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effect_editor
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Effect Editor
The Effect Editor allows you to create visual particle effects for your game, like fire, rain, snow, fountains, sparks, and so much more! While the large number of settings may seem intimidating at first, creating effects is quite simple! The table below contains a list of properties that can be changed for an effect and a brief description of each one. While this table can be helpful to generally understand all of the available settings, it's recommended to try them out yourself in the Effect Editor.
The best way to achieve a certain look for an effect is to go through each setting one at a time and change its value to see how the particles are affected. Play around and don't be afraid to experiment, and, most importantly, have fun!
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| Emitting | Determines whether or not the particles are emitting by default. This can be turned off if you want an effect to be disabled when the game first starts or when added via the Add Effect scripting function. Effects can be enabled and disabled via the Enable Effect and Disable Effect scripting functions. |
| One Shot | When enabled, the effect will only trigger once instead of being continuous (e.g. sparks flying out of a machine when it starts). The Enable Effect scripting function must be used to trigger a one shot effect in-game. |
| Local Space | When enabled, the movement of the effect's particles will be relative to the parent object's local space and therefore not affected by global gravity. |
| Preprocessing Time | Amount of time in seconds that the particles should be processed in advance. This is useful for effects like rain and snow, as it can be used to prevent the player from seeing the particles start to fall when the map first loads. |
| Speed Scale | Speed of the particles. The value acts as a multiplier, so a value of 1 is their original speed, while 0.5 is half their original speed. |
| Explosiveness | Determines how many of the total particles (defined by “Particle Amount” setting below) are emitted at once. The default is 0, in which case the particles are emitted at regular intervals over the lifetime of the effect, while a value of 1 will cause all particles to be emitted simultaneously in one burst. |
| Fixed FPS | When set to a value greater than 0, the particles will be rendered with a fixed frame rate (FPS = frames per second). For example, a value of 15 means the particles will be rendered at 15 frames per second. A value of 0 means the frame rate will not be fixed. |
| Particle Amount | Total number of particles that will be emitted over the lifetime of the effect (see “Lifetime” setting below). |
| Lifetime | Length of time in seconds that each particle will be visible before disappearing. |
| Emission Shape | Shape of the area from which the particles will be emitted, either point, box, or sphere. To see examples of each of these (in that order), check out the “Fountain”, “Flame”, and “Portal” effect presets. |
| Particle Shape | Shape of the particles, either cube, sphere, or billboard. For the billboard option, an image can be selected to use for the billboard sprite. |
| Start Color | Color of the particles when they are first emitted. Alpha values are supported, allowing the particles to be made transparent. |
| End Color | Color of the particles at the end of their lifetime (i.e. right before they disappear). Alpha values are supported, allowing the particles to be made transparent. If this is different than the start color, the particles will gradually change from the start color to the end color over their lifetime. |
| Unshaded | Determines whether or not the particles are unshaded/unlit. When enabled, the particles will be unaffected by lighting (i.e. full bright regardless of the map's lighting). |
| Start Scale | Size of the particles when they are first emitted. The value acts as a multiplier, so a value of 1 is their original size, while 2 is double their original size. |
| End Scale | Size of the particles at the end of their lifetime (i.e. right before they disappear). If this is different than the start scale, the particles will gradually change from the start scale to the end scale over their lifetime. |
| Direction | Direction in which the particles are emitted. Each axis (X, Y, Z) can be set to either 0 or 1 (off or on). |
| Gravity | Amount of gravitational force applied to the particles in each axis (X, Y, Z). |
| Spread | Spread of the particles, with 0 being none and 180 being in all directions. For example, changing the “Flame” effect preset's spread to 180 will make it appear more like an explosion. |
| Flatness | Limits the spread of the particles along the Z-axis. |
| Initial Velocity | Initial speed of the particles when they're emitted. |
| Linear Acceleration | Refer to the "Linear Acceleration" section here. |
| Radial Acceleration | Refer to the "Radial Acceleration" section here. |
| Tangential Acceleration | Refer to the "Tangential Acceleration" section here. |
| Rotate Z | When enabled, the particles will rotate around the Z-axis. The higher the “Angle” setting, the more they will rotate. See the “Portal” effect preset for an example of this. |
effect_editor.1745687460.txt.gz · Last modified: 2025/04/26 10:11 by justin
