✨┃vfx-and-particles

[eternal herald]

like this for example

yeah i was thinking that but it didnt work

[warm torrent]

I guess it might be as simple as using a particle texture with a black inside

[eternal herald]

yeah i guess ill try that

[ashen robin]

yeah, I usually do like custom trails for lightning stuff

[warm torrent]

Something like this might work

[eternal herald]

oh thank you ill try that

[warm torrent]

Also I notice your Blend Mode is currently Additive
Additive cannot display black colors so you need Alpha Blended or something else

[eternal herald]

it worked tysm

[eternal herald]

for some reason when i click stop on my vfx graph my particles dont stop till five seconds after idk what it could be

[ashen robin]

stop only prevent producing more particles and turns off linked gpu events from doing the same, but the particles will still run their course

what you would need to do is set Alive to false

[eternal herald]

huh?

[ashen robin]

stop event means to turn off particle production. Not turn off particles completely.

[eternal herald]

is stop event a setting

[ashen robin]

it's an event ;)
But you can put your own start and stop events in your graph too

[eternal herald]

uhhhhh im so confused nvm its all good dw thanks for your help anyways

[tropic canopy]

Does anyone know a way to make a particle system achieve an effect of a flock of butterflies flapping? Could this be achieved by uploading a sprite sheet that alternates between two images? It's something I plan on putting pretty far back into the environment so I don't need anything that looks that convincing

[atomic storm]

I'd probably use a shader for the flapping honestly

I think there are tutorials tho on yt try to search unity particle butterfly

maybe theres one for vfx graph too

[tropic canopy]

Yeah, I was digging a bit and found this devlog that uses a shadergraph instead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eyN3BveL7_c

[tropic canopy]

I would like to try a VFX graph but this will be for a VR build on Oculus Quest 2 and I don't know how performant VFX graph stuff is on the Android build platform, let alone a scene for the Quest 2

[atomic storm]

I only meant vfx graph as a base starting point

you can translate it over to shuriken

might have to do some tricks but probably should work

[worthy garnet]

I just started using the particle system today to create a snowball exploding effect. I have created something that I am happy with:

However, when I instantiate the particle during gameplay it just shoots out like this:

Does anyone know what I might be doing wrong? I've tried looking for things online but so far have found nothing helpful.

I found a solution but it's a bit jank: I just instantiate an empty game object that the particle is attached to rather than instantiate it from the player.

[errant osprey]

My explosion particle is invisible when I set the simulation space to "World." If I pause during the explosion and look via scene view, I can see the explosion in the world space, but not in my game. During game scene it's not visible at all. I've tried setting the emission to be enabled = true, but it makes no difference. I've also tried setting culling mode to "always simulate."

[molten cliff]

[Epilepsy warning] Need help! if I rotate the particle system it squishes itself but when I rotate it back it's normal I checked the values they are not changing, is it parent constraints?

[eternal herald]

who knows how to turn off backface culling in a vfx graph

[ashen robin]

Click on the output quad and check the editor area for shader specifics

if you're using a custom shader then you have to change it on that in the graph (if not exposed)

output context*

[eternal herald]

oh okay thanks

[eternal herald]

also am i able to set a vfx graph from front to both

[glass sun]

Does anyone know how to fix when a certain particle effect doesn't have any texture colouring in a mobile build of a project?

I have an explosion particle that works fine in the editor and on pc builds, but on mobile it's grey

As if the colours are never set or something

[limpid ingot]

Help me please. I attached Particle System to player. Set Emission Rate over Distance. But Partical systems that simulate dust doesn't work the way I want it to. It only emits during WASD input, when the button is held down, the effect stops emitting

#💻┃code-beginner message

[quiet ether]

you can use by distance

and then it shouldn't even matter what ur code does.. if the object is moving its emitting

if its not.. its not

[limpid ingot]

In addition when I came to wall, the effects start emit endlessly

[limpid ingot]

https://gdl.space/tipuruhucu.cs

Here my PlayerController. Just for you to be sure, that I havn't any logic which related to effects. At all

[quiet ether]

ya, the logic doesn't matter if u use by distance... well it matters.. b/c it moves it.. but if its moving it'll emit if its not moving it wont..

and u can still disable and enable the emitter during that

[limpid ingot]

The particals emit, while the program get input from keyboard.

You can see in the video that the particles are only emitted when I'm turning, when I'm walking in the same direction, there are no particles.

[quiet ether]

looks like when u turn ur Speed is actually enough to emit particles

maybe only emit when ur !stationary && !turning..

and this is code related it seems

[eternal herald]

when i click play on the vfx graph the alpha over life time doesnt work does anyone know how to fix this

[ashen robin]

May need to enable transparency on the editor side, otherwise make your own shader and enable it there

[eternal herald]

do you mean this

[eternal herald]

nvm all good i fixed my issue

https://forum.unity.com/threads/alpha-over-live-ignored-when-using-shader-graph-vfx-asset.1184851/

[eternal herald]

also how do i use the skined mesh feture to make the particle stay on my character

[eternal herald]

when i use skinned mesh renderer this happens

[errant osprey]

I'm having problems with the visibility of my explosion particle. It looks fine when the "Simulation Space" is set to "Local," but if I switch it to "World", I can barely see it. First screenshot is scene view in the world space, where it looks correct. I can't take a screenshot of how it looks in game view because the screen will flicker with very large particles only for a single frame. Even if I spam pause I can't capture the frame where it's visible. How do I make the particles look the same in game view like it does in scene view?

I've also hidden all of the other in-game elements in game view just in case there's a layer issue, and even hiding all of the graphics the particles are only visible for a single frame, and very large.

[onyx lake]

To me this looks like either there's an issue with rotation and in the preview you are looking from above while ingame you're looking from the side or vice versa. Or, there's an issue with scaling and in-game the scaling might be set to 0 | 0 | 0.

[onyx lake]

There could be a lot of reasons for this, but the layer mentions UI. Is it possible that you are rendering the particles on the wrong camera and some UI elements are sitting in front of the particles?

It could also be possible that the shader you are using is not made for UI rendering. There are some cases where shaders might render in scene view, but then break during game mode, because the shaders were never meant to be used in this context (even though they're from unity themsevles).

[onyx lake]

How exactly are the particles receiving the color? Are you using a custom shader that uses a color ramp texture? What device are you testing on, is it an iphone?

[errant osprey]

Sorry, the layer name is misleading. I have it set the highest number layer right now, and in its own separate category, so it should be over everything.

I only have one camera.

I'm using Sprites/Default for my shader.

I think I see what's happening. I have the simulation space set to world, but it's not acting like it's world.

That little square represents my game view.

[onyx lake]

Can you show the renderer module? Does it change if you change the z-offset-value in the shape module? (you're using very large start speed numbers so you might need big offsets)

[errant osprey]

And so a single particle will occasionally pass by.

But I am expecting it to appear in the world space, so it should be appearing in front of my game in game view, not way off to the side.

[onyx lake]

What mode is your camera set to?

[errant osprey]

I thought there was a section for choosing world space or local on the camera? I don't see it. Is that what you mean by the mode?

[glass sun]

They're using a material I made that uses the Particles/Standard Unlit shader
The material is using a texture file for the Maps part (I got the texture online)
The particle system is also using the same shader

And I'm testing it on a Samsung S20 FE

[onyx lake]

No, world space or local space is set on the particle system to decide how they should behave (in world space means they are not affected by their parents transform. If you move the object after the particles have been spawned they "do their own thing". If you set it to local space they particles would move with the parent)

[onyx lake]

Sorry, I meant if you have a canvas set somewhere for UI elements.

You can see a render mode option on the canvas component

[errant osprey]

Yes , I do. It's currently set for screen space - overlay

[onyx lake]

Are you following a tutorial? It can be a bit tricky to setup, but happy to help you. Feel free to drop a DM (though judging from the time you asked for help you're probably living on the other side of the world).

[worthy garnet]

The rotation was exactly the issue, thank you! I guess I must have rotated it at some point while making it without realising. I can get rid of my jank fix to it now :>

[eternal herald]

Yeah I was using one

[eternal herald]

I do live on the other side of the world lol

[smoky pelican]

Is it possible to have subemitters with one looping and the others not looping?

[onyx lake]

Yeah sure, the question is if that's really what you want. What are you trying to achieve?

[smoky pelican]

I want to create a set of particles, two particles are only played once at the beginning, and one particle will be played looping (starting from the same beginning as the two).
Now, I can simply create two separate particles and play them both at the same time, but having them as subemitters and play only the parent emitter seem like the right way

[onyx lake]

There are two ways to approach this, I think. First one would be to have one of the systems that only plays once as the parent emitter and have the other one time emitter and the looping emitter as subemitters who are started `'On Birth'. Or you create the looping particle system and just have the other two systems that only emit once as children objects of the looping particles and let them all play on awake.

Personally, I think the second option is cleaner, but maybe that's just my personal preference.

[smoky pelican]

Or you create the looping particle system and just have the other two systems that only emit once as children objects of the looping particles and let them all play on awake.
this make all of them loop if I set the one shots particles as sub-emitter.
I can make them as non-sub-emitter, but that means I need to deactivate-activate the parent particle system, I assume? 🤔
But since I deactivate them on finish, I think that wont be much of a problem
Thanks 👍

[edgy acorn]

Hi. Can i access these boxes from a script? If it's possible, then can i make one box so programmer can tick-on one box (from a script), instead of three?

[ashen robin]

https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/VFX.VisualEffect.html
Check the set methods. It's a string accessor much like how you change exposed properties on the shader graph.

well, how you change exposed properties on materials

This would affect all particles of that graph, but if you want to do it per particle event you would use attribute events explained here: https://qriva.github.io/posts/how-to-vfx-graph/

[pseudo bough]

Hello is there anyone know how to make tiling a flip book for line renderer ?

[eternal herald]

hey guys how do i use the skined mesh feture to make the particle stay on my character

[eternal herald]

also how to i make a script that will start and stop the vfx graph

[edgy acorn]

Sup. I've modified generic "Heads and sparks" preset and apparently they stay if i switch spawn system to Single burst?

[eternal herald]

try this

change single burst delay to what ever you want at the start you can to 0 for an instant start but make sure that your single burst delay on stop is the time you want it to end

[edgy acorn]

i'll try, ty

is this a legacy system, or it's still can be activated?

[warm torrent]

Particle System (formerly Shuriken) is perfectly viable
They are CPU-simulated particles, the newer system VFX Graph is GPU-simulated and has higher system requirements as well, so it's not a direct replacement

[vocal sandal]

how can I make the raindrops fall diagonally and kill them when they reach floor level?

