Hanzo's Sonic Arrow

A recreation of Hanzo's Sonic Arrow: a sphere-mask reveal driven by a Material Parameter Collection, custom depth outlines through walls, and a Cascade pulse.

Overwatch © Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. Fan recreation, not affiliated with Blizzard.

Blueprint setup: projectile

This Blueprint spawns a sphere mask material at the impact location, which then reveals the enemy outline.

Sphere mask material

The material has two parts:

• Sphere mask: draws an imaginary sphere in the world, so the material only reveals enemies inside it. The sphere mask drives the alpha of the lerp. Radius and location are exposed through a Material Parameter Collection, which the Blueprint uses to place the effect, and the radius is animated with a simple timeline.
• Custom depth: checks whether a mesh has custom depth enabled. If so, it tints the mesh red and renders it above everything, so it's visible through walls and obstacles.

Cascade setup

I used Cascade because Niagara was still in beta at the time. A sphere mesh with a fresnel shader scales up, and a second emitter generates follow-through rings.