Effect

Effect materials are animated surfaces that turn an ordinary shape into something atmospheric: a nebula, a storm, a sky full of painted clouds, a ring of runes or a burst of light. Most of them are made to go on a sphere. Put one on a large sphere around the scene and it becomes a sky; put it on a small one and you get a planet wrapped in weather or a glowing cosmic orb. Many are partly transparent, so the shape dissolves into wisps instead of reading as a solid ball.

What is in the family

• Nebulas: Nebula Cosmic Purple, Nebula Emerald Dream and Nebula Fire layer three drifting clouds of color at different scales, transparent where they thin out.
• Photo clouds: Sunset Dramatic and Mystical Purple move a cloud photograph across the surface and repaint it in two colors, with light that swells and flickers through it.
• Volumetric clouds: Volumetric Realistic, Dense and Light build a 3D cloud field and step through it in depth, adding up light and shadow, for soft, solid-looking cloud masses.
• Cartoon clouds: Cartoon Fluffy, Bouncy and Dreamy draw flat, puffy cloud shapes with a warm tint toward one side.
• Storm clouds: Storm Brewing, Storm Intense and Storm Violent are dark churning clouds with lightning flashes; the three step up in coverage, churn and flash rate.
• Cirrus: Cirrus Gentle, Fast and Thick are thin streaky high-altitude wisps that drift with the wind.
• Painterly: Painterly Impressionist, Bold and Soft break the clouds into a brush-stroke pattern between a base color and a highlight.
• Two flat graphics, made for a plane: Glyph Ring, a circle of rune-like glyphs, and Sparkles Burst, a radial burst of rays, a wavefront and sparkles.

How the cloud looks differ

The cloud styles are separate techniques, not just color presets, so pick the technique first. Volumetric clouds are opaque and have real depth in their shading; they suit realistic skies and solid weather. Cartoon and painterly clouds are deliberately flat and illustrated; they suit kids content, playful brands and storybook scenes. Cirrus is the lightest touch, a few transparent streaks over whatever is behind. Storm clouds are dark with sudden bright flashes, so they bring tension. Nebulas are not weather at all: they are glowing color, made for space backgrounds and cosmic orbs.

Inside each style, the three variants are settings presets. They change colors, speed, density and the strength of the signature feature (lightning frequency, wind speed, brush strokes, coverage), and every one of those values can be changed after you pick a variant.

How to choose

• A sky dome for the whole scene: a volumetric or photo cloud variant on a large sphere, or a nebula for space.
• Weather around a planet: storm or cirrus on a sphere slightly larger than the planet, since both are transparent where there are no clouds.
• A stylized world: cartoon or painterly.
• A magic circle, summoning ring or HUD element: Glyph Ring on a plane.
• A celebration moment or a hit effect: Sparkles Burst on a plane, with its Progress setting moving the burst from start to finish.

For a dedicated sky with sun, fog and clouds, the scene's own environment clouds may be the better tool; effect materials are for when the clouds belong to an object you can move, scale and animate.