[ashen robin]

there should be an option to add collision to each particle in the system

maybe like trigger collider option that kills them on contact

[quiet vortex]

Do you need help with VFX

[eternal herald]

Yes sirrr

[eternal herald]

can anyone help me with this please

[pallid pike]

Can someone explain to me how GetParticleSystemInfo() works? https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/VFX.VisualEffect.GetParticleSystemInfo.html

Looking to get the bounds of a visual effect in a c# script

I'm not sure how to find the name, or id of the particle system. I have used the name of the visual effect, game object etc. but recieving Nan's

[pallid pike]

    void Start(){
        vfx = m_Smoke.GetComponent<VisualEffect>();
        vfx.initialEventID = Shader.PropertyToID(vfx.initialEventName);
        vfx.Play();
        Debug.Log(vfx.initialEventName);
        m_Info = vfx.GetParticleSystemInfo(vfx.initialEventID);
        Debug.Log(Shader.PropertyToID(vfx.initialEventName));
    }
    void FixedUpdate(){
        if (m_Smoke != null){
            m_Info = vfx.GetParticleSystemInfo(vfx.initialEventID);
            Debug.Log($"{m_Info.aliveCount}, {m_Info.capacity}");
        }
    }```

I have this. its showing 0, 0 as output

this is the same thing which is happening to me!

[brazen stirrup]

oh man, I had this a while ago. My end solution was hacky but sufficed for what I needed, I just had a float attached to the VFX system to represent "lifetime" and other scripts could read it to determine if it was active or not

[pallid pike]

but, why is it outputting zeros for everything and NaN's for bounds?

[pallid pike]

I don't think I can make a hacky solution for this. need the bounds

[brazen stirrup]

I'm not sure, it's likely something to do with it being GPU side and not accessible but that's a wild guess

[pallid pike]

Ah I see!

[brazen stirrup]

are you able to manually define the bounds or does it need to be variable?

again, a hacky fix, but if it works

[pallid pike]

well, I have the vfx graph automatically determine the bounds. so it shrinks and grows depending on the life-time of the particles etc. which I want to keep.

so not sure how I could make a hack for that.. any suggestions please shoot!

I just want to draw the bounds in-game.

not sure if theres a way to enable bound drawing for builds

[brazen stirrup]

nothing major pops to mind, is there any particular reason you need the bounds to adjust with the system and can't have them be stationary?

[pallid pike]

it just looks cool 😄

the way it shrinks and grows.. going super debug aesthetic on this one

[brazen stirrup]

are you talking about a bounding box or the orange outline around the particle planes?

[pallid pike]

bounding box, not selection outline

I actually never checked the game object bounds which the vfx component is on.. might be info there!

[brazen stirrup]

I would just have a gameobject with a wireframe shader and animate it to emulate that feel

shouldn't be too difficult I don't think

[pallid pike]

Figured it out! I can just get the bounds from the VFXRenderer class

an hour of my life wasted : D

[brazen stirrup]

at least it works!

[pallid pike]

it was the only class i didnt look at.... AHHHHHH!

[peak totem]

Anyone got a good example of rain using the default particles system? Not vfx graph

(I suck at the vfx graph)

[ashen robin]

Gabriel on youtube had some tutorials with the particle system

[peak totem]

Gotcha

[ashen robin]

main takeaway from a lot of these systems is collision is hard

especially with a large amount of particles

[peak totem]

Know any good resources for the vfx graph? I need to improve in it lol makes no sense to me

All the videos I find are more of a tutorial than a heres how these work

[ashen robin]

I'd just follow a bunch of Gabriel's stuff as it's pretty cool looking and introduces you functionality

Beyond that you've got a limited amount of documentation unfortunately.

[peak totem]

Yeah I've noticed

[ashen robin]

But knowing how compute shader works, how CPU to GPU buffers work, and knowing general shader knowledge would give you a better idea.

[peak totem]

Thanks

[ashen robin]

https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.visualeffectgraph@7.3/manual/GraphLogicAndPhilosophy.html
https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.visualeffectgraph@7.3/manual/Contexts.html
Can get some general information from the docs

https://catlikecoding.com/unity/tutorials/basics/compute-shaders/

[zealous wing]

Any idea what kind of trickery is happening here? I am using VFX graph to spawn these swords. I have rotated the object with VFX component by 90' and the outline, when selecting this object, is no longer aligning with actual effect and changes depending on camera view. I have never had a problem when rotating VFX object

[zealous wing]

apparently, the shader is causing that

[hollow obsidian]

Anyone know a good technique to deal with submeshes independently (i.e., per particle) in a VFX Graph? Or do I just need to write a compute shader or some kind of custom extension?

You would think that it'd be a plug n' play sort of affair in this sort of tool to add a mesh split into submeshes and use the parts as individual particles, but it's not ...

[ashen robin]

depends what you're trying to make, but if you do want to manage numerous mesh data I would just make multiple systems in a single graph for each submesh

[hollow obsidian]

Simplified destruction/shattering vfx is one use case I have in mind. Say I shatter a rock mesh into 32 pieces, and make each a submesh of the mesh asset ... 🪨

So, then, in my graph, I would wanna spawn a count equal to submesh count, and each particle would be moving/manipulating the submesh of the same index.

I have some VAT (Vertex Animation Textures) shaders like the SideFx/Houdini VAT tools and shaders which are incredible, but those are "heavier" and much more sophisticated shaders that I don't always wanna use just to move mesh parts around for fun stuff ...

[ashen robin]

https://blog.unity.com/engine-platform/realistic-smoke-with-6-way-lighting-in-vfx-graph
There's this sample they've shown where they do explode a statue into bits, but this was more to show off the smoke and lighting. Maybe the project is in one of their repositories to get an idea how it was done.

Though, could be a possibility not everything was using the vfx graph here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ib6xIBdbanM

oh also https://unity.com/resources/definitive-guide-to-creating-visual-effects
@peak totem you may be interested in too

[peak totem]

Oooh thanks

[hollow obsidian]

I'm familiar with that example but didn't think about that. I was actually just using VFX Graph Toolbox and Houdini to render 6-way fire and smoke 🚬 😁

https://youtube.com/shorts/NLn-_sD1M4U?si=GQu6KVrNnqSydTJ3

Haha, I will have to see if that article/demo is just using VAT techniques like I normally use or if it has some trick to treat submeshes as particle representations

I'm using VATs to drive those fluid simulations for the spewing magma

Shader needed a little modification to be able to use in VFX Graph and stay synchronized though 😉

[eternal herald]

guys am i able to do something like a skin mesh render to a particle system

[hollow obsidian]

You will have to clarify what you mean by that. You can definitely reference/use a skinned mesh in a VFX Graph like to spawn particles on it during animations and stuff ...

[eternal herald]

am i able to keep particles on a hand with a particle system??

[tired summit]

I see a bunch of different particles above the fire, are these all different VFX graphs ?! (like one for the big spews, one for the middle size fires, one for the floating particles...)

[peak totem]

What program would you guys suggest for making images for particles / vfx, preferably free.

Please don't say photopea 😭

Might just eventually end up buying photoshop with a student plan

[sullen canopy]

Hey 👋🏽
i have these particles that are using the built in particle system,
and i can't figure why it gets culled/invisible within ~ 10 seconds.
It stays in the hierarchy alive.

Something wrong how i handle the particle or may the built in particle sys bugged in hdrp? There is no script attached or sth.

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/886316442256027668/1236461326797246534/image.png?ex=663817d8&is=6636c658&hm=2906f2b972cec77b342e6e2c379224b0f1df129f35a24f745076da1b64115cd3&
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/886316442256027668/1236461327023607808/image.png?ex=663817d8&is=6636c658&hm=04966131387441415d29a7b2126378686f46bb27e5485f7e47d7ab48dc3cdc6c&

[peak totem]

What's emission look like

That is quite odd

[peak totem]

even more confusing

[sullen canopy]

right? it's not like i have much xp with particles, but i thought it's all about duration and lifetime.
Color over lifetime was enabled, deactivated that one tho.

[peak totem]

Perhaps lower lifetime to something like 60? I heard issues can be caused if the lifetime is way higher than the duration

[sullen canopy]

it was originally 8, tested with 60 and now 1000. But the behaviours stays the same 😔

[peak totem]

Oof

[sullen canopy]

Do you use hdrp?

[peak totem]

URP

[sullen canopy]

i'm worried it may be that, i may ask in the hdrp channel?

[peak totem]

Perhaps try to get the same setup in urp and see if the outcome is different?

Yeah you could try the hdrp channel, maybe they know

[sullen canopy]

good idea, cheers

[tired summit]

What kind of images do you need ?

[peak totem]

Just like generic stuff, dust particles, sparks, glowing thingys

[tired summit]

I've used Kenney's texture set for VFX for a few years, it's free and has most of what you'll need, even for more advanced effects

https://kenney.nl/assets/particle-pack and many more on his (her ?) website

The buttons icons from Celeste are from a texture pack by Kenney, free as well

[sullen canopy]

Photoshop would be best, otherwise it's Gimp. The handling/interface is garbage for any non linux nerd.
Paint.net is good for small edits but can't handle alpha channels etc.

[peak totem]

Ah forgot about gimp

[peak totem]

Thanks love

[proven hare]

hi guys, is vfx usually in hdrp or urp?

[tropic lichen]

both

[proven hare]

im trying to follow a tutorial but im not sure where they got those assets from

[fading flare]

so i just followed a tutorial to make VFX but i have problem with decal/trail effect that i just followed, mine was not showing anyone know the problem ? i exactly follow of his instruction and tutorial same setting too

[ashen robin]

gonna need more information here and some more of the graph

[cosmic plover]

hello all, sorry for the noob question... Im very new to unity. Just trying to make a particle system and every time I deselect my system the particles all disappear? I just want them constantly displaying without me having to select them basically

[livid heath]

Any idea how I go about finding out the source for this?

Some artist has made some vfx graph somewhere that does something wrong, and Unity tells me nothing about what graph, what gameobject it's assigned to, or anything else.

Is there anything better than "check all relevant graphs by hand"?

[burnt coral]

I think these are Particle System component / Shuriken warnings not VFX graph. Does double clicking them maybe highlight the component?

[livid heath]

Nope! That's the problem

Those being ParticleSystems rather than VFX graph is super useful info, tho, thanks!

[onyx lake]

When you have the particle system selected you can press the little lock icon in the top right of the inspector window (where you see all the details). If you still want to use the inspector on other files you can press the three little dots right next to the lock icon and add another tab > inspector then drag the new inspector window somewhere else.

[onyx lake]

Another trick that I use all the time: if you have an object that has particle systems as a child, but doesn't have a particle system itself the scene window will also not display the particles if you have the parent object selected. Just add a particle system to the parent object as well and deactivate the render module or set the render mode to <none>.
Now all particle systems beneath the parent object will render. This is more of a hack, but very useful in my opinion. Just remember to delete the particle system once you actually turn the object into a prefab or whatever you want to do.

[onyx lake]

It's indeed a shuriken warning. You should be able to click on the warning while you are in game mode. It will highlight the culprit. The warning is about the stop action I've highlighted in the inspector in the second image. Like the warning says, you may not use this option for sub-emitters.

[stark crest]

change the culling mode I guess

[livid heath]

Right. They're not pinging for me, so I assume it's from some short-lived particle system with Destroy stop action on the main emitter, or which is getting destroyed by script. Thanks!

[sullen canopy]

sadly no, i tried all modes, pause, catch up, auto and always simulate

[prime dome]

Anyone know why my particles emit in "waves" or pulses

as in, they start, stop for a bit, then start again

im trying to use a rain particle system but the drops will fall for a few seconds then resume then stop etc.

