We are currently experimenting with the new visual effects graph in unity. So far it has proven to be quite capable, however, also limited when you expect the same technical workflow as the current particle system.

In this particular example, the challenge was to make the visual effect aware of its surroundings. So if a player or any other object is near the effect, it should react to this.

We used distance between the source and the effect to calculate a value, that is then fed into various exposed parameters of the effect, leading to the visuals you can see in the video above.