How to create bullet tracer particle effect?

I am trying to create a bullet tracer effect for my instant-fire weapons. I am assuming this should be done as a particle system, however I can’t seem to figure out how to do it.

A similar effect can be seen here:

How can this be done?

Hey Giovannini -

I just posted a projectile Visual Effects Tutorial on the wiki site, A new, community-hosted Unreal Engine Wiki - Announcements - Unreal Engine Forums , I go briefly into a solid bullet trail but with some minor modifications to the emissive elements of the Material and shortening of the ribbon in Cascade you could successfully reproduce the effect Tom Looman has.

Thank You

Eric Ketchum

I realize this comment is >1 year old but thanks so much for the info. Could you possibly elaborate on how to shorten the ribbon as well as a general idea of how to modify the emissive element? I am pretty terrible at understanding these material blueprints even after reading through some tutorials.

Hi -

The length of the ribbon can be controlled by the lifetime of the particle system in the required module. Remember that these should be quick effects, so a lifetime of 1 is really long for a gunshot.

Assuming you setup your material and particle like I have in the tutorial then all you would need to do it increase the Initial Color settings to a higher value and that will translate into a more emissive (“brighter”) trail.

In Tom Looman’s youtube linked above, I assume that he is spawning multiple particles in rapid succession with a very high value Emissive setting as mentioned above and a very short ribbon effect.

Thank You

Eric Ketchum

this took me to some useless comment, where is the effect shown?

Hey! After coming here for advice I found this tutorial that was less than a minute long and it’s super easy to understand! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXPSNIak64Y