Probably a stupid question, but Is there some reason that my Particle system will only Play() if I have Prewarm checked in the Inspector?
Its not giving any error messages if I try to Play(), it just wont do it, but it works fine if Prewarm is checked.
gonna hazard a guess that, Prewarm tells the game that particles are gonna be used and to load up the nessasary classes, since i dont think unity loads up particles by default.
Prewarm just simulates a full cycle of particles before enabling the animation - for instance, it could mean the difference between a fire hydrant blasting water high into the air, or building from a small fountain to a large one over time. Generally I’d use it for particle systems which are “always running”, like a waterfall - that way the player can’t get them in view so fast that it looks as though the waterfall just started.
Is your start delay non-zero? That’s the only setting I see in the system itself that might make this behaviour.
Only looping systems can be prewarmed which means that the Particle System will have emitted particles at start as if it had already emitted particles one cycle.