emitter, particle effects, Unreal Engine 4, workflow, , , , ,
GPU Sprites- the interesting bits

This week was spent understanding particle emitters using the Pluralsight course. As I watched, I took some printscreens and made some notes in a live Word document. The following emitters were covered:

  • Sprite Emitters
  • GPU Sprite Emitters
  • Mesh Particle Emitters
  • Ribbon Particle Emitters
  • Beam Particle Emitters
  • Anim Trail Particle Emitters
  • Sub UV Particle Systems
  • Optimizing Particle Systems

The topics that were of the most interest were the GPU Sprite & Sprite Emitters and Mesh Particle Emitters.

I watched all the videos through and while they were interesting, it was only when I actually did the work

There was a lot to take in. In particle how to make the material itself.

The biggest thing to note is that Unreal is all about re-usability. This can be confusing when creating a Material. The colour is not applied at the beginning. The colour is always plain white.

Then colour is applied later.

The In and Out Values dictate the colours of the particles at the beginning and at the end of life

Another thing is the Distribution.

PSA Square in Distribution Curve &View – View Modes-Wireframe
Screen Alignment would be changed to PSA Square to get the top image

Other things like changing the View Tab at the top – this helps a lot to see what is going on.

This helps a lot to see what’s going on

It was great to watch all the videos and learn in theory how things should work.

It’s only when I was sitting in front of the PC trying to get things to work did it really sink in.

The intensity aspect was really cool, where the RGB value is to set to something like 50, 1, 1;to make the colour really vibrant.

I kept my document going as usual as I went along. My biggest issue is with now with Meshes and how to import from Maya into Unreal.

The area that I really wanted to work on then was the Mesh Particles.

I tried to export the Maya files into Unreal- I wanted to use a real mesh (the fairy wings) and get them to be a mesh particle emitter.

Errors when trying to export fairy into Unreal

I managed to isolate the wings and give them a texture.

Giving the wings a gold texture

But I couldn’t find the actual mesh anywhere. I think it could be an interface headmelt!

I am even more confused about I am supposed to get this stuff to work 🙁

Anyways I will do some more research on:

  • Exporting meshes from Maya to Unreal
  • How to file and work with these meshes in Unreal
  • Understanding how to create cool material bases

That’s all from me, it’s been a hard way to keep up with things, and write this blog but hopefully its of use.