Visual Effect doesn't play

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I have a VisualEffect that is used to represent a unit spawning. It seems to work fine in edit mode, but in play mode and builds it doesn’t play when it’s created/enabled, nor on ReInit(), Play, or SendEvent("OnPlay"). The initialEventName is the default "OnPlay".

HOWEVER, if I touch ANY of its settings in the inspector (even just toggling the “Initial Event Name” checkbox that doesn’t actually change anything), it will start playing. What’s more, if I save/compile the associated VFX asset while in play mode, ALL of the effects will start playing like they’re supposed to. Or, strangely, I can double click the Game window to maximize it which briefly brings up a “compiling shaders” bar, which also makes all of the effects start playing.

Here is the only code that references the VisualEffect, which happens whenever a unit begins to spawn from a structure:

constructingVFX.SetFloat("Progress", progress);
constructingVFX.SetVector4("Color", color);
constructingVFX.SetMesh("Mesh", mesh);
constructingVFX.transform.localPosition = new Vector3(spawnPoint.localPosition.x, spawnPoint.localPosition.y + mesh.bounds.size.y, spawnPoint.localPosition.z);
constructingVFX.enabled = true;
//constructingVFX.Reinit();
//constructingVFX.Play();
//constructingVFX.SendEvent("OnPlay");
yield return null;

while (warpInTimeElapsedSeconds <= totalWarpInTimeSeconds)
{
    ...
    constructingVFX.SetFloat("Progress", progress);
    constructingVFX.SetFloat("SpawnRate", progress * 4);
    ...
}

Capture
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Capture
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(The -1 progress isn’t the bug, it is updated during runtime. And it also plays the effect at a default speed when progress < 0.)

1 Answer

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Coming back to this after a week or so, I “fixed” it by disabling it after setting the variables, then enabling it on the next frame:

constructingVFX.SetFloat("Progress", progress);
constructingVFX.SetVector4("Color", color);
constructingVFX.SetMesh("Mesh", mesh);
constructingVFX.transform.localPosition = new Vector3(spawnPoint.localPosition.x, spawnPoint.localPosition.y + mesh.bounds.size.y, spawnPoint.localPosition.z);
constructingVFX.enabled = false;
yield return null;

while (warpInTimeElapsedSeconds <= totalWarpInTimeSeconds)
{
    constructingVFX.enabled = true;
    ...
}

At least it works, I guess.

I don’t have this problem with any other VFX that don’t have a Mesh variable, so might have something to do with that.