Flashbang Effect in Unreal Engine 5

Name: Flashbang Effect in Unreal Engine 5
Rating: 4.8 (39 reviews)

Learn the basics of creating a post-process effect in Unreal Engine

Created byLincoln Margison

Last updated 3/2025

English

What you'll learn

Create a post-process effect in Unreal Engine 5
Create a simple particle system
Control material parameters dynamically from Blueprint
Basic Blueprint usage (linetraces, casts, custom events and more)

Course content

3 sections • 24 lectures • 1h 31m total length

Getting started2:09
Download the flashbang Unreal project template, duplicate the first person character, rename it, and set the world game mode to use your new pawn class; press play to test.
The process summarised1:43
Create a post-process material in Unreal Engine 5 to overlay a freeze frame of a flashbang, brightening at first, fading after five seconds, with color tweaks and retina burn.
Creating and applying a post-process material6:53
Create a post-process material, switch its domain to post-process, sample the scene texture, adjust emissive color, then create a dynamic material instance and apply it to the camera.
Setting a FlashTime parameter on the material7:26
Create a flashbang with Unreal Engine 5 by driving a post-process material using the current game time via blueprint, then fade with one minus and clamp.
Capturing the scene4:32
Capture the screen in Unreal Engine 5 with a scene capture 2D component tied to the first person camera. Create a render target and trigger snapshots for a post-process overlay.
Applying the snapshot as an overlay2:15
Overlay a freeze frame captured on click onto a post-process material using the flash capture render target's texture sample. The overlay lasts five seconds and can brighten by multiplying value.
Named reroute declaration3:47
Introduce named reroute declarations to create flash amount and white flash amount variables, blending an overlay with a bright white flash in Unreal Engine 5.
Creating a simple particle system4:20
Create a simple Niagara particle system that spawns bright, random blobby particles at the flashbang center, captured by the scene and fading quickly for an instantaneous flash.
Spawning and capturing the particles6:03
Spawn a Niagara flashbang at the line trace hit location in Unreal Engine 5, using the camera position and forward vector to determine where the explosion appears.

Creating a highlight with a softer fade2:27
Enhance the flash highlight by brightening the post-process texture fivefold, remapping input ranges to keep only lighter values, and clamping to 0–1 for a naturally softer fade.
Re-applying the original overlay3:08
Re-apply the original overlay to the highlighted area by duplicating and multiplying the texture, then add and clamp the result for a smooth flash fade with a purple–green retina transition.
Transitioning the effect through different colours2:58
Improving the colour transition2:06
Multiple colours at once during the fade2:19
Adding noise6:06
Add random, time-based noise to distort visuals, using texture coordinates converted to float3 and Voronoi noise with scale tweaks to fade near walls for a dynamic flashbang effect.
Reducing the saturation2:18
Adjust the flash timing and color values in the Unreal Engine 5 flashbang to reduce saturation, prioritizing paler greens and blue-leaning purples.
Hiding the unmodified view2:45
Scale the post-process input by the flash amount to fade the unmodified view, then adjust lighting and particle brightness for a smaller, less glowy flash.
Adding a wobble overlay5:37

Creating a light when the flash explodes3:40
Adding the grenade mesh & very basic physics7:12
Show how to throw a flashbang in Unreal Engine 5 by spawning a physics-enabled flashbang actor, applying forward velocity and random angular velocity, ignoring the player, then exploding after delay.
Make the grenade trigger the flash effects5:37
Adding a camera shake3:00
Fixing the particle effect capture1:31
Final improvements1:29
Improve the Unreal Engine 5 flash bang effect by adding sound cues with a sound queue, triggering bounce and explosion sounds on component hits, and adjusting visibility timing after explosion.

Requirements

No prior experience is required, but some basic understanding of Unreal Engine will help. The included project files use Unreal Engine 5.5 but you could follow the course in any earlier version.

Description

In this course you will learn how to set up a custom post-process material in Unreal Engine to create a flashbang effect.

We cover:

- Spawning a flashbang which has collision and physics (flashbang mesh included and free to use in your own project!)

- Taking a snapshot of the screen to use as an overlay

- Modifying a basic Niagara particle system to generate the glow/flash for the effect

- Creating the post-process effect and controlling it from the character Blueprint

The completed files are included for you to reference or to use directly in your own projects, and the course is suitable for beginners.

This is not simply telling you the steps to take, but an iterative and experimental process where we gradually improve the effect piece by piece. The course should serve as a jumping off point to explore creating your own post-process effects. You will also learn some basics of using Blueprints in Unreal Engine (creating dynamic materials, linetraces, spawning actors, spawning particle systems, capturing the scene with a capture component, casting to actors in a loop, and more).

This course is created in Unreal Engine 5.5 but could be followed in any previous version of the engine, however, the completed project files will only work in 5.5+.

Who this course is for:

Unreal Engine developers looking to learn how to create post-process effects
Game developers who want to add a realistic flashbang effect to their project

Flashbang Effect in Unreal Engine 5

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

Setting up the basic effect9 lectures • 39min

Creating the post-process effect9 lectures • 30min

Further improvements6 lectures • 22min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: