[Request] How-to for the particle effects editor?

Hello,

I'm taking a passive interest in modding little extensions to this game, and I was toying around with the particle effects editor only to have nothing happen. It's entirely likely that this is just a bug to be ironed out, but it's equally possible that I just have no idea what I'm doing. Some of the fields/switches could do with a lot more explanation. Has anybody gotten it figured out, and would they care to post some kind of a guide for it?

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Heavenfall

Join Date 07/2008

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It is fairly intuitive I think. Nah, just kidding.

My tip is to ignore beams from the start, those are a royal pain in the ass. Focus on emitters.

If you are creating a new effect, you need several fields set to more than 0, startscale endscale particle_lifetime and spawnrate. Those are the most important values. Also increase the "duration" in the left area to more.

My suggestion is to simply load an effect that exists, then modify it until you get a grasp of what each field does.

Some fields that are a bit more tricky to understand:

Render order: I think this is z-index for effects
Render technique: IDK
Visibility mode: IDK
Frames: used for effect textures with multiple effects in one (like 4 different lightning in one). Set to appropriate number to have it randomly choose one
FPS: Same as above except you get a transformation between the multiple effects (dragon's breath) Edit: Looks like it isn't used in-game.
Indefinite: Effect continues as long as as creator exists, otherwise effect fades at end of its duration
Depth Bias: IDK
Animated: IDK
Local Partic...: Effect becomes bound to its creator, if the creator moves or is animated in-game (moving sword) the effect moves identically. Ie does not leave a trail behind.

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I used to mess around a lot with the old particle editor. Some new options here, but still basically the same. Not intuitive at all but quite easy to work with once you get the hang of it. And very powerful.

An explanation of emitters: An emitter shows a certain piece of graphics (a particle), for example a snowflake. You can set how many snowflakes to spawn, where to spawn them, in what direction, for how long etc.

To make an emitter visible, you need the following:

* Create new effect, delete the default emitters.
* Create at least two new emitters (for some reason, seems to be a bug)

For the emitter at the top, click Graphics, then:

* Duration Value. Set it to 5 seconds
* Start scale Value. Set to 10
* Particle life Value. Set to 3
* Spawn rate Value. Set to 10.

Now you can see the emitter working. For some fun:

* Set Emit. Pos X, Y and Z Variation each to 100. The graphic will now spawn randomly within one tile.
* Set Emit. Pos. Y Value to 50 to avoid spawning "under ground".
* Set Acc. X, Y and Z Variation to 100. Particles will now accelerate randomly after spawning.

Tip: "Variation" causes randomness. Very useful.

Render technique: "Additive" gives the particle a glow effect. The XYZ options makes it only visible in two dimensions (it turns flat, not sure what the use is).

Depth Bias: If you have an effect that is close to the ground/terrain, it will be distorted or not visible if is blocked by for example a hill or mountain. Selecting depth bias will move up the effect to the correct level to make it visible.

Example of a tornado effect I did for a WoM mod:

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First of all, your effect is awesome and a half.

Second, It's clear now that the biggest issue was that Start Scale and End Scale were both 0, so my effect never occupied any space.

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