Rendering Particle Systems to Command Buffer

Questions & Answers
1

Hello everyone,

GPU Pro 5 describes a technique for volumetric lighting. The idea is that particle systems can be used as a “mask” for the volumetrics so that you can achieve a smoky / noisy feel. In order to implement this in unity I need to render a particle system to a command buffer texture. Is this possible? In other words, is can I directly access the mesh / renderer instances inside of a shuriken particle system (so that I can then feed into the Command Buffer)?

2

If anyone finds this question in the future the solution is to use GetComponent<ParticleSystemRenderer>() to access a scarcely documented invisible component that exists on all objects with a ParticleSystem.

You can use this secret renderer with CommandBuffer.DrawRenderer() to render a particle system in a command buffer.