Hey everyone. Need some help with Unity’s particles.
I’ve got an explosion in the works and it works well, but I need it to emit the particles omni directionally and I don’t see how to do that with the particle animator or emitter. Is it possible to do something like this (possibly with scripting, maybe)?
Another one is, how do I get the particle animator to change the color of my particle texture to black near the end of it’s life (to simulate smoke)? For some reason, the color picker won’t let me pick white or black (they represent the particles visibility for some reason). Any help on this one?
Last, is there a way to get a particle system to emit game objects? For example real mesh bullets, or even lights? Should be able to.
I hope someone can provide code for these things, maybe. I may go to the wishlist and add some suggestions for particles (anyone want those particle field effectors that Maya has in Unity? I know I do! ).
Use an ellipsoid particle emitter, or a mesh particle emitter in the shape of a sphere or something.
You seem to be confusing opacity with black/white. Black is simply R=0, G=0, B=0 in RGB, or a brightness of 0 in HSB, or just “Black” in the Apple list.
Why? You rarely see anything like that in particle system for games. They have to be optimized as much as possible, so that’s why you use textured quads.
The current particle system for unity does not perform that way. However, yes, you could have one which generated Game Objects., it would just have to be a new set of scripts.
But I would also have to go with what Eric is saying, and say it’s not that optimized.
I need to have the particles emit from the center of the emitter outward omni directionally (like a blast of particles spreading out in all directions from the center…like a real explosion).
The opacity doesn’t do anything, but when I choose black from the picker, my aged particles disappear instead of being colored black, and white makes the aged particles fully visible (I’m choosing the colors in the color animation of the particle animator). All the other colors work as expected (red, blue, green, etc), but I can’t color the particles black or white (and anything in between). Is this a bug? How would you animate the color of your flames changing over time to be black and smokey?
One example is that In Half Life 2, the SMG spits out bullet casings when you fire the gun (can’t recall if the shells are visible in the scene on the ground afterwards though). Same with the shotgun casings. Although, I guess that can be done with instantiating the rigidbody’s at a starting velocity (bypassing the particle system altogether). That certainly would work better, right? Also, I would have thought having a particle emitter that emitted lights would be a cool feature too. But I guess it can be done with the rigidbody system as well
P.S. What are texture quads? And how come I’ve never heard of them?
Right, if you use an ellipsoid particle emitter then you have the tangent velocity, or if you have a mesh particle emitter in the shape of a sphere or something then you can also use the normal velocity.
Nope, you’re just not using the color picker correctly. Read my previous post again…you’re confusing opacity with color. If you have “black” disappearing that means you’re picking an opacity of 0%, and “white” fully visible means you’re picking an opacity of 100%. So you’re picking opacity and not color.
I have no idea why not. A quad = a square (made of two triangles in realtime 3D graphics). A textured quad = a square with a texture on it. A Google search would get many many results…
Or more likely you’re using an additive shader on your particle system where tinting the particles black will make the particles disappear. Try using alpha blended instead.
Geez, I need to read posts better. I thought you said “Texture Quad” not “Textured Quads”. But in all fairness, why didn’t you say a textured POLYGON…or even just a textured square!!!
Tries suggestion about mysterious “Tangent Velocity” parameter…YES!!! It works!!! Thank you thank you thank you!!! I knew something like that existed in the emitter!
Anyway, so are you saying that the color picker won’t let me make my particles have a black or white color? I would love to have my explosion get darker and smokey as the particles reach the end of their life.
Thanks for the help so far. Only problem left is that dang color picker and then my explosion will be done!
Edit: [quote]
Or more likely you’re using an additive shader on your particle system where tinting the particles black will make the particles disappear. Try using alpha blended instead.
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Because “quad” is more accurate and common terminology. Polygon wouldn’t be right since in this context it would mean a triangle, and generally means any number of sides (hence “poly”).
No. I don’t really know another way to explain it, but probably Ethan has the right idea. Edit: I see, you need an alpha channel in that particle texture.
I’ve narrowed down the problem to the fact that both the White/Black colors and the opacity slider perform the EXACT same function (which is, it controls the visibility of my particles). Sounds like a bug to me, as the other objects that use the color picker don’t have that problem. :?
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