Handling client sided visual effects that have already begun | Suphi Kaner | Page 1

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 6:57 AM

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https://devforum.roblox.com/t/handling-client-sided-visual-effects-that-have-already-begun/2399379/5

Developer Forum | Roblox

Handling client sided visual effects that have already begun

Hardcoding parts of this is unavoidable the way I see it. Is there a way to fast-forward particles for example? There are so many different scenarios in my mind it is very hard to image a good solution that will be future-proof and modular. I have not found a single resource on this topic as well.

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:13 AM

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this will vastly change depending on how you make your visual effects

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lets say your effects have a array of actions to do

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local effect = {
  {"PlayerAnimation", "Swing", 0, 1}, -- play swing animation from 0 to 1 seconds
  {"Partical effect", "Fire", 0.5, 2}, -- enable partical effect from 0.5 to 2 seconds
  {"Spawn Model", "Rocks", 2}, -- spawn rocks model at 2 seconds
}

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now if the client knows what time the animation started

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they will be able to use the effects array to workout what part of the effect there at

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lets say they enter 1.5 seconds after the effect started

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then know not to play the animation

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they know to play the particals for 0.5 seconds

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and they know to spawn the model in 0.5 seconds

astral copper May 31, 2023, 9:18 AM

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https://tenor.com/view/correct-plankton-gif-14118231

Tenor

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:20 AM

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but for me this is a lot of work if it was me i would just let them miss the effect and not see it
ant anybody got time to worry about 2 seconds of fire particles

astral copper May 31, 2023, 9:22 AM

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So basically you'll just have a step function for the effect that'll receive a parameter that represents the delta of the "effect state". The tricky part with using the particle engine is like Suphi said it's pretty rough tryna force particle emitters to do exactly what you intend so depending on the effect it might not make sense to be this miticulous about it

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I think it does make sense if there are a lot of hard coded effects

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If you absolutely need to have high control of particles, the only alternative I can see is to recreate particles using billboard guis, and that's gonna come out wonky under most circumstances if you're not creative with how you implement it

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Plus there isn't really a ton of circumstances under which this would happen to you, unless your connectivity resumes after a lag spike or you just joined a server

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:27 AM

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plucky rune they know to play the particals for 0.5 seconds

What if the particles work like an animation

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and they enter the particle stage late

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gradualy building up for example

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:29 AM

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like the particales have a low spawn rate

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but a long life?

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:29 AM

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Yeah

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I mean it does not have to

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:30 AM

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you would have to use something else i guess

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maybe a animation?

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:30 AM

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what if they start the effect at 1.8

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problems should accur

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:30 AM

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could you use a animation istead of a partical emitter?

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:30 AM

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an animation?

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:30 AM

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livid mauve problems should accur

what problems

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:31 AM

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imagine for the full particle effect we need at least 0.5 sec to convey the effect

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:31 AM

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a partical animation

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:31 AM

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and they start the effect at 1.8

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you mean the flipbook? @plucky rune

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:32 AM

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no

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:32 AM

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I'm very good at vfx

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:32 AM

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i mean like a a animation

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:32 AM

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Is that new?

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:32 AM

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and use a animation controller to play it

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:32 AM

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You mean a litteral animation that has nothing to do with particles?

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or can you animate particles via animation?

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:33 AM

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https://create.roblox.com/docs/reference/engine/classes/AnimationController

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:34 AM

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I'm not familiar with how to animate particles

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I have only worked with the defualt roblox character

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:35 AM

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make a model with lets say planes

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:35 AM

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so no particle emitter

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:35 AM

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and you texture the planes with fire texture

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then you move the planes with the animation controller

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no partical emitter

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:35 AM

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That would look really bad no?

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and would be hacky

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:36 AM

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only if you make it look bad

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it would replicate to other client perfectly

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:36 AM

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Is there an example of this

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I can see in action?

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:36 AM

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no

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but i could make a video in the future

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:37 AM

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on this specific topic?

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:37 AM

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yer

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:37 AM

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what if I mess with acell and other values to manipulate the emmiter somehow

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:37 AM

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roblox animation controller is very good at syncing animations without sending much data to the clients

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:38 AM

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livid mauve what if I mess with acell and other values to manipulate the emmiter somehow

you would not be able to make a partical emitter perfectly in sync like a animation controller

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:38 AM

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it does not have to be in perfect sync

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it just has to look ok

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from the client side

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and not have a significant difference from other clients

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:39 AM

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well if you have a partical that emits once per second

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that lasts for 20 seconds

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and someone comes in at 19 seconds

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:40 AM

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yeah i understand

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:40 AM

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what you gona do with a partical emitter

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make a partical that lasts 1 second?

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at this point it would be better to not show the particle at all

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:40 AM

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livid mauve imagine for the full particle effect we need at least 0.5 sec to convey the effe...

im thinking about this scenario

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:41 AM

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or you could restrict your self to not use particles like this

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:41 AM

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I can maybe bump up the values to make a near instant transition to the correct point

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that would be junky

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prob

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:42 AM

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plucky rune or you could restrict your self to not use particles like this

so that would eliminate a lot of cool effects no?