[stark crest]

If you select the particle system and don't see any outline, that's because the particle is not emitting, s you may try to play with rate over time first to see if it's not a lifetime/cycle issue

[prime dome]

when I lower the rate over time it seems to give a steady flow, does that mean it is an issue of lifetime / cycle?

[stark crest]

was answering to @sullen canopy ^^

[prime dome]

oh :$

[stark crest]

for you Marwan, have you got a max particle count that allow constant spawn?

you may have a limited amount of particle too low

[prime dome]

Ah I think that was the issue indeed

just needed to know where to look, thank you very much :)

[gusty meadow]

Take a look at this

Why are some particles

From when he punches the ground

NOT spawning above the ceiling

They should all spawn there and then fall

But you can see some spawn

Lower than theyre supposed to be

And when i replay the particle when i place it where i want it to be in the scene inspector i never get that problem

So idk if its with the particle editor or code

[warm torrent]

When you see a particle spawning in the wrong spot, you can quickly pause the Play mode with the pause button or ctrl + shift + P, then select that particular particle to reveal where its Particle System origin is located

This may give you a clue about where it's being instantiated

And very likely indicate that whatever code is instantiating it is doing so in the wrong position

[gusty meadow]

i can send the code

idk its weird

i even made a gameobject above the map

[gusty meadow]

theres no parts of particle in scene viewer and for some reason all of them are in place

in scene

[warm torrent]

I can't quite picture what you're saying here

[gusty meadow]

sorry

in scene viewer screen

not in the game window

u cant see the particle bits

[warm torrent]

If you have Game and Scene windows side by side, and the Play mode is paused, they definitely should appear in the same place

[gusty meadow]

and click them

here ill screenshot

[warm torrent]

If you can't see particles at all in Scene view, I'd select the Particle System from the hierarchy and double click it (or hit F when mouse-overing the Scene window) to focus Scene view to them

[gusty meadow]

i can only find the particle itself

uk what i mean

like the object

and it says its on the right spot

but then why are some particle bits spawning there

[sullen canopy]

Thanks for the answer, @onyx lake took a quick look and figured that it was the high start speed value 👍🏽

[gray ravine]

what's the difference between the two? There seems to be no documentation. In VFX graph.

also why does (1, 0, 0) * 12 = (1, 0, 0)? I wnat to let the force be set in the inspector, but the gizmo for it seems to be in screen space and you can't increase the length of the vector.

[ashen robin]

https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.mathematics@1.2/api/Unity.Mathematics.math.normalizesafe.html
probably goes off that

Vector to return if normalized vector is not finite

[gray ravine]

im sorry but I still dont understand. What is a "safe normalized version of the float2 vector x"

[gray ravine]

oh so you think it's just some vector?

[ashen robin]

a directional vector of 0 can really break things usually so a lot of methods will return some default value otherwise

[gray ravine]

yea makes sense

[ashen robin]

quaternion lookrotation is a good example

[gray ravine]

i have ptsd from being a complete novice expecting to understand quaternions

@ashen robin since you seem knowledgeable do you know of any documentation about what the colors of the connections mean? I was trying to find for VFX, shader graph, visual scripting, etc., can't seem to find any. I know light blue is a float, purple is a predicate, yellow is a vector3, and yellow-orange is a direction (apparently different things in VFX), but beyond that no idea.

[ashen robin]

ah, I usually just drag out the connection field onto the blackboard and see what nodes pops up

[gray ravine]

ah well same when using shader graph, but it seems for VFX, at least for the version I'm using, that will allow you to choose nodes that can't connect (while doing that to find out it was outputting errors about invalid connections and instantly breaking the connection)

[ashen robin]

that's interesting. I may have ran into that before... I think with what nodes can connect with some of the curve nodes

[gray ravine]

must just be bugged, oh well

[ashen robin]

usually the documentation will have the output in question, but unlike the shader graph you usually need to go google it

shader graph probably one of my favorite modules unity has just because of that

^ being able to right click on the node to hotlink you to the actual node page in docs

[gray ravine]

yea fr

[edgy acorn]

g'day. What's the difference between "set" and "add" in short? For example "set" or "add" angle

[ashen robin]

set once or override (do it in initialize context or in output usually), or add onto the current system value (in update or if you're inheriting values in initialize)

[edgy acorn]

gotcha, ty

[restive birch]

how can i make an orb have x particles revolving around it, each having different rotational axes
for convenience let x be 6

without making x different ribbons.

[ashen robin]

public static Vector3 RotatePointAroundPivot(Vector3 point, Vector3 pivot, Vector3 axis, float angle)
{
    Quaternion rotation = Quaternion.AngleAxis(angle, axis);
    return rotation * (point - pivot) + pivot;
}

This my goto formula for rotate around without using the transform methods

[restive birch]

wait we can script for vfx graph?

[ashen robin]

well, I don't think there's a rotate around specific node (maybe there is), but otherwise you're probably looking at doing a cross product using a pivot point

[ashen robin]

technically you can if you drive the particles using the cpu (using buffers)

[restive birch]

wait wait, i shouldve have clarified
so basically

i want to make each particle from the same particle system have different rotation around the pivot

didnt know u can make scripts for vfx, but im guessin this just rotates every single particle from the particle system in the same direction/axes

[restive birch]

isnt this( ⬆️ ) the same as this(⬇️) ?

[ashen robin]

oh, rotate 3D I forget about that one, yeah that can work

[restive birch]

doesnt solve my problem tho 😓
all the particles have same axes. i need them to do this( ⬇️ ) without creating multiple ribbons

[ashen robin]

you're setting these secondary particles at different positions, right

[restive birch]

yea

well they're position is set by sequential circle

[ashen robin]

ah, ok it may not use the up position relative to where it's at and the direction to the pivot

which is what cross product is useful for

[restive birch]

cross between which vectors?

im so lost, can u explain pls

[ashen robin]

basically where ever this secondary particle is at, you now want to rotate it on an axis derived from the up axis of the particle in the direction of the pivot

[restive birch]

well not specifically on a y-axis
any random axis.

we are deviatin from the problem

i can calculate those random axes,

the problem is, i cant get those particles to rotate individually without rotating about the same axis

lemme send a vid. im kinda bad at explainin my doubts

https://gyazo.com/21bbabc2748fc6178a4339825945bdce?token=b9d016e058c0cec69d2f86158eaf8fd5

all the particles rotate about the same axes. i want them to rotate differently

"just make different particle systems for each particle"
no, its too much

[ashen robin]

haha

[restive birch]

im lazy ;-;

[ashen robin]

Let me see the full graph to see how you're spawning them

[ashen robin]

thumbnail

[restive birch]

wdym thumbnail?

[ashen robin]

508x611 px

[restive birch]

so is there an event that fires after each particle spawns?

if so by script i can alter the particles rotation

[restive birch]

oh ok mb

how do i convert it ;-;

im just snippin it

[ashen robin]

I just need to know what method you're spawning all these orbs

[restive birch]

single burst -> setting position by sequential circle

[ashen robin]

if it's like arc circle then you may need to split it up

[restive birch]

so is there?

[restive birch]

tried arc circle, then settled on sequential

for no reason

[ashen robin]

I would honestly just do multiple systems

I can think of ways if you wanna math it out

[restive birch]

dammit, guess gotta compromise

[restive birch]

ill do it myself

thanks tho!

[ashen robin]

problem with one system and the circle here is it's acting on the whole circle as a single particle of values for the rotate 3D so everything will work in unison unless you specify each particle value somehow

so my idea is to split each of these individual particles as a secondary system

and the main particle as the pivot

[restive birch]

yea

[restive birch]

okie

[slate lily]

Why can't I use the XYZ of nodes anymore? Any ideas?

I can drop down inputs, but not outputs

[ashen robin]

Are you asking why you can't input values into the greyed out fields anymore?

the nodes that are being connected into A and B would be the values that are combined, and the output is the result of that operation

Oh, you mean you want the output to be xyz like a split node

https://i.imgur.com/iSFjuHm.png

seems fine for me

https://i.imgur.com/4etm3fN.png
Casting seems to work too for vector4, so maybe the types you're adding is the problem

[slate lily]

No outputs currently are split. I am so confused

I am on Unity 2022.3.27 if that helps

[ashen robin]

Try just extending it into another vector3 node and split it from that

[nimble axle]

anyone know how i could create a fist barrage? I was thinking of a particle effect with a fist object that would go forward with a skin colored trail or something, but idk

[slate lily]

Same thing, only a v3 output🤔

I'll make a new graph tomorrow to see if it also is there

[edgy acorn]

Sup. In particle system (not VFX graph), if i use Render Mode - Mesh and Collision ticked on, can i somehow apply collision based rotation? Kind of dynamic meshes with some sort of force emitter.

[ebon moth]

do subgraphs not work with gpu events?

[restive birch]

@ashen robin

did it, with only one particle system
as ive said i needed a way to change the properties of each particle

the "Set Random" attribute came in clutch!
https://gyazo.com/29ff0f7efde250b1503f754dc6f1505a

either map the Set random block to rotation3d axes or to the normal of seq circle

[ashen robin]

I was going to suggest that but I was thinking you'd probably want more defined positions... which you can if you keep track of the IDs and then map them to positional values

[restive birch]

shouldve suggested it either way ¯_(ツ)_/¯

yea i could integrate get particleid for more defined positions

ty

[ashen robin]

only problem with that is then you're probably using a switch inside of a compute buffer when you could just make some gpu event

and another system

[restive birch]

oooo?

[ashen robin]

graphic buffers would allow you to read into an array of values though

right and then you can just structure the ID with a vector3 value and do that

[restive birch]

oooo
this feels like some advanced sht, i touched vfx graph day before yesterday xD

so what does the buffer do?

[ashen robin]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/448923113921576992/1237768411438780416/Unity_OMZkJmiJhn.gif?

they're useful for when you want to use structs inside of the graph

where you can map IDs to values so you have full control over each particle

they're worth learning eventually because it does feel limiting without them haha

[restive birch]

damn so literally
takes in vars and returns what needs to be returned?

so like rn its outputting v4?

[ashen robin]

struct VFXBufferData
{
    public int ID;
    public Vector3 Position;
    public Vector3 Rotation;
    public Vector3 Direction;
    public float Size;
    public float LifeTime;
    public float ReturnTime;
    public float ParticleMultiplier;
    public int Alive;
}

one type of struct I use

so for that particle of ID #, I can specifically send in values to set for that exact particle

[restive birch]

daaaaamn

ok ok ok

[ashen robin]

so yeah, that's probably the more prefered way if you want to stick to less amount of systems

[restive birch]

definitely overuse this

tyy

[ashen robin]

https://qriva.github.io/posts/how-to-vfx-graph/
Some other useful information too

specifically stuff like the custom events which is an alternative to buffers but it's a bit more limiting

[restive birch]

gonna check it out

[ashen robin]

both methods are great if you want like a single visual effect system asset in the scene vs multiple system assets (different pooling methods)

[wind zodiac]

Hi! I’m currently using Unity for the first time for a university project and I’ve ran into an issue that I would like some help or advice fixing. I followed this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBP9k6W48vM&list=PLjLqixML5B8MlwxMsTRVhjlxkMIdAuYgg VFX graph tutorial which I found really helpful however coming to the end Ive realised mine looks slightly different to their finished product. In the tutorial finished product you can see the particles are moving around in various directions however with mine theyr’e all going in a straight line, like the particles are all attracted to one point. Which isn’t my intention. Would this be an issue with the mesh or an issue with the VFX graph. I’ll paste some images of the graph and the game scene. Thank you 🙂

[olive orbit]

having trouble with my particles. I'm on URP and when I move the base of my particles, the already emitted particles follow it and don't stay flowing in the same direction they were emitted to. I don't know the name of what is happening, but If anyone can help, it would be grately appreciated :)

[ashen robin]

I suspect it has to do with the values of your conform to SDF as they are different from the video, but make sure that without that node that the particles are spawning correctly

[gray ravine]

anyone know why my VFX graph isn't prewarming at all? No matter what values I set in here (and i've tried a lot of combinations) it always starts out as new when the scene plays

[tired summit]

deltaTime of 4 sounds like a very, veeeeery laggy gamd x)

I want to add object pooling for all VFX graphs. Which means, I Get() an instance from the pool, and then I return it once the animation finished. How do I know when to return it the pool ?

