness and colours, from the hot core to the cool edges.
• Strand Scale, Strands, Sharpness, Curl: the size of the curls, how many strands, how crisp, how much they fold into loops.
• Wisps and Gaps: the energy lives on thin folded sheets, bright where they curl edge-on, with dark gaps between them. Haze: soft glow between the strands.
• Accent, Accent Color and Accent Scale: thin threads of a second colour.
• Core Glow, Core Radius and Core Offset: the bright glow at the heart (the centre, the base of a flame, each burst as it flares).
• Exposure Independent: brightness stays the same at any exposure, so a preset looks the same in any level. Untick it to work in scene units.
• Steps: samples along each ray (96 by default). More is smoother and slower.

Light and time

• Drive Light, Light Intensity, Light Radius: the point light attached to the effect follows its colour, flicker and bursts.
• Seed changes the pattern. Follow Sequencer, Use Custom Time, Custom Time, Time Scale, Time Offset.

Performance

• The energy is drawn by its material, one draw per actor. The cost grows with the area it covers on screen and with Steps.
• Empty parts of the box are skipped quickly. Lower Steps for energy far from the camera.

Compatibility

• Unreal Engine 5.4, 5.5, 5.6, 5.7 and 5.8, Windows. Runtime module: works in packaged games.
• Pure emission, added on top of the scene: the energy glows but does not cast or receive shadows. Each effect lights the scene through its own point light.
• The energy is drawn in the translucency pass without depth test, so the camera can fly into it. Rays stop on opaque geometry.
• Not network replicated: the energy is cosmetic. Call Fire from your own replicated gameplay code.