How to debug particle lights?

MSE_Taliesin · December 4, 2014, 7:53pm

I’m doing a lightning effect, and scaling the effect inside a blueprint. I’m having a hard time seeing any effect from the light on anything at all. I suspect there’s an issue with the position and/or scale of the light in the particle system vs. the scaling of the blueprint (factor of 16x in X, Y, and Z).

Does anyone know if the particle system’s light radius and offset location get multiplied by the scale of its component?

More importantly, is there some sort of console command I can use to view the light in the game? The particle system has a “Preview Light Radius” check box but alas, this only seems to work in the particle system, not in the game.

Lovecraft_K · December 5, 2014, 10:20pm

Hey -

In Cascade in the Light Module make sure that the “Preview Light Radius” and the “B 3DDraw Mode” are checked true. Then under the Setting button in the level editor >> Previewing >> Toggle Particle System Helpers and finally hit G to go into Game mode. Your Light radii should draw for your particle systems now. (Yes, it is a little complicated setup and we have a ticket in to see about simplifying the steps.)

And yes scaling an emitter either directly or through a component will increase everything including the light radius.

Thank You

Eric Ketchum

MSE_Taliesin · December 5, 2014, 11:06pm

Thanks, Eric – Tried that, but I’m still not seeing the debug spheres in the game at all.

Hitting ‘G’ doesn’t seem to toggle game mode (at least, not in 4.5, which we are running right now; we’re too close to our upcoming milestone to upgrade to 4.6 right now).

Is it because I’m using Play > New Editor Window instead of Play > Selected Viewport? Our game doesn’t really work in the editor viewport for various reasons, so we have to use New Editor Window or Standalone Game.

I notice that the light always seems like it’s coming from the origin, even if the lightning particle itself is in the correct position.

Lovecraft_K · December 8, 2014, 7:33pm

Hey -

Just tested again in 4.5.0 and 4.5.1 and both are working as described. Let me run down the steps one by one. This is a debug test so it will not show at all in Game mode only in the editor itself.