Alternatively, if there a good solution somewhere of pooling that handles VFX graps ?

[stark crest]

add turbulence in the update block in the end

[ashen robin]

https://qriva.github.io/posts/how-to-vfx-graph/
Check out the custom events. It's one way to pool by using a single graph per all similar type particles. This way you can keep track of each particle using the reference you spawned it with, and can end a particle by using stop events in your graph.

Another idea is to pool gameobjects with independent vfx systems, and do it the general gameobject pooling way. There's features to help for that like shared pooling which is an option inside of the graphs.

My preferred way is to use graphic buffers with a combination of custom events because custom events alone have some restrictions. For one, stopping an event only stops the generation of particles, but it won't stop any current particles from playing, but using buffers you can flip an IsAlive bool of that particle in the system to stop the event immediately.

Pooling VFX systems probably easier though with less setup, so I'd try that idea first.

[tired summit]

What is shared pooling ?

Or where is that option, rather

[tired summit]

That's how I've been doing it so far with particle systems. I would get their lifetime with ps.main.startLifetime.constantMax in order to know when to return it to the pool. But I can't do that with VFX graphs =x

[ashen robin]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTLA1tEvTKA

around 14 minute mark, it's called GPU instancing and you can see it in the newer versions when you click on the asset itself in the editor

[tired summit]

Thanks !

[ashen robin]

The problem with multiple systems is more drawcalls, but instancing is intended to get around that problem

[tired summit]

TBF my main issue no not having multiple systems, but when to return them to the pool

Like vfx.AllParticlesDead += (vfx) => pool.ReturnToPool(vfx)

[ashen robin]

If you were to go with the multiple system approach, you can stop particles by simply de-activating the gameobject then enqueing the system like a normal pooling system.

[tired summit]

That would instakill all the particles

[ashen robin]

Ah, ok so you want some to linger eh

[tired summit]

vfx.Stop();
vfx.AllParticlesDead += (vfx) => pool.ReturnToPool(vfx);

Something like that

[ashen robin]

in shuriken usually you detach a child system to linger

but there isn't a perfect solution to figuring out if all particles are dead in vfx graph

some ideas you can consider is have a lingertime variable, such that any secondary particles will only exist up to that maximum, this way when you return the system you will know that at this mark in time that all particles should be dead.

if you want to go the custom event approach, when you do stop event via: vfx.SendEvent("OnStop", eventAttribute);

You should account for particles to linger until this mark

pooling via systems, you can run a coroutine to wait until this time is up

https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/VFX.VisualEffect-aliveParticleCount.html
You do have this method too, but it's not totally accurate

and it would only work with independent systems

I think the best solutions is to just let the particles run its course by stopping any new particles, then clean up the object some time later on, even if it's not actively generating new particles.

You don't necessarily need to return them to a queue asap

[tired summit]

It's kinda what i'm doing, I set the linger time to 3 seconds for all VFX graphs

I thought about WaitUntil(aliveParticleCount == 0), but I guess it will cost more that it gains

[fiery surge]

https://ultrakill.wiki.gg/images/4/4a/MP_overhead.gif

I would love to replicate something like this with a particle system
i made from scratch a skull model which i've set as 3d mesh for a particle system
but i have no idea how to do the trail
i tried with particle trails and ribbons but not ideal for what i want
sub particle system emitted with 3d mesh?

i'm doing this for vrchat so some custom shaders and vfx graph is not supported
but since i'm not getting any answer in their discord i'll ask here

[ashen robin]

looks like a particle trail to me

[fiery surge]

yeah but particle trail doesn't allow 3d models right?

i was also thinking to maybe use shader animation instead

[ashen robin]

Ah, right the trail stuff is just billboarding quads but usually that gives the illusion of depth

no clue of the limitation of vrchat, but if you can do meshgen then making some mesh that's easy to build onto (something like a cylinder perhaps) and just rebuilding it for every segment made

you could just consider using the particle trail and attach it to the 3D mesh as you drag it around, no?

[fiery surge]

i'm back, sure i can do that but like how can i make it look 3d?

actually lemme try an idea

[fiery surge]

Maybe it's a stupid idea cause it's my first time messing with particle systems BUT
one particle system has the skull, the other has a segment that i could extend to make the tail

[ashen robin]

I'm pretty sure it's just a 3D model and a trail after looking at it again

and probably the easiest solution to this problem without a lot of vertex dabbling

[fiery surge]

i see

well gotta find a way to make the trail look good then

[granite otter]

why do my vfx spawn less particles when fps is lower

[granite otter]

ah, problem fixed after I turned off instancing. But why is it?

[jaunty tree]

how do you debug your vfx graphs?

I often just get a random message that some computebuffer is not defined anymore, which I am using to upload data

by now I know that this means the graph does not compile and it normally has nothing to do with the buffer

often I just rebuilt the same graph and somehow it works then (dunno if unities fault or I am doing something different)

but I'd like to be able to do this a bit better

[acoustic dove]

Question about changing texture outputs on the fly in VFX Graph: I want to switch the texture used in the render output, but without it changing the texture of any particles still alive. Is there away I can track particle id's to filter what gets the new texture?

[ashen robin]

if you have project errors then the graphs wont recompile with the new buffer changes if you're editing them

[ashen robin]

Do you mean that you want to start a new particle with a whole new texture without affect current particles?

[acoustic dove]

yeah, an example would be, while the player runs over grass, grass leaves are kicked up, while they run over dirt, dust is kicked up, and so on.
But as they change surface, I want to switch what texture is used for the next particle, not change system or output.

[ashen robin]

Ah, easy way would just have a system for each type of surface, but if you do have a bunch of surfaces then perhaps doing it with a single system could work

https://qriva.github.io/posts/how-to-vfx-graph/
Has some ways to start different particles with different attributes without affecting previous particles using a single system.

Though, it depends on the data type that you're trying to change.

https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/VFX.VisualEffect.html
Any data type with 'Set' is what you can use with these events

https://forum.unity.com/threads/how-do-you-use-vfxeventattribute.1413285/
And a post about using them if you run into problems

[acoustic dove]

Thanks for taking time to help! I'll look through this stuff 👍

[fiery surge]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1088238461808541757/1238492682125312090/Unity_K8iqTy5iGe.gif?ex=663f7bb1&is=663e2a31&hm=4b803e736b230e5d2c4283a67b015c20fed16c675a8e31f36e73daa77efb9416&

Thoughts?

[acoustic dove]

Try adding some alpha controls to fade particle in and out so they don't pop like so. If you don't want them to fade out, you could have them flash a color or pop in size to add some animation to the sequence

[fiery surge]

Oooh imma try that

[fiery surge]

Used the particle shader instead of the custom one so now the particles have fading

i've been struggling to make the skull more interesting ngl, the previous version used a spread of particles
but ngl i've been having issues with sub emitters

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1088238461808541757/1238502760719188048/Unity_58DBOLUBSC.gif?ex=663f8514&is=663e3394&hm=0b3d6d51900c137add7ca16ca6d0d9c8d25155b53fb79f368b8e56fd708b7bef&

This looks great on it's own, but the moment i place it as a sub emitter it doesn't look the same anymore

tried tweaking it but i don't understand why the parameters gets changed once you put it under another particle system

[warm torrent]

No idea what these are supposed to be or what you want them to look like

Visual design should start with intent, something you want to depict or convey

[fiery surge]

I was thinking about having a burst of particles, fire like coming from behind the skull

[fiery surge]

I'm a 3d artist, never messed with particle systems

i'm struggling to find good examples online to look at and be inspired by

[warm torrent]

If it's fire you want, look for guides and examples of fire particle systems
Or perhaps magical fire more specifically in your case

[fiery surge]

gotcha

[warm torrent]

Particles and 3D are both in the same realm of visual design, though the tools are different

[fiery surge]

yeh, i'm finding myself pretty lost with the controls, but it takes time i guess

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1088238461808541757/1234651740146634773/Screenshot_7622.png?ex=663f5a49&is=663e08c9&hm=9f89eac29315bc00fc4ad8063a538d900d501700233602d4a6ab349e45a952bd&

the concept is that of a "music" gun, it shoots at rythm of music

i guess the closest thing i can look are dubstep guns but that's pretty old school

[fast olive]

hi! i would appreciate if someone had a second to help me understand how this sort of emitter works. what kind of mesh and texture it's using, or in general how it behaves. the effect im trying to break down are these black spiky lines. they're in an orb sort of shape in the first effect and a ring in the second. any help would be greatly appreciated!

[ashen robin]

cutout shader

basically a texture that wraps the sphere, but the alpha values get clipped

aka alpha clipping

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/448923113921576992/1238582311960711248/obAsltJ4iS.webm

[granite otter]

is there a way to get initial position of a particle in vfx graph, I can't seem to find it, i can only get current position not initial. Or is there a way to lock a float or sth similar?

[ashen robin]

you can do something like targetposition node at the very start of your graph, and then get position attribute node and connect it to that

now target position has your start position cache'd

[granite otter]

thanks that works

[eternal herald]

Who knows how to turn multiple images into a sprite sheet

[warm torrent]

Do you mean to be used as a flipbook, or as sprites? Two kinda different things

[eternal herald]

Nah nvm I figured it out I used something called glue it

[warm torrent]

Sprites in unity don't need to be compiled into a sprite sheet since they use internal references
Particle System's texture sheet animation can use sprite references as well as flipbook textures
If you specifically need a flipbook image sequence, I recommend Unity's own Image Sequencer that can be found here: https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/VFXToolbox

It can do more than just flipbooks, and the sequence is handled as an asset so it can be quickly regenerated if any of the individual images have changed

[eternal herald]

oh ty

[ashen robin]

How does shuriken pool secondary emissions? Trying to do like particle trails eats my fps like crazy

I could only assume it's creating a bunch of garbage by destroying

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/448923113921576992/1238771088092299294/dRFpMaMsDL.webm

[ashen robin]

Also, how do I go about changing currently emitted particle size by code? I don't care for independent particles as I want to scale the whole system.

man, this module is arse

[granite otter]

is every flame bolt a particle or each ball is a particle

your trajectory looks kind of like what im doing but just in reverse, mine is going inward

[ashen robin]

yeah the trails are generating a bunch of quads

but they are secondary emissions from the main particle system

so I assume it would pool it all for me. Maybe it is and it's just taxing on the cpu

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/448923113921576992/1201386658810052740/kZNCHTjZH51.webm
meanwhile VFXGraph pumping out 10000+ quads a frame

[warm torrent]

I'd assume it's a simulation cost because you have a lot of individual particles there

In my experience you can destroy dozens or even hundreds of gameobjects before the GC hitch becomes noticeable, and it won't be every frame, so it's unlikely to be related to pooling

[ashen robin]

yeah probably simulation then yet none of them have colliders but still I would feel like this should be more optimized internally but guess not. Maybe there's some settings I'm missing

[warm torrent]

Did you confirm the lag does not occur without the sub emitters enabled?

