Resolved How do I define custom, per-particle attributes?

My use case is for a sword impact visual effect where each strike can vary in strength. My intention was to initialize this attribute's value based on an event payload sent via a C# script, then to use it throughout the graph to tune various aspects of the slash graphic depending on how "strong" the attack that caused the slash was.

I know that in the unity 2023 alpha there's a new visual effect graph feature called the attribute blackboard, which seem like it does what I want, but I'd rather not upgrade from an LTS version, much less to an alpha if I don't have to (I'm currently on 2022.3). The wording of this feature's description is a bit ambiguous about whether having custom attributes was otherwise possible before, so I'd just like to know if there's a workaround or if I really have to wait for this feature to land in a stable, long term support version of unity before I can feel confident using it.

Edit: I should add, it's important that this value be set on a per-particle basis since it's possible for multiple strikes of varying strength to be visible at once, so a property wouldn't cut it.

 

Hi. This attributes blackboard seems to just be a thing that make the use of custom attributes easier, but doesn't really add any new functions.
Why don't you use an exposed propertie that you set through C# ? Then depending of this value, create different behaviour with some logic.

 

Because, as my edit says, using a property would affect existing particles as well.

 

Ah, yes, I figured it out. I had to enable experimental features in order to be able to use the CustomAttribute nodes. Cool that this isn't mentioned anywhere in the documentation, but hey, at least I ended up figuring it out on my own.

For future reference, this is what you want to enable once you installed the visual effects package: