VFX artist builds Unity fire, lightning and ice effects with Claude Code in two weeks, open-sources shader

Excifroge · reddit · 2026-10-22

A VFX artist shares three real-time Unity effects—fire explosion, lightning strike, and ice spikes—built with Claude Code (Opus 5.5) over two weeks, all real Shuriken particle systems rather than video.

Key workflow details:

Build: Claude Code writes Unity editor scripts that generate prefabs (particle systems, materials, textures).
Review loop: a capture script screenshots frames with a fixed camera, random seed and timestamps, tiles them into a sheet; Claude reviews and edits the build script. Each effect took 10-15 iterations, early rounds self-driven, later rounds following the author's notes.
Rules skill: the author encoded his VFX experience into a skill with production steps and visual guidelines—the biggest difference-maker.
Textures: Claude writes prompts, generates via a Codex worker (codex exec image gen), and reviews every result.
Meshes: ice crystals generated procedurally in Blender via Python through Blender MCP, decimated, with normal/mask maps baked in Cycles and exported to Unity.

The accompanying VFX Essential shader was refactored with Claude and released free under MIT: https://github.com/excifroge/VFX-Essential-Shader

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VFX artist builds Unity fire, lightning and ice effects with Claude Code in two weeks, open-sources shader

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