Or if you set the sub emitters' max particle count to 1

Might yield clues

[ashen robin]

I've got max particles at 50, lifetime 2 seconds, with emission rate of 35

I see there is loop buffer and stuff ive been toying with so maybe there is some other recycling options im missing here

[warm torrent]

I think that only affects how lifetime is used, not performance

I don't really know of any recycling options or other performance related settings

But I recommend trying to confirm if the performance problem is actually related to sub emitters, and more specifically if it's related to their particle counts

[ashen robin]

I think a large problem too is that I'm generating mesh spheres, but even with 200k verts I shouldnt be dropping so many frames

[warm torrent]

For the particles or unrelatedly?

In either case you'll want to test the impact of one system and feature at a time

[obsidian salmon]

does anyone know how i can make stuff like this

[ashen robin]

get a paint program and some nice brushes

[obsidian salmon]

is there any you recommend

[ashen robin]

krita seems to be popular but otherwise photoshop /shrug

krita has some nice utility for seamless trails and texturing

[obsidian salmon]

thanks

[warm torrent]

Gimp has the necessary technical features for creating and exporting the kind of precise image data often required in vfx

As does PS, but Gimp is free (and kinda unwieldy)

Options like linear color space and saving color for transparent pixels have no right to be missing from a lot of image editing programs, yet they do

[obsidian salmon]

ty, i'll try both

[eternal herald]

for some reason my image wont rotate this is the graph can anyone tell me what ive done wrong

[delicate oxide]

I have sprite shape particle system and want some percent of particles spawn in fron of actual sprite and some behind.
So basically I need "random between to constants" for the start position, but I can't find this option

[warm torrent]

Do you have an example of "some in front and some behind"? Hard time visualizing if this is in 2D or 3D

And with some kind of perspective or not

The pos, rot and scale are for where the shape is

[delicate oxide]

Yea, it's 2d.
I can set position for whole shape "behind" my base layer. And I want to some of the particles be in front

So I want to like 20% of particles to be in front of a sprite

[warm torrent]

In 2D sorting each particle system is sorted as one object together with all the particles, so afaik that's not possible

You can confirm that with a random speed between positive and negative in depth axis

But I expect you'll need another particle system for the front particles

In which situation I recommend making a prefab of the original particle system, and a prefab variant of the front one
That way it can inherit all the modules, but override its emission rate to the 20% of the original you require

[delicate oxide]

Hmm, actually the velocity by lifetime moves particles in 3d. I think I can try to set this values to achieve what I want

Well, seems like it's not working nicely and it's hard to control. MAybe I should try this aproach with a second particle system

[warm torrent]

Use this to confirm if the particles can appear both in front and behind of the character

Two systems is cleaner though, when you know for a fact you need only two different depth positions

[delicate oxide]

Also, how can I set sprite and texture for a shape dynamicly.
When trying particleSystem.shape.texture = targetSprite is says "Property 'shape' access returns temporary value". Is there some kind of specific setter for this?

[burnt coral]

Try storing the module in a variable first

var shape = particleSystem.shape;
shape.texture = targetSprite;

Is explained a bit on this page - https://docs.unity3d.com/ScriptReference/ParticleSystem.html

[delicate oxide]

Thanks

[manic nimbus]

how do i make particles fly a different dierction

[manic nimbus]

how do i make particles go in a different direction. for context i have a flamethrower and i want the particles to fly toeards the hit point. i have a raycast and i want the particles to "follow" the path of the raycast but right now the particles just go up and i dont know how to change the rotation

[ashen robin]

particle system or vfx graph

[eternal herald]

can anyone help me with this

[ashen robin]

you want to 'Add' the angle, not set it. And, if that doesnt work, then you may need to throw it in Update context.

[eternal herald]

oh okay thank you

[modest silo]

Anyone good at the Unity Shuriken Particle system?
i am looking for a solution concerning Particle lifetime and the trail module.

I have a particle system set up to spawn 3 particles that rotate around in a circle. the particles have Infinity lifetime.
i want to add trails to those particles.
The sad thing is that the trail lifetime is multiplied by particle lifetime, which means that the trails extend infinitely. is there a way around this? i have not been able to find anything to make the trail lifetime not be infinite except set the particle lifetime itself to non-infinite.

[warm torrent]

I'd try the ring buffer mode with "pause" or "loop" settings

It makes the particle lifetime infinite without relying on or changing the lifetime property

[modest silo]

oooh

thank you

[manic nimbus]

Particle system

[ashen robin]

Well, the particle system itself has many different properties affecting rotation, direction, and velocity so try fooling around with those. I personally like to make my own particle controller that the particle systems live on and instead move that scene object with the particle system attached.

[junior thistle]

What is the best solution for lit particles? Specifically, I want underwater silt (i.e. dust) particles to react to the flashlight. As far as I can tell, I can't do it in HDRP for shuriken with anything I have available.

Maybe some screen space effect or what should I do?

[warm torrent]

Why can't you do it in shuriken?

If you mean HDRP not having particle shaders, they simply must be imported from the package manager in the Samples tab

But you can do that kind of thing in VFX Graph just the same

[vernal glade]

when creating a waterfall using oarticle system i add a material to it but the trail makes the material super streched any ideas?

[delicate oxide]

I asked this question before, but after implementing proposed solution I started to have some doubts.
So I have sprite shape particle system in 2d game and want some percent of particles spawn in different Z postilion (some behind of the sprite and some in the front), example in the screenshot (switched to 3d view).
I was proposed to create a second particle system, which is technically works, but it seems like there should be a better solution. It's not very convenient to control the system in the runtime because I should edit values for both of them.
Seems like there definitely should be a way to just spawn particles in two (or more) z positions without creating a new systems.

[junior thistle]

oh damn

thanks

I will check them out

[warm torrent]

There's different texture tiling modes for trails, not just Stretch, try them
Still, I expect it might be hard to make convincing water with particle trails though it'd look quite unique
Usually waterfalls are meshes with a scrolling texture, and particles for the water splashes and mist

[vernal glade]

I’m not going for a realistic look just cartoon

[warm torrent]

It'd be nice for sure, but the Particle System is one procedural mesh and it uses only one pivot point for 2D/Transparent depth sorting as do nearly all transparent renderers

You didn't mention doing changes at runtime before

If the secondary particle system is a child of the first one, they'll act as one for some purposes
They'll share at least Start and Stop methods

[delicate oxide]

I can to store both systems in array and apply changes for both if them every time, but it's not really convenient

I was looking to that SubEmitter option, do you think it can be helpful here?

[warm torrent]

As far as having to do extra code, calling methods on both is relatively simple, maybe even simpler with a foreach loop

[delicate oxide]

Yea, was thinking to do it this way

[warm torrent]

It has some options for inheriting, but they won't make the sub-emitter copy the primary emitter's state

It just applies the specific listed properties multiplicatively to the sub-emitter's properties

[delicate oxide]

Hm, ok, thanks

[tired summit]

Tricky issue I have, is "Time" in Shader graph the same as "Game Time" in VFX graph ? As in, exactly the same at all times ?

[delicate oxide]

Asked in another channel, but maybe someone here faced similar problem.
I have Particle System as a child object. I want particles to continue to exist after the parent destruction. I trying to unparent particle system in the OnDestroy, but the problem is particle system "resets", like starts playing from the start. I believe that's happening because parent object already marked as "ready for destroy" and this affects how particle system behaves.
I don't really want to create a whole different gameobject and make it follow every target all the time, manage this secondary objects destruction and all of that, seems like there should be a more optimal way do to this.
Also it kinda works with OnDisable which is also called before destruction (and I think before marking object for destroy), so particle system doesn't reset before unparenting. But I don't want to face problems when I will need to use exactly "disable" in the future.

Is there some way to prevent this "reset to start" thing, maybe some option in particle system itself that controls that?

[warm torrent]

What's the "Game Time" exactly
I can't find anything by that name

[tired summit]

"Total Time (Game)" is the exact name

Is it always the same as "Time" in Shader Graph ?

[warm torrent]

I only have "VFX" and "Per-Particle" Total Time
You could test and compare but at least in SG the Time variable I believe is calculated from frames and frame time and isn't known to be very accurate

If you want to be sure you can run your own global timer so you know everything using it is synced, and you can control it too

[sly mortar]

Hello!
I'm working on a horror game where you're in a space station and there's been an alien breach (think alien isolation), and I've got a clear vision for the monster desing, and an early protoype (attached video), but I don't know how to go from what I have now, to a more refined design... I've used unlit line renderers for the legs and an unlit sphere as the center, but in the final product I want the monster to be lit, since I want the surface to kinda look like goo. I have a reference design idea (very loosely since I know it's basically impossible to get similar results) that I will attach aswell. How would one go about achibing a similar enough design?

I though about a mesh with rig, but since the legs can move in all directions it seems difficult, so maybe I separate the leg meshes from the body, but then there would be a highly visible seam between the legs and body. Or could this maybe be fixed with some kind of raymarching/SDF. And how would one go about making it feel "gooey"? Maybe with some displacement? Some tips would be highly appreaciated!!

(sorry if this is the incorrect channel to ask about this, but I couldn't think of one more appropriate...)

[ashen robin]

Kinda reminds me of this:
https://youtu.be/Nu8CZciSZt4?si=V0KU6-jz_m5ruI5F&t=1142

https://forum.unity.com/threads/vfx-graph-siggraph-2021-video.1198156/
If you want to check their project out from the video

But probably more related to your question. If you want something gooey, I'd expect this be more related to a vertex shader, and probably something specular/reflective in the fragment

[abstract crow]

I'm trying to make an ondeath VFX for the enemies in my game but it seems to be having some issues. I'm in 2d so I made a flipbook effect but it is looping forever. I believe it because my sprite sheet has repeat mode on but when I use clamp, there are artifacts in the animation, not sure why. Also, I'm trying to use SendEvent to spawn an effect at a location but is also not working. Am I able to just have one gameobject with the VisualEffect component on it and allow every enemy to use it to spawn the effects at its location when it dies? Even multiple deaths at the same time? This is the code, it only spawns the effect at 0,0 var attritube = GameManager.Instance.DeathFX.CreateVFXEventAttribute(); attritube.SetVector3("Position", transform.position); GameManager.Instance.DeathFX.SendEvent("SpawnDeathEffect", attritube);

[ashen robin]

If you don't set a lifetime it'll loop forever. Also, you can probably directly route SendEvent into your initialize without the spawn event

[abstract crow]

is there a way to set the lifetime to the "length" of the texture

how long it takes the flipbook to complete

also, it doesnt seem like multiple effects are being played

when I kill a bunch of enemies, theres only one effect at 0,0

[ashen robin]

uh, you probably need to evaluate it by frame rate

or some time const. I don't really use the flipbook feature

[abstract crow]

okay got the ilifetime thing but other than that, have any idea how to fix the other issues?\

something is wrong with the code it seems

[ashen robin]

Well, first off if you're not using local coordinates change your systems to world

[abstract crow]

wdym, for the visual effect?