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for example all explosion effects

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using particles

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:43 AM

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plucky rune at this point it would be better to not show the particle at all

this might be the best solution

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but I'm think in some scenarios it would cause issues

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there is also the issue of the near inf scenarios that require different aproaches

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:45 AM

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can i ask why are the clients seeing the effect late?

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:45 AM

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because they were out of replication range

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:45 AM

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and why cant you replicate it with a wider range?

astral copper May 31, 2023, 9:45 AM

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Might be best to just omit the effect until it's completed in that edge case

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Wouldn't be too noticeable

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and it would fix what is bothering you

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:46 AM

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unless all effects are global

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the range wont fix it

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because of teleportation

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:46 AM

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livid mauve unless all effects are global

it does not have to be globle

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lets say the normal range is 100 studs

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make it 200 studs

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:46 AM

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also spawning in and out

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:47 AM

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you can make a longer loading screen

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:47 AM

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so when somebody dies and they have respawn i wait as well

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and also teleportation

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:48 AM

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well no

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that would not be good

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you could make all effects close to spawn always replicate

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any effects close to spawn or within 200 studs of client will replicate

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:49 AM

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there are people who play roblox with 2gb of ram

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I'm thinking of them

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:50 AM

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how much ram does your effects take?

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:50 AM

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currently 0 because I'm still trying to figure this out

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but I'm planning to go wild with them

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I wanna make good foundation before I move forward

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I'm trying to figure out the best aproach

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How do other games do this

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I don't get it

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 9:56 AM

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plucky rune ```lua local effect = { {"PlayerAnimation", "Swing", 0, 1}, -- play swing anim...

I will do this and let them miss steps

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what if people cry that they got killed by something they could not see coming

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man damn

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at least I'm making progress

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The solution is getting closer I can feel it xd

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 9:59 AM

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i made a demo for you

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 10:00 AM

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demo of what?

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damn

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suphi man the fact you take all this time to help me out and also made a demo

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thanks man

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 10:01 AM

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a demo of how to use the animation controller

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 10:02 AM

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I'm very curious

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If this is a good alterative I can save the particles for near instant stuff

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and use this solution for "longer" particle effects

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 10:04 AM

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📎 animations.rbxl

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i never worked on it for long but you get the idea

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 10:07 AM

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Do i need to make them transparent?

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 10:07 AM

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its upto you

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you can texture the parts

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or you can put a partical emitter inside them

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or you can just use them as parts

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 10:07 AM

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I can simulate particle emission

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 10:08 AM

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depeding on what your effect will look like you make them look anyway you like

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 10:08 AM

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Ok

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damn

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thats cool

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 10:08 AM

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i put a partical emitter in part4

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 10:08 AM

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that gives me a lot to work with

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 10:08 AM

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to show you that its a option

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you can use meshses

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 10:09 AM

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I can now achive most effects prob

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 10:09 AM

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balls?

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anything

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yer you could do most effects with just a animation controller

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 10:09 AM

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sound should be easy to work with

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tweening as well no?

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 10:10 AM

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animation is better then tweening

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 10:10 AM

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I can't use it on dynamicly generated objects

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 10:10 AM

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like physics based?

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 10:11 AM

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raycast based

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like a ground slam move

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if you get what I mean

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 10:12 AM

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i guess you would need to tween

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 10:12 AM

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I can manipulate the tween properties

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with some simple math

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and choose my "Position" on the tween

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mess with the tween time and posiiton

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simple % math prob

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 10:14 AM

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yes you can start the tween at any %

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ill send you some code that does that

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 10:16 AM

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ty

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 10:17 AM

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local instance = script.Parent
local tweenInfo = {1, Enum.EasingStyle.Quad, Enum.EasingDirection.Out, 0, false, 0}
local startProperties = {Position = instance.Position}
local targetPropertys = {Position = Vector3.new(0, 5, -100)}

local LerpNumber = function(value1, value2, alpha)
    return value1 + (value2 - value1) * alpha
end

local LerpProperties = function(currentTime)
    local alpha = currentTime / tweenInfo[1]
    if tweenInfo [5] == false then alpha = 1 - alpha elseif alpha > 1 then alpha = 2 - alpha end
    alpha = tweenService:GetValue(alpha, tweenInfo[2], tweenInfo[3])
    for index, property in targetPropertys do
        if type(property) == "number" then
            instance[index] = LerpNumber(startProperties[index], property, alpha)
        else
            instance[index] = startProperties[index]:Lerp(property, alpha)
        end
    end
end

LerpProperties(0.5) -- place instance 0.5 second into the tween

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its a bit of a mess

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 10:18 AM

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all good

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 10:18 AM

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but it should give you some info on how to workout where the instance needs to be when they start the tween

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 10:18 AM

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I can figure this part out

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Thank you

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for helping out

plucky rune May 31, 2023, 10:23 AM

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i fixed it up a bit

livid mauve May 31, 2023, 10:25 AM

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insane ur goated

#Handling client sided visual effects that have already begun