Unity Particle Effects HELP?!

MRDGameart

Me and a couple lads were working on our capstone project using UDK (thesis game), and I was in charge of VFX, and UI. We had 11 weeks to put a 'vertical slice' of our game together. Well, it's week 11 now, and things were okay, but then a fatal blocker emerged in the 'character camp', and we had to switch to Unity.
So now I find myself in need to create a number of fx and set up the menus in ONE WEEK starting today. I am not completely new to unity, but I am new to not being able to utilize udk's robust material editor to do most of the work in my effects!

So with that background in mind, I could use a copious amount of tips/tricks on projectile effects (plasma blasts etc.), atmospheric effects, and the creation of the textures/materials used for those types of things.

Farfarer

Switching project engine in the last week? Christ.

http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/Particle%20Systems.html
http://unity3d.com/support/documentation/Manual/Particle%20System%20Grouping.html

You can also download Strumpys material editor if you want a node-based editor to make your materials with. Not sure how well it works with particle materials.

Note you cannot apply lights or normal map particles, its diffuse only.

MRDGameart

Thanks for replying!
And yea, switching engines last week... however if we didn't we wouldn't have a finished/playable product anyways. I am the only one who really got shafted by it since all the models and characters and stuff can be applied to unity easily, and our programmer lives in unity so he was happier than anyone. I also put together a scaleform menu for the game which can no longer (to my knowledge) be used in unity.

About the link you posted. I have no problem with the technical side to generating particles and making them move how I want to etc, the part I need help with is the advanced particle texture creation needed to make particles in unity look good, along with any scripts that need be applied to make them work.

Farfarer

Well, you're being pretty vague still.

You'd need to give specific examples of the things you're having problems with for us to help you.

"plasma blasts" and "atmospheric effects" could be interpreted in a million different ways.

MRDGameart

I need to make a dynamic energy projectile for one of the character's main weapon. With it I require an at birth subparticle (muzzleflash, a death or collision subparticle (hit effect), and the in flight projectile itself. My issue is getting the effect to work as a projectile, so that it can hit enemies and cause damage. Regular particle systems dont do that, but I've heard tales that legacy particles can.
I really could use a sample of even a simple gun setup in unity so I can see how things are hooked up with script, and then emulate it with our gun and my projectile effects.
(I seem to learn from finished products faster, I got to learn UDK's tools by dissecting their canned assets and particle systems.)

kio

actually i would break the whole effect down into parts.

first muzzleflash just an effect which emits when the gun fires - attached to the gun itself.

the projectile: the old particle systems were able to do stuff on colition, the new one cant. but you can easily spawn a projectile prefab - which might be better anyway because it can have its own logic scripts ( targetet missiles, timer - well anything actually ). the prefab itself can host a trail renderer, a impact fx - explosion, spawn unicorns..

but you need some scripting - it really will not work by just creating an emitter which magically does everything.

MRDGameart

Ahh, yes, creating a prefab and spawning that as the projectile sounds like a good idea. So will an empty gameobject work? and then attach the legacy particle components? or does making a 3d model 'base mesh' and then attaching a supplementary effect to sound more reasonable?

I have a programmer helping me so hopefully when I meet with him he has the scripts required for me.

Also i was wondering about hit effects and if it was possible to attach gameobjects with particle effect components in each of the major hit areas on the character mesh? so that if you hit a guy in the leg his legs spurts blood, and if you stab him in the chest his chest starts to bleed.

thanks so much you who are replying!!!

kio

you can use whatever you want in the prefab - a bullet mesh, a particle system or nothing visible at all.

you just need some collider to register collisions. and script which does react on these. for example

OnColliderEnter( Collider other )
{
if ( other.tag == "enemy" )
{
bloodfx.Emit(100);
}
}

where bloodfx is a reference to a particle system


yes you can do all that stuff if you want to, just come up with a plan and make it work. its mostly about how much time you want to spend on specific features.

MRDGameart

Lovely. I wish I had more time to work on this project for capstone submission. Alas, I have 3 more days. >.<
I've gotten several atmospherics done for the game but still stymied by the projectile business. I tried legacy particles with a texture I made, but my photoshop painting skills have never been my forte.