[ashen robin]

Is it spawning anywhere else besides 0,0

[abstract crow]

nope

its like its not being send the position

so its just spawning it on the empty gameobject with the VissualEffect on it

at 0,0

[ashen robin]

ignore the flip book for now, just get particles to spawn somewhere

[abstract crow]

yeah, how lol

[ashen robin]

just spawn a burst of quads at a location

or attempt to

[abstract crow]

i am

its not working

the flipbook stuff shouldnt be effecting the fact that when I try to spawn it with code, the position isnt being passed through

is that correct? "inherit source position"?

[ashen robin]

sec

change Position to position

[abstract crow]

in the code?

[ashen robin]

can't find the docs for the attributes but I suspect it may be an issue

[abstract crow]

when I look at the refercence docs, they have it capitalized

[ashen robin]

https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/com.unity.visualeffectgraph@10.2/manual/Reference-Attributes.html

[abstract crow]

nope, even tried Shader.PropertyToID

however, its not spawning at 0,0

its just not spawning at all

[ashen robin]

I would start a new graph, keep/add a decent lifetime, and only try changing the position via event

https://qriva.github.io/posts/how-to-vfx-graph/#how-to-send-event-with-attributes

[abstract crow]

is that not what I'm doing now?

in the docs it says use inherit to capture whatever is sent through the event

i believe

[ashen robin]

inherit source or get source works the same

but there isn't inherit inline node for custom attributes

[abstract crow]

does this look good?

disabled all the flipbook stuff

[ashen robin]

sure, maybe increase lifetime a bit

id set it to world too on everything

[abstract crow]

nope

[ashen robin]

and if you were to just give it a position instead

inside of the system itself

event spelled correctly, is an event of the right system, any small errors that may be

trying other standard attributes

[abstract crow]

setting the position inside doesnt work

it just doesnt spawn

nvm, it works

[ashen robin]

anyway, imma sleep but that site I linked has some good bits in it, also the forums is pretty much where all the info is at if you find yourself stuck

[abstract crow]

kk thanks

[granite otter]

is unity timeline only dedicated to cutscenes or can we combine it for vfx timing

i want to make multi phase vfx

[eternal herald]

why is this happening i want the whole thing to be like the right side

[sly mortar]

Thank you very much! I think I'll go for something similar!

[buoyant swan]

Can some one tell me gow to make glowy eyes with smoke

[tired summit]

That's interesting, you don't have access to game time at all ?! Maybe a different version...?

I'm also curious about that time not being accurate in shader graph, more info on that ?

[warm torrent]

Looking at it closer the inaccuracy may be my own experience and superstition
It's finicky in the editor because it keeps counting up even outside of play mode so it rarely ever starts from zero and is susceptible to editor hitches

But the main disadvantage is not being able to read or change it

[prime dome]

hello guys (:

[ashen robin]

~~Why does emissions in the particle system delay the spawn of a single particle when set to one? ~~Apparently I should be using burst with a single particle instead which eliminates the warm-up phase that's tied to it otherwise.

[eternal herald]

Can anyone help me with this

[ashen robin]

shuriken system really getting on my nerves

why is clear() removing all my child particle systems when they aren't linked as subemitters?

having all these options like Stop(), Clear(), Emissions = false feels so convoluted

[ashen robin]

Ok, so Clear() and Stop() do have optional parameters for children particle systems but states linked 'emitters' which would imply your primary system would have it linked in the emitter options. But no, Clear() will affect all children gameobjects

So, ideally if you want to stop the primary particle, and let the trails linger you'd do:
Stop(true)
Clear(false)

[eternal herald]

for some reason when i zoom in the particle shrinks how do i fix this

[ocean cove]

Hi guys, I am a newbie trying to learn vfx and currently am trying to make a vfx ability , I have gotten the hang of the vfx graph and I am able to acheive the effect that I want with a single particle, but how to do it with multiple particles I am not able to figure out, the effect is for a blood spike, using multiple vfx graphs.

I am able to make this effect one graph draws the spike another draws the smoke using a flipbook and another one draws the ember particles, I want this whole effect to be applied, I want to have multiple of these spikes and these spikes should move to the center of the sphere, that also I am able to do using conform to a sphere by drawing the spike mesh and using a sphere shape, but not able to figure out how to give the same smoke and particles to each of those spikes.

I have tried to use trails and tried to parent the vfx graph to them but that only works if the vfx graph changes position and not the individual particles, does anyone know how to acheive this kind of effect, have searched all over youtube and internet but not able to figure it out. Thanks

[ashen robin]

If the trouble here is combining particles together you can consider using GPU events and inheriting positions and spawning those particles at that location
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3Xzzs1TWpk

[eternal herald]

Does anyone know how to fix this

[loud thistle]

How can I make particles spawn from the border of an sphere instead of from the center of it?

[ashen robin]

I may have had that working with arc sphere but maybe I'm dreaming

you can also conform to mesh and use a sphere

or just do your own spherical math and random sample that

[loud thistle]

Got it, found a forum and seems like this was before a setting you could assign to mesh-like shape spawners to spawnFromShell; but now is just radius thickness; I though radius thickness was where the particles COULD spawn, not where they could not; weird

[ashen robin]

https://i.imgur.com/YXgjbqW.png
Looking for a way to billboard these triangles towards the camera but still point in the direction towards the target with the shuriken system. I recall that's a little difficult, and I think I've made it work somewhat with vfx graph, but I imagine I need to use stretch billboards here. They however don't seem to want to present any useful results.

basically I want to rid of the 3D rotation and keep it 2D with regards to the direction

https://i.imgur.com/d1UCt4R.png
as we can see with the squares I've got only billboarding going on

[warm torrent]

Hmm what should that look like exactly?

[ashen robin]

you can tell the triangles there are flat compared to the full 2D squares

https://i.imgur.com/m7lx1Ub.png

billboarding + 3D direction seems just hard

[warm torrent]

Stretch billboards don't have 3D rotation in the meaning of the word that Particle System usually uses, but they are stretched along their 3D movement direction

[ashen robin]

I can imagine it requires warping the quad with stretch billboarding

otherwise some shader stuff

[ashen robin]

that's what im reading and it sounds like what I want? but not really getting anything that looks remotely passable

[warm torrent]

I guess the issue is that the only way to stretch a quad so it doesn't appear flat is only width or height in screen space (or diagonally if we include shearing)

[ashen robin]

right, or do it with screen space coordinates and forget the whole warping thing

or w/e the matrix formulation is for it

[warm torrent]

You'd basically have to do the thing that stretched billboard does, but only in screen space without foreshortening

Particle System can pass the relevant info to the shader with custom vertex streams, but beats me what the right math is

[ashen robin]

I think vfx graph has a specific orientation for this

would make sense though that it does have it

or maybe I did some hack because I know I've done something like this before

[warm torrent]

I don't recall spotting this type of orientation in any application
Afaik VFX Graph doesn't have its own "stretched billboard" mode either

[late citrus]

Hello. I'm looking for an invisibility effect for my character in URP. Does anyone know of any assets on the store that have this effect?
I saw that Mesh Effect might meet my needs, but someone reviewed it saying that the distortion effect is broken in URP and the developer replied that it's a Unity bug. Is it true 😦

[ashen robin]

take you like two seconds to make your own distortion shader

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atPTr29vXUk

also the 1000+ youtube videos that go over this same shader

[late citrus]

Thank you for your response. I'm looking for a polished and high-quality effect that I can use directly for my project because I don't have much experience with VFX and I think it would take a lot of time if I were to create it myself.

I will watch the video you sent. Thank you!

[warm torrent]

Asking about shaders in the shader channel rather than here would give you a better reception

[warm torrent]

@ashen robin I'm not easily finding any equivalent billboard modes from VFX graph's preset orientation modes

I think Look At Line with line being camera's depth axis is the kind of "classic" stretched billboard

But that doesn't include the functionality to stop stretching and render as camera facing billboard when facing the front or the back of the particle
Maybe it'd be as simple as lerping between those two by angle
But the Orient block is not one with a weight variable

[errant terrace]

Is VFX graph valid for rendering persistent objects?
Mainly looking for a way to render billboard trees in HDRP

[warm torrent]

Yes, check out these:
https://github.com/Unity-Technologies/VisualEffectGraph-Samples
There's two demos with persistent grass

[errant terrace]

Ooh nice, that looks promising

Thanks

[warm torrent]

I see two types of trees also but I don't recall if they were with vfx graph

[ashen robin]

Yeah i was looking at the orientations and thought along velocity was it but that wouldn't solve issue

Ive a bunch of different types of billboard shaders ive probably mixed with it to get a hacky solution previously

Surprised none of this is standard

[warm torrent]

I guess you might ultimately hate to use a camera facing billboard and calculate your own 3D rotation and size from the velocity

Or maybe I'm overthinking it

All you might need is to point one axis towards the target vector
If they're camera facing billboards they'll be forced to appear flat anyway

[ashen robin]

Ah maybe. Going to throw all my shaders on it later and see what I can get out of it

Not a big deal as this was just a small jam project

Still it's an issue overall when you do want those 2D trails with some direction

[fiery surge]

It never did this before while warking with thousand of particles, now it keeps being stuck at every change

[fiery surge]

I guess it got fixed somehow

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1088238461808541757/1241002879947509801/Unity_vq01tEQEGY.gif?ex=66489d7f&is=66474bff&hm=3aff2ab1fbb02be4b0aaced5c1a7808bcbc3e72bc284dcb8aa869e91626e95ec&

first proper ps that works ^^' i wanna try to make it look more interesting

Btw watching many videos i noticed that people rather have separated well timed particle systems instead of using sub emitters
is that usually the case?

[fiery surge]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1088238461808541757/1241044456288030770/Unity_jT90btYbnj.gif?ex=6648c437&is=664772b7&hm=575cdf67cbcf162510e2904b1981f17a9962bf3ba51b31764cab9793a293abbf&

I think this is already better

[ocean cove]

thanks, this might do it 🤔 will try this one

[ocean cove]

Thanks again it worked , 😄

[ashen robin]

Ye, no problem ;p

[fiery surge]

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1088238461808541757/1241126274785738872/Unity_p6qxFWgXYn.gif?ex=6649106a&is=6647beea&hm=06a8868455656c347f10c7b49cbc834d2ebdf534b4aba3e4e1705092c285f739&

Welp, idk if i can push it more than this
i coded a quick shader for the heat distortion and made a flipbook texture

[languid meteor]

anyone experienced some weird regression related to particle system in unity 6?
if I have clean new project with new particle system that emit clean (no material) particles "per distance" with noise enabled - editor crashes almost instantly when i drag this particle system to emit some particles
both win and osx

[stark crest]

!bug

[gleaming flicker]

Reporting bugs

🪲 To make bug reporting as quickly as possible, we made a bug reporting application for you. When running Unity choose Help->Report a Bug in the menu, or you can access it directly through the executable in the directory where Unity is installed. It will also launch automatically if you experience a crash.

