In this personal project, I wanted to build on a previous VFX I created (which you can check out here: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/rlP8gE) and use the same approach to create a tornado effect instead of a beam. I imagined the character as a villain casting a tornado-like magic spell to defend against enemies.

I created the tornado shape in Houdini using a custom Wrangle node to build the form I was aiming for. On top of that, I used custom HLSL material nodes to deform the UVs, which you can find in my Gumroad store if you're interested:
👉 https://gloompixstudio.gumroad.com/l/ue5-custom-hlsl-materials?layout=profile

I also used the parallax occlusion mapping technique to add depth to the final crater. For this, I developed a Houdini HDA that generates a custom fracture shape, from which I exported maps and applied them to the POM material in Unreal Engine. This tool is also available here:
👉 https://gloompixstudio.gumroad.com/l/cyrtn?layout=profile