Multiple particle emitters inside of one to reduce draw calls

Unity Engine
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1

i use 4 exact same particel systems in one scene! all the 4 are starting on the same time.
in my technical opinion there is no need for 4 draw calls, if particles are producing excact the
same values with the same material.

it would be a very nice feature, if a particle emitter can produce inside of it more instances of
the same emitter, just with different positions and rotation values. i think that would be a topic for
the wishlist! what do you think about it?

is there any way to reduce the 4 draw calls into 1? i allready tried to attach another
particle emitter to the same empty, but “of course” it doesn’t work.
i can’t get the script out of unity, without rewriting everything from scratch!
is it somehow possible to rewrite the original particle script?

any suggestions?

btw: sorry for my flabby english

2

If you use a mesh emitter then there is no reason that the mesh has to be one continuous, solid object so you can have several separate sites of emission in one mesh. Alternatively, you can switch off automatic emission and use the Emit function to release particles under script control. The advantage of this is that you can call Emit several times within one frame update and move the emitter object in between calls.

3

ohhhhh that sounds promising. i never used and allready forgot about the mesh emitter
component O_O…have to take a look on that one. i will right do my experiments =D !!!
thnx alot ! =)

4

hm, i tried to set simple planes as mesh emitters. but i have no reaction. can’t see any particles coming out. how should the objects be defined?
the thing is i have 4 waterfalls around a cylinder. the cylinder is the main scenario and rotates around its middle axis to the cam. the waterfalls are set around the cylinder and they should spit out theyr particles in a star formation around the cylinder, if you look on it from the top.

i thought i upload a image so you can understand me better, cause of my confusing english xD

how do i need to make such a mesh emitter in my 3D app like blender/3dsmax or any?
thnx in forward!!

5

Create a 3D object with a cluster of vertices at the top of each waterfall, no vertices anywhere else. Make sure Interpolate Triangles is turned off.

To check you are doing the right steps. Create your particle system. Remove the Ellipsoid Particle Emitter component. Add the Mesh Particle Emitter component. Expand the 3D object that has your vertices. Drag the mesh to the Mesh part of the Mesh Particle Emitter.

6

i did what you say, but without success. creating 4 vertices in a empty mesh on the desired position wasn’t a problem. but exporting them into a fbx object seems not to work, cause inside unity there is no mesh in the stack of the FBX file! O_O =)

and another thing what i am asking myself is, how should unity recognize the desired direction of the 4 vertices, so the waterfalls are spreading out like on the picture above, which i uploaded? xD

7

Try creating a mesh so that the polygons have vertices at the points you want. The object will not be rendered, the Mesh Particle Emitter only makes use of the mesh for positioning the particles.