Making Particle systems self-collide

Hi there, I’m trying to make a particle system, however I would like the particles to pile up on top of each other when they hit the ground. How would I go about doing this?

Hello, TeamQuest,

As far as I know, it is not possible. The particle system collision is not a real collision in the sense that it is not using the bounds or collision of your mesh, but faking it by using the coordinates of the center of the particle and checking if that is colliding with something else. So you will not see your particles colliding with each other because they are just single point coordinates moving around and there is never a check for the collision any component of the mesh.

Check the 8:05 mark on this video for an explanation:

If you want objects piling on each other, what you could do is make a volume that spawns actors of a certain class, that have physics enabled. Then they will bounce and pile at each other. Those actors could be set to die at a certain time by using a timeline (faking a particle life), by taking damage (so they die after a certain number of bounces, like in the particle system) or be killed by another blueprint after they reach a certain count or they are not visible to the player anymore.

It will of course be less performant than a particle system, but it does have real collision, and depending on the number of particles and the platform you are targeting, it can work.

All the best.