📝 If your bug report is to do with Documentation, either an error, typo, or omission, you can report it by scrolling to the bottom of the page where you found the issue and click ‘Report a problem on this page’!

💡If your report is to do with a new feature idea, you can check the Unity Product Roadmaps page to see if your idea has already been planned.

For more complete instructions on how to report bugs, access: https://unity3d.com/unity/qa/bug-reporting

[sweet ember]

Hello, I am watching tutorial about how to make blood particles. Man in the video has this pop up menu and I don't.

[buoyant swan]

Can some one tell me how to reach efx of a glowing eyes but not just that its the smoky efect of it the slow smoky that geting out from eyes i try fo find the tut or something but cant

Somehting like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQiqGTUoBls

[granite otter]

this is actually a quad with texture getting alpha clipped

[eternal herald]

who knows how to make it so it doesnt stop then start again i want it to be constant

[eternal herald]

nvm i fixed it

[fringe sable]

Which shader type does render on top of other objects? (For particles)

I have this one rn

[cobalt scarab]

Look at the renderer module on particle system, it should have render layer override

[cobalt scarab]

order in layer

or put it in a layer that has a priority over others

[fringe sable]

Well I alerady tried that

[fringe sable]

And didnt help

[cobalt scarab]

What render pipeline are you using?

[fringe sable]

URP

[cobalt scarab]

It could be not working because of the particle system using its "universal" material. Try swapping for the URP shader on particle system and see if layer order works then

[fringe sable]

Well I have the URP particle unlit shader

[onyx lake]

transparent particles should render over other objects naturally because they're in a higher render queue (geometry = 2000, transparent = 3000). If the particles are closer to the camera than the object they should render in front. So there must be a certain type of setup you have in the scene that renders the particles behind objects. What kind of objects are you talking about? Can you share videos?

[fringe sable]

I will provide more screenshots when I get home

[eternal herald]

is it possible to use a particle strip and use a flip book??

[fringe sable]

here are both objects that I currently have as ground:

[onyx lake]

Show a video or screenshots of the whole scene with the hierarchy etc.

[fringe sable]

Okay

[fringe sable]

btw the particles are multiple particle objects attached to one empty object

being summoned by a script

[viscid bridge]

My vector doesn't have the option to select either the Y or X component... what's going on?

Experimental blocks and stuff is enabled

though I don't think it has anything to do with that

I'm on 2023.3.27f1

[onyx lake]

Looks like a bug to be honest. Have you tried closing the vfx graph window and opening it up again? If that doesn't help restarting Unity?

[viscid bridge]

tried restarting before - behaviour persists...

[onyx lake]

does this also not work for vector3?

[viscid bridge]

yeah, same thing.

[onyx lake]

could that be a workaround at least?

is the vfx graph on the latest version? In a desperate attempt the last thing I would check is whether deinstalling and then reinstalling helps.

[onyx lake]

Where did you find that version btw?

[viscid bridge]

woah.

something's up here.

Unity Hub

now it's on 2022.3.29f1

I got it when it was 27

month ago maybe?

oh MY BAD

2022, not 2023

sorry.

I'll try re-importing the package?

nope, still the same thing

strange... and very not good...

[onyx lake]

this is the version you are on?

[viscid bridge]

yes

[onyx lake]

really weird. I'm on the same unity version now and it still works so it's not a Unity bug per se.

[viscid bridge]

gotta be the project then

[onyx lake]

but I vaguely remember having this issue myself, but can't remember the solution. I guess restarting stuff worked for me 🤔

[onyx lake]

yeah good shout. Try a new project to verify.

[viscid bridge]

my guess would be that I imported a graph from a later version straight into the project, and maybe some setting was changed that didn't align with the new version?

I really don't know.

[onyx lake]

dumb question, but have you tried creating a new graph?

[viscid bridge]

WOAH - it happens in the new project too

created a blank project for 3D-URP

imported Visual Effects Graph

you're on the same version?

guess I'll try restarting my computer...?
If that works I'll do a backflip out of confusion.

[onyx lake]

Yes, I've downloaded the exact same version and we are on the same VFX graph version.

[onyx lake]

Any errors or warnings thrown in the console on the new project?

[viscid bridge]

no errors.

restarted computer - same thing

you're on 2022.3.27f1 yes?

[onyx lake]

2022.3.29

[viscid bridge]

ah

sorry I was unclear

the current version is 29

I got it when it was 27

so 2022.3.27f1

my bad, again

so it might be version specific then

[onyx lake]

try upgrading to 29 or create a new project in a different version

[viscid bridge]

yessir

[onyx lake]

that's my last guess. If that doesn't work then I'm out of ideas 😄 Might be worth posting in the unity forums.

Good luck!

[viscid bridge]

cheers

[obtuse cypress]

I have a particle system with the shape module set to Mesh Renderer. I set the mesh parameter to the mesh of an object in the scene. However, in the same scene there are several objects that use the same mesh asset. When in game mode (or in builds), the particles spawn on every object that uses the same mesh asset, and not only on the one that I plugged into the shape module of the particles. This seems to be a bug, I guess. Does anyone know any workarounds or how to fix this?

[ashen robin]

Are you certain you're not using a prefab with similar setups between each of these objects?

Otherwise all I could think of is some weird interaction with batching.

[obtuse cypress]

Yeah I am

[ashen robin]

Well, if the particle system is directly part of the prefab instance then everyone will generate those particles

[rancid current]

is there any way that i can scale a ui particle's shape based on ui anchors

[sand trail]

Hello, I have a particle system that uses the noise module, when the module itself expanded, it behaves how I want, however I've found that when the noise module is collapsed (but still checked on) it doesn't look at all how I want it to behave, and for instance when I reload the scene it goes back to collapsed. Does anybody know why this would be the case?

[quartz hull]

Hi, I have a default "VFX" Trail, the one that comes as a default template. I'm triying to set the Color of the particle strip but I can't, I searched everywhere and nothing works. I tried to set the color from a GET COLOR CURRENT in every node but no luck. The VFX is set over a prefab with the sprite renderer (it is just a sprite 2d circle) but the tail is always white no matter what I do. My sprite does have a MAterial with a shader that automatically transform the sprite renderer color to the color of the shader (vertex color) but it is not automatic in the VFX.

Edited: I finally created a "custom property" and set in in code, it works.
VisualEffect vfxEffect = state.EntityManager.GetComponentObject<VisualEffect>(entity);
vfxEffect.SetVector4("MyColor", floid.Floid.ValueRO.GroupColor);

[ashen robin]

ya picture so tiny

[quartz hull]

:p is the "Get Color" assigned everywhere to a "Set Color". I finally did it by code with a custom property, it seems that "Get Color" was not working for me

[ashen robin]

Get Color takes the current system data if it has been set before, else it returns a default color (probably white?)

[quartz hull]

yes, with get color it appears white. I thoug the Get Color will take the "sprite renderer" color assigned. The thing is, I'm setting that color in the sprite renderer with code in a dots system so probably that was the problem. now I'm setting both with a custom property and it is done

[ashen relic]

is there a way to set dynamically set lifetime of a vfxgraph particle so that a system removes the oldest particles and emits new ones after it hits capacity?

normally my capacity should be sufficient, but there are increasing cases where the capacity isn't enough, and I'd like to keep spawning particles in this event

[ashen robin]

I think it automatically does that if the capacity is low enough

[ashen relic]

nah it just stops emitting

[ashen robin]

Sounds like something is off then, because what happens when you reach the capacity, it circle buffers around back to the first index and uses that

[ashen relic]

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm I'll take a look, as far as I know it stops when capacity is reached as per this

https://forum.unity.com/threads/vfx-graph-does-not-spawn-particles-constantly.855532/

and this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/h0ygoe/visual_effect_graph_stops_emitting_in_a_few/

[ashen robin]

Ah, ok that does make sense. Honestly, it's been a while since I've let the systems do the indexing for me, but what you're looking for is how I do it and it's using graphic buffers.

[ashen relic]

by indexing are you doing something funky to get specific particles?

[ashen robin]

Basically you just keep track of the IDs and buckets, so it'll be up to you to consider when to reuse/remove those particles

[ashen relic]

that sounds way above my wheelhouse (haven't really touched VFX at all) but I'll keep that in mind when I have some time to look into a bit more

I might just have to make a new VFX asset with a shorter lifecycle

[ashen robin]

I don't touch vfx graph anymore without them, so that may give you an idea how vital they are ;)

[ashen relic]

weow okay i'll definitely have a dig, what's the technical term you're using? IDs and buckets??

[ashen robin]

https://qriva.github.io/posts/how-to-vfx-graph/#how-to-sample-graphics-buffer

good webpage for the more useful features of the vfx graph

if you need to eliminate, change, or reuse specific particles. This would be the tool to use.

because otherwise you can't change* that specific data as it's on the gpu side

[ashen relic]

wow this is probably exactly what I'm looking for, I'm trying to build a scene with many many smoke trails and plumes going on

if I could handle each visual in one vfx graph instead of having one per missile, that'd be perfect

[ashen robin]

exactly, you can use a single vfx graph system as a manager to control all specific effects on the scene

[ashen relic]

good stuff

[ashen robin]

otherwise people usually do the pool idea but this is probably less mem allocations and such

also looks cleaner ;)

[ashen relic]

for sure

though it looks very complicated :Y

I'll bookmark it and try to see how I can adapt my current trails to it

have to deal with floating origin offset too eugh

[ashen robin]

it's something to learn, especially if you're using vfx graph long term

[ashen relic]

yeah agreed

[ashen robin]

• the custom event stuff if you havent since you can use it in conjunction

[ashen relic]

after I wrap up the stuff I'm working on right now I'll give it a look as part of a broader optimisation study session

thanks for the tip though

[obtuse cypress]

The mesh parameter in the shape module is not set inside the prefab, only in the scene. I believe it's a bug that has something to do with GPU mesh instancing, but I don't know how to solve it.

[ashen robin]

I was thinking something like that, and now that you confirm that you're doing some instanced mesh rendering yourself perhaps some testing without it and confirm that theory.

VFX graph has similar methods of mesh rendering, yet I've not encountered problems with that despite it GPU instancing meshes itself.

I was actually having a problem with the shuriken system GPU instancing earlier as it creates flicker problems when too many similar particles are on the scene using mesh shape emissions

[cold pond]

does anyone know why the video is not showing here? The audio is working but the video is not showing, here's what the console said:
Unexpected timestamp values detected. This can occur in H.264 videos not encoded with the baseline profile. Timestamps will be skewed to correct the playback for C:/Users/Jason De Lara/DOS2/Assets/intro.mp4

[warm torrent]

We can't see the whole console, but the message is not an error so that probably isn't breaking anything
We can't see where the video player is supposed to be relative to canvas so we can't tell if it's misplaced
Not related to VFX so maybe try asking in #📲┃ui-ux

[eternal herald]

how would i give a colide with sphere size over life for its scale

[ashen robin]

Get Age / Get Lifetime = current normalized time

then plug it into some curve

[eternal herald]

oh okay ty

like this??

