How To Make Particle Effects

Particles are powerful but also can be tough to wrap your head around. And there is a lot to get to so for simplicity, we will start by looking at what all of the settings do, then there will be examples with an explanation of what makes it look the way it looks. Particles are best learned by going into a file, and experimenting. Have fun with it!

 

Settings

Details

The basic details of the particle system

Name	The name of your particle
Material	The material each particle will use
Node	The bone

 

Emission

The main modification setting of the particles

Initially Enabled	On: it will always be playing Off: must be enabled via an ensemble
Simulation	Local: Particles will stay locked to their node at all times World: Particles will spawn then be unaffected by the node
Initial Delay	How many seconds until the particle system starts after being enabled
Rate	How many particles spawn per second. This is not a steady rate, there is some randomness included
Lifetime	How long a particle will last, randomly between Min and Max
Speed	How fast a particle moves, randomly between Min and Max
Rotation	What angle a particle spawns, randomly between Min and Max
Size	What size a particle spawns, randomly between Min and Max
Max Count	Maximum number of particles allowed on screen at one time

 

Origin

The location particles spawn

Type	The shape of the particle spawn area
Position	The XYZ position relative to the node
Radius/Size/…	Shape modifiers used to change the size of the spawn area

 

Direction

The direction particles spawn facing

Type	Fixed: A single direction all particles go in Radial: A central point where all particles randomly pick a direction to go in along a flat disc Cone: A cone where particles can spawn in and direction of the cones opening PointToParticle: A point where particles are repelled ParticleToPoint: A point where particles are attracted Random: A random direction for each particle to go in
Normal/Position/…	Direction modifiers used to change the size of the direction zone

 

Gravity

A constant force always applied to particles

Type	Direction: A single direction force applied at all times Point: A point that particles are attracted to at all times
Direction/Position/…	Gravity modifiers to change the direction or position of the gravity

 

Sink Plane (Optional)

A plane where if particles pass it, they will be deleted

Position	The position of the Sink Plane
Normal	The direction the Sink Plane faces

 

Evolution

Changes that happen to particles over time

Time	0 -> 1 = start time -> end time
Color	The direction the Sink Plane faces
Scale	The direction the Sink Plane faces
Rotation	The direction the Sink Plane faces

 

Animation

Cycling animation applied to each particle

Number of Tiles	How many tiles vertically down and horizontally right. If you have a 512×512 image, 2×2 tiles will make each tile 256×256. It will always take up the entire image
Range	The first and last tile
Loop	How many times to look the animation during the lifetime of a single particle

 

Examples

Fire Pit

When you first create a particle system, it looks like this.

 

Now if we want to make this into a roaring fire, we can make these changes. Ill keep the changes to the bare minimum and any other settings can be tweaked to get the perfect fire you are looking for:

 

 

Rate	[100]	The higher this number, the more embers you get. Be sure to adjust max count if you use a higher rate
Lifetime	[0.1] [3]	This allows some of the embers to fly up in the air longer, and some to die out earlier on
Speed	[0] [0]	This starts the fire stationary and lets us use gravity to pull it upwards
Size	[0.5] [1]	This will allow each ember to be slightly differently sized
Max Count	[300]	This will allow more total embers to spawn
Origin	[Cylinder]	I used a cylinder and scaled it to the size of my fire pit
Gravity Type	[Point]	This will attract all embers to a point
Gravity Position	[0] [3] [0]	This sets the point slightly above the firepit
Gravity Scale	[6]	This makes the gravity to the point decently strong

The color hex values for these are:

1. #b29627   A = 100
2. #e27100   A = 100
3. #c11616    A = 100

 

This png was used for the materials Diffuse, Opacity, and Emission channels.

Transparency was set to Additive Blend to really get that fiery glow as the fire overlaps itself

Emission was set to 0.6

 

———————-

Now for the smoke. We can start by duplicating the effect we just made.

Lets set up the material first this time so we can visually see a difference between the particle systems.

For the diffuse, I used a light grey solid color, and for the opacity, I used this texture map. I set the transparency mode to Composite Blend.

Now we can make the following changes to the particle system

Speed	[1] [2]	This time we will give the particle a direction, so we can use speed variable
Direction [Fixed]	[0.5] [1] [0]	We will set the direction to up and slightly to the side
Gravity [Direction]	[0] [1] [0]	Here we can have a little bit of gravity pulling up on the smoke

The hex value for all 3 colors is #9f9f9f

The opacity values are

1. 0
2. 50
3. 100
4. 0

Now you should have a very simple, but effective, fire pit particle system! You can always adjust the settings to make it look better