I was wondering if there’s a way to make a particle systems mesh data select from an array of different static meshes, or a way to combine multiple static meshes into one and have the particle system select between which mesh it uses per-particle.
And here’s the particle system itself using only Smoke_03.
Is this something I can do by somehow making a static mesh that contains all the shapes and letting the effect decide which ones are visible, like a bodygroups deal? Or can I control something like this through a blueprint?
I appreciate any help with this!
Is that the only solution? When I was working in the source engine I was able to compile a model with submodels so each submodel was a different mesh, then I could remap the submodel number to anything else and make it randomly choose a different mesh per-particle. It was really useful for making varied looking effects
If you don’t want to do that then you could have a single, somewhat dense sphere as your mesh and use vector displacement textures to deform it to different shapes. The way to generate such textures depends on your 3D application, here is how it’s done in Modo: Vector Displacement - YouTube
EDIT: I mean that you can have multiple displacement textures in a texture atlas and use a particle property (like particle color’s Red component) to control which one is applied to the sphere.
To add to that, each mesh in cascade is a drawcall, and you could achieve what you want with one or two of those meshes, and just add scale, rotation, and rotation rate to them.
That’s a shame that it’s not possible by default, thanks anyway. Also thanks for posting here! I wish I had known about your work earlier! All the videos of you actually building your effects are so helpful!!
Aw, that’s a shame. Thank you for the help though, I’ll try out the displacement method sometime.
I wish there was a way to use multiple meshes in the same way that the sprites are randomized when using a subuv method, but thank you anyway!