[ashen robin]

age itself is elapsed time

and usually your curves should operate in some normalized time

so dividing elapsed by the total duration will give you that

[eternal herald]

nvm i found a better way ty anyways

[eternal herald]

actully how do i give a set position sphere scale over life this is my vfx graph

[obtuse cypress]

I guess it has to do with static batching, this guy had the exact same issue:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/particle-system-and-mesh-shape.1260119/
I'll try to unset the meshes as batching static and see if that solves it

[midnight grove]

@rugged breach Please don't ping random people. There are no job postings here, you can use the !collab forums

[gleaming flicker]

📢 Collaborating and Job Posting

We do not accept job or collab posts on discord.
Please use the forums:
• Commercial Job Seeking
• Commercial Job Offering
• Non Commercial Collaboration

[eternal herald]

why does the middle of my orb go completely purple when the ground effect plays

[ashen robin]

When you click on your unlit mesh output youll see more options on the right. I'd expect something to do with lighting, but it's unlit so I'm not too sure.

Maybe its the other particles that contribute lightning

Or some type of additive/specular shader going on there

[eternal herald]

oh okay ty ill try some stuff

[warm torrent]

This kinda looks like sorting issues when you have many transparent geometries in the same spot
It can easily be ambiguous which one should be drawn in front of the other which would affect alpha blending

If that's the issue, you may be able to control the sort order or physical depth in the vfx graph, or potentially use additive blending which is order-independent, or opaque blending which uses the depth buffer to accurately determine depth

[eternal herald]

oh i forgot about ty i will try that

[eternal herald]

I fixed it i used particle quad with a shader graph

[agile mesa]

I just saw someone use the texture sheet setting to set single sprites in Shuriken Particle system instead of creating separate materials for each sprite. Has anyone made experiences if this is bad for performance or why this is so rarely done?

[ashen robin]

Texture/sprite atlasing one of the older techniques in games and is still used widely today

I was just having a discussion in #archived-shaders about the material issue, and even though you're probably fine having multiple materials, you still probably get more out of using a single material/shader but otherwise it's probably not a issue if you do have very few shaders

in built-in, you do want to atlas as much as possible

[sharp dawn]

Hello i get problem with my particlei have simple rain system but i dont know why when i but my camera little bellow my particle are deleted i see only the on that far away , maybe it s probleme with my displaceme that kinda hide them , if you have any idea ! thank you 🥹

[ashen robin]

cant embed mkv

[sharp dawn]

yeah sorry i upload it in mp4 !

just here !

[ashen robin]

your camera is culling it

the pivot is behind the camera is why

not too sure of your options in shuriken, but if you disable frustum culling it'll always render no matter where your camera is pointing

https://forum.unity.com/threads/particle-system-culling-issue-please-help-explain-this-to-me.442585/

maybe a fix in there

[sharp dawn]

thank a lot for you answer i am gonna check that ! 🙂

[warm torrent]

@sharp dawn @ashen robin I think here the water and rain are both transparent geometries, so one of them has to be rendered in front of the other which is dermined by distance of their origins to camera

The sea has one origin, and the particle system has another

[ashen robin]

I wouldn't think it'll out right cull the rain, no?

Usually it'll fall back to the distance check, but then render one or the other over each other

[warm torrent]

I think I can see the rain rendering above the sea when it "disappears"

[ashen robin]

ohh the rain is beind rendered behind the sea

I see

[warm torrent]

Basically either water or water shader would have to be opaque to definitely solve it

Or both

[sharp dawn]

okayy i seee ! maybe if i try to put them on opaque and see what it doing !

and yes they are both transparent !

[warm torrent]

Opaque raindrops would look kind of solid but that may not be a problem
In these situations you often can make the water opaque and get translucency as well as distortion from the "scene color" buffer, if that's an option
But you can also fake the translucency somehow in the shader

[sharp dawn]

yeah that was that the problem thank a lot ! yeah i am gonna try to do that

[sharp dawn]

i put the ocean in opaque and that work thank a lot ! 😉

[eternal herald]

what does this do??

[maiden nimbus]

Hi, its possible to fixe a particle to another one ?
Cause i want create a magic cercle like this
And idk how rotate the little cercle and follow the rotation of the big one

[ashen robin]

crop the circles yourself into multiple pictures

and either rotate each of them with the particle systems or make a simple flipbook animation yourself

[ashen robin]

Velocity is a directional speed while angular is a rotational speed

[eternal herald]

is it posible to make something where particles spawn on the x and y axsis and follow the velocity on the x and y axsis kinda like this

[ashen robin]

sure, why not?

you'll need to figure out a direction from where you spawn the particles though

id probably do like an arc circle/sphere and when the particle spawns, my direction would be opposite to the center

[eternal herald]

oh okay ty ill give that a try

[obsidian latch]

i got a question, how should i make these sprites point at the middle of the spawner? i tried stretched billboards in the render settings but that didn't work. someone who might got a clue?

[fossil dagger]

Using the basic unity button animation system, right now im having to choose between the color change and the animation tabs, so i cant have both. Is there a way that i can get both?

[soft fractal]

Im fairly new to shadergraph and shaders in general, does anyone have a tutorial they could share on how to accomplish this with shadergraph? I just kinda want a glowing effect thats coming from the center of the chest

[eternal herald]

is there an option like this in a vfx graph?

[onyx lake]

Stretched billboards is correct for this, but it only works if you have velocity on the particles. The trick is to give them a super small velocity to not move them, but enough to make the stretched billboards rotate.

You will probably also want to change the pivot point of your particles to the bottom otherwise the will all overlap in the center.

[jagged crow]

im trying to set a grid under the player by attaching the vfx as a component to the player, the thing is my player moves by rotating itself. it is a cube which moves by rotating 90 degrees in the direction of input. how do i stop the rotation of the vfx graph component. i always need it to be 90 degrees under the player

this is my graph

[warm torrent]

Not an "option" but the way vfx works is that you can do the same operation using maths
Spherize direction spherically interpolates the velocity direction with a direction away from a point
I think you can use the lerp node with Direction type inputs to slerp them

Since there's no slerp node

[jagged crow]

like this the black is the grid which i want under the player at 90 degrees rotation

[ashen robin]

big text on the system that says local needs to be world

if you want position to be local but not the rotation then you need to feed the update particle context the transform position and keep the systems in world

[eternal herald]

Ty

[jagged crow]

how do i feed position of another object

[ashen robin]

You can expose a field on the vfx graph to send transform data into it

[velvet phoenix]

hii! im making a game with enemies and want them to generate "blood stains", but not as momentary, more like one that stays on the map even after x time, does someone know if this is the channel where to ask this question? and if so any video related on the matter or some tips? ty!

[ashen robin]

if it's not perma then you'd handle it in the same way, just increase the lifetime of it

[velvet phoenix]

and if its perma?

even so i think i will go for the lifetime approach for evading too much lag, but i just want to learn if other ways

[ashen robin]

little more complicated, but you'll be editing the texture

[velvet phoenix]

oh, if its something more advanced ill learn about it later

[ashen robin]

there's a few ways to do it like shader, or making a dynamic copy of the texture and stuff like that

decals should be fine though, if anything you can just circle buffer them such that once you hit a limit you reuse the oldest

^ usually what most games do anyway

[velvet phoenix]

i see, ty!

[drifting robin]

Hey! I made a water jet fx using VFX graph
I have this flicker issue on mesh like water column or the puddle.
I use 5 Visual Effects to render this and for mesh, I use a custom shader graph. It's probably a sorting mode issue but when I changed the order in layer, it doesn't change anything... Any idea ?

[onyx lake]

Looks like z-fighting to me. Is the mesh on the exact same height as the ground? If so, try to move it up just a little bit.

[drifting robin]

Yes I thought too but its not :/

This issues only cames up when I add multiple VFXs

[onyx lake]

Try deactiving all of them and see which one is conflicting with it

By enabling them one by one

[drifting robin]

Yes I did that! It seems when I add a VFX output quad with VFX mesh output there is a conflict

[terse crystal]

Anybody help me make tracers like these

I mean how do they make it a bit transparent and shine like that

[Arma3]

I cant get my VFX to be transparent and if I add emission and use bloom it doesnt shine like this

[errant basin]

yo

when I add the vfx to my object it does not show anything

[drifting robin]

This bug appeasers when the VFX above (output mesh) is played

[onyx lake]

Quite odd. Have you tried giving the mesh at the top a higher render queue inside the material?

[drifting robin]

Yes I tried it doesn't change anything

I changed my plan I use VFX graph only for 2d particles and instance 3d mesh from code directly in scene

[onyx lake]

Okay. Does this also happen when the top mesh is in a different position? (putting it way to the side). Just so we can fully rule out any sorting issues.

[drifting robin]

I tried to move the mesh and change the sorting layer

The bug only disappears when i disable the VFX

it's very weird

[onyx lake]

Hmm .. the top part is not a full sphere mesh that's masked, is it?

Just a disk?

[drifting robin]

the three meshes looks like this

not a sphere but maybe too much curved ?

Okay weird thing haha
I saw in forum to set sort to Off, I just tried it works but my top mesh changed

[drifting robin]

Okay I can't really explained but I found a solution :

• In Output Particle Mesh properties I turn "Sort" to Off
• Then I disable "Allow Instancing" for the top mesh

[ashen robin]

I feel like this is more to deal with shader and shader instancing. Oh, I'm blind you did mentioned instancing haha

May can also be prevented from doing a single VFX system and using the internal sorting from that

But I guess you run into issues of different vfx systems still running into instance issues

[onyx lake]

Interesting stuff. I haven't used VFX graph too much yet. Seems like there's a whole new set of problems coming with it 😄

[drifting robin]

Yes, i'm not sure for now the best practice for making vfx with vfx graph. I think i will try for a next project to make one VFX graph to combine all effect parts (like here) to see how it's different

[drifting robin]

Haha yes totally

[eternal herald]

how do i wrap this around the hand?? its just a sprite sheet in a vfx graph

[onyx lake]

You need to create a mesh that wraps around the hand, if you want it to be 3D.

[warm torrent]

It would not have the outline of a flame though

[onyx lake]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XykZ1ICPmCg this might help you

[eternal herald]

Yep I’ve already tried that

[eternal herald]

I’ll follow this vid ty

[eternal herald]

it doesnt wrap all the way around

[eternal herald]

i think to wrap it i need to do it in blender

but i dont know how to do it

[onyx lake]

The main problem is that the texture/sheet you're using isn't really made for a 3D effect. Having a 3D flame that looks good and stylized isn't a beginner's task, but it seems like you're pretty new to VFX.

This tutorial is maybe better suited for you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzzGB5gwUtA

The part on the ground is less interesting for you, but the pear shaped mesh is what you might need as well as the shader that he is creating. It will look different to what you have (no edges), but maybe that's still good enough for your use case.

[eternal herald]

ive tried that too it doesnt work