Building up scenes with all particles simulating

When creating my scenes I would like to be able to see my particles moving, basically simulating as if I was clicking on it in the hierarchy.

Like in this video:

During the creation, his props are moving through shaders ok but what about the Particle System like the sun shafts?

 

There is no straightforward way to preview all particle systems automatically in the same scene during edit mode because you risk lagging the editor severely when more particle systems are present. The only way to preview a group of particle systems without manually selecting multiple objects is to nest all particle system objects to a same parent object and this parent needs a particle system component as well, just uncheck all modules, emission and renderer especially, then when you select and simulate either particle system, the rest in the same object tree will simulate altogether.

 

Ok thanks for the info ifurkend. Too bad it can't be done. Maybe I can use shaders to move the shafts and other various elements rather than using the particle systems. But it might take more time than it's worth.

 

Cool that's nice I guess I'm doing something wrong in my script then.

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. using System.Collections;
3. using System.Collections.Generic;
4. using UnityEngine;
5.  
6. [ExecuteInEditMode]
7. public class SimulateAllPS : MonoBehaviour
8. {
9.     private readonly List<ParticleSystem> AllParticleSystems = new List<ParticleSystem>();
10.     private float Timer;
11.     public float RefreshPsTime = 10f;
12.     public bool RefreshNow = true;
13.  
14.     void Start ()
15.     {
16.        Timer = 0f;
17.        AllParticleSystems.AddRange(FindObjectsOfType<ParticleSystem>());
18.  
19.        Debug.Log("Start");
20.  
21.        foreach (var ps in AllParticleSystems)
22.        {
23.            //if (ps.isStopped || ps.isPaused)
24.            ps.Simulate(0);
25.  
26.            Debug.Log("Simulating: " + ps);
27.        }
28.     }
29.  
30.     void Update ()
31.     {
32.         Debug.Log("Updating");
33.  
34.         if (RefreshNow)
35.         {
36.             AllParticleSystems.Clear();
37.             AllParticleSystems.AddRange(FindObjectsOfType<ParticleSystem>());
38.  
39.             foreach (var ps in AllParticleSystems)
40.             {
41.                 if (ps.isStopped || ps.isPaused)
42.                     ps.Simulate(0);
43.  
44.                 Debug.Log("Simulating: " + ps);
45.             }
46.         }
47.  
48.      
49.  
50.         //Timer += Time.deltaTime;
51.         //if (Timer > RefreshPsTime)
52.         //{
53.         //    AllParticleSystems.Clear();
54.           // AllParticleSystems.AddRange(FindObjectsOfType<ParticleSystem>());
55.         //}
56.     }
57. }
58.  

I tried a bunch of different ways but my PS are not simulating.

 

Richard, are you sure this is supposed to work?
The particle system seem to advance 1 frame and then stop. We would need to call it every frame, but ExecuteInEditMode only call update when there is a scene change and in this case it gets called only once.
Anybody was able to make it work?
It would be very useful to preview particles all at once in the editor without selecting each.

 

Thank you very much! I am already on 2017.3 so I'll use the latter.
I saw that option before but thought it was something for performance, some sort of particle culling.
Works beautifully now.

 

Hi Richard, going back to this as I am trying to control particles manually in gameplay.
Is there any way to set the time of the particle emittter?
The time property doesn't seem to work, it just continue to play.
And the simulate method seem to play all the particles up to the time given, there is no start time.
I am looking for something like Animator.StartPlayback.
You can seek in editor by moving the time slider, so I guess you have some way.

 

Doesn't work. It seem to render few frames and rewind.
I found some code that set the randomseed property before simulating. If I do that, the parent emitter behave correctly, the child emitter still play when they shouldn't.
Is it a bug? Do I need to set the randomseed of all the child systems?

 

I made a bug report(1010191).
After further digging it seem to make it work you need to set the randomseed property of all the ParticleSystem involved, including children.
I don't think that is the expected behavior.

 

I can't find the Simulate Layers option, I'm on 2017.4.

Where is this option exactly?

Thanks

 

What have you renamed it to?
Will this simulate all of my particles in the scene?

 

Hopping on here to continue the conversation.

I've noticed this 'Simulate Layers' option, and it's useful -- but is there any way to set these layers through code?

For context: Our team's toolset sidesteps default GameObject selection, so when using the tool, our artists are never actually selecting the Particle System. I'd like to set these Simulate Layers automatically when they open the tool.

 

I realize this is an old thread, but I've just found it and got all particles on a prefab simulating during prefab edit-time.

For anyone struggling to get particles smoothly updating with the Simulate method, make sure you call the UnityEditor.SceneView.RepaintAll method each time you update