Feature request: Particle trimming

no idea if there's an actual place for feature requests? Anywho, I love unity. I use ue3 daily for work, play with ue4, but Unity is my fav hands down. I love all the work going into the new particle and shader editors, and think it would be the perfect time to implement a particle trimming option for particle sprites. As you can see, there's a lot of overdraw here (attached image)

A particle trimming option within the shader editor could easily reduce these huge sections of unused geo! An absolutely great option for those looking to optimize their games.

Anyway, hope this is in the right place. I know the bright minds at Unity could easily slap a feature like this into the new shader tool ; )

 

Do you mean "clip"? If it doesn't exist you can create a custom node that just applies clip to it.

 

Use better art, and use a mesh instead of square quads. If you are talking about sprites, that happens already.

 

Indeed, especially for mobile games it can be a massive win against overdraw.
http://www.humus.name/index.php?ID=266
There it’s explained very well. It would be awesome to have a tool like that within unity... something that creates a trim description for a texture.
I have seen even implementations working with spritesheets: depending on the frame the particle it’s at, the shape gets reconfigured.

 

Unity's VFX system has options to use an octagon if you want, so that's a practical example for it. As for more, perhaps post on the VFX feedback thread ?