Adding smoke emitter on object
I've been trying to make a small decoration mod that adds a variant of the new fan buildable. It's supposed to emit smoke, but the Development Guide doesn't really cover that so if anyone could point me in the right direction, I'd really appreciate it.
13 Replies
Particle systems should be covered pretty thoroughly by the UE docs. Not sure if there's anything special Satisfactory is doing, @AngryBeaver might know. It's worth noting that the starter project doesn't have stubs for particles, you'll have to make them (our docs cover how to make new stubs)
SF isn't doing anything special with them.
Could lightweight instances still have particle emitters? 99% sure no
Allright, thank you. I will take a look and see if I can manage to do it. Since this is my first time ever touching UE in this way I wasnt quite sure. I tried to look at the Nuclear Power Plant to se if I could find some sort of emitter or varible that was realted to smoke/exhuast. I didnt really find somethig I though was usefull.
I assume every building which has a smoke effect has a emitter placed at said location and a variable that can activate it during certian conditions, like burning fuel. Is that correct?
Probably, but they might be on the decoration and not the real machine (decoration only spawned while you're close to it, think it's a separate actor)
100% no
Alright I'll check it out
You can create your own Niagara particle system from a default fountain emitter with a custom sprite material and then use
Spawn System Attached node in the Begin Play.
Something like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV_NOql9hMw.Dean Ashford
YouTube
UE4 | UE5 - Tutorial - Simple Smoke / Steam Niagara!
https://www.wingfox.com/c/8518_17163_10185
Use code WF25 at checkout for an extra 25% off!
Ssssssmokin'!
Files: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19jNWRW5cuoe7XCWEDCs73P2HpMnjUd3I?usp=sharing
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/deanashford
Discord: https://discord.gg/ttqYq3r
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Play_Ruff
00:00 - Intro
00:08 - ...
I looked up existing particle systems in FModel. You can try creating stubs for them in the starting project and reusing them.
Power Storage emits a light smoke when charging, found at
FactoryGame/Content/FactoryGame/VFX/Factory/PowerStorage/NiagaraSystem/NS_PowerStorage_SteamExhaust
Don't remember what this VFX looks like in game but its name sounds like maybe: FactoryGame/Content/FactoryGame/Buildable/Factory/GeneratorGeoThermal/Particle/NiagaraSystem/NS_GeoThermalSteam
And here's a particle system of a Nuclear Generator's smoke: FactoryGame/Content/FactoryGame/VFX/Factory/Generator_Nuclear/NS_NuclearPowerStationExhaustSmoke
Take a look inside of FactoryGame/Content/FactoryGame/VFX/ in FModel, might find more useful stuff. Assets starting with NS_ are Niagara [Particle] Systems.Niagara is a bit funky, but for something as simple as smoke from the fan setting it up is rather easy if you just use one of built in presets and alter its values
Lithium mod is open source and it uses Niagara to add smoke into one of the buildings
In case you need fan to turn on and off, there is a problem that Unreal Engine didn't implement the way to enable/disable particle emitters, so I had to bind particle rate to a boolean
Doesn't deactivating a Niagara system work? You can use Activate Component node to turn it on manually later after spawning it and I haven't tried it, but there's also a Deactivate Component node.
Yeah, but it works as long as your system doesn't have multiple emitters
And I believe it would despawn particles
Oh, you're talking about disabling separate emitters in a system, got it.