Niagara Grid 2D Feels Like a Superpower! Drawing Locations To a Render Target Unreal 5.1

This tutorial goes over a method using Grid 2D to draw locations to a render target. This is a very cheap way to get this effect compared to alternative methods using camera capture actors.

If you found this useful and are interested in creative music games, I would be very appreciative of you giving Mix Universe a go!
https://store.steampowered.com/app/16...

Full Breakdown can be found here if you prefer non-video format tutorials.
https://chriszuko.com/niagara-grid-2d...

Download the example project for free to see a finished example and follow along from the start here. https://chriszuko.gumroad.com/l/vgpym

Partikel's Grid2D tutorials are very useful and how I learned the basics! If you want to learn how fluid sims work you can check out his advection tutorial!
Quickstart (This video is largely based off of this with a different spin and some more details)
   • UE4 Niagara Grid2d Quickstart  
Advection (Fluid sim type logic)
   • UE4 Niagara Grid2d Simple Advection  

0:00 Intro
0:50 Example Project Overview
3:06 Make the render target
3:33 Make simple material
4:00 Make the Niagara System
4:53 Setup User Variables
5:18 Connect Assets to BP
6:14 Turn on Fluid Plugin
6:30 Setup Grid 2D Emitter Attribute
6:51 Overview of What Grid2D is
7:14 Initializing Grid 2D and Render Target
8:57 Setup Simulation Stages
10:26 Adding in modules
11:17 Setting initial color on grid.
11:31 Stack Context Overview
12:01 Writing to Render Target
14:28 Overview of the method we are using to draw the circles.
15:32 Setting up InGridLocation
18:25 Adding more inputs
18:39 Custom HLSL Setup
20:15 Getting Data From locations and Sizes
23:10 Getting distance and basic circles.
25:02 Soften the Circles
25:45 Making the circles additive.
26:26 Making the texture blend from previous frame.
27:51 Performance Notes
28:04 Final Fix for the flashbang issue.
28:25 Wrap Up