Blueprints
It is time to learn Unreal. I have put it off long enough. I started by doing something that I thought would be pretty easy. I just wanted to make a muzzle flash, projectile particle trail, and decal. I managed to figure out how to set those systems up pretty quick. Then I decided to make them all the same random color. That took a little longer to figure out. In the end I didn't have to add that much to the Blueprints, but the process is a lot different than doing the same thing in Unity. Now I just need to make it look nice. Time to really dig into Niagara.
Niagara
After tweaking the particle systems in Niagara and making some better materials. This is what I ended up with. I think its a good start, but will need some more work. I'm not super happy with the decals because it's just four different materials picked randomly. Next I'm going to dig into those and see if I can do a more procedural approach. I'm not sure what is possible just yet, but that's the whole point of this process.