Question Improving efficiency by getting Get/SetParticles working

Hi - have a particle system that draws pictures with still particles, and I refresh these pictures periodically. However, I've only ever been able to make them from my position arrays using EmitParams and Emit and calling this for one particle at a time. However, this is now proving too inefficient with 1000s of particles. I've often tried to get Get/SetParticles so that I can create many at a time, but have never been able to get it to work. I'd appreciate a nudge in the right direction so i can finally bring up the project's efficiency. I did note this thread that demonstrates it's possible, but am not sure how to fix what I have below.

Currently the script below produces particles but all at 0,0,0, instead of their correct positions. I have sanity checked the positions array and particle positions - they are correct, but the particles are not rendered at those positions.

Code (CSharp):

1. public void CreateParticles(Vector3[] particlePositions, float[] particleTransparencies, Color32 color)
2.    {
3.  
4.        for (int i = 0; i < particlePositions.Length; i++)
5.        {
6.            if (i > _maxParticles)
7.                break;
8.      
9.            color.a = (byte) (particleTransparencies * 255);
10.  
11.            var particle = _particles;
12.            particle.position = particlePositions;
13.            particle.startLifetime = _maxValue;
14.            particle.startColor = color;
15.            _particles = particle;
16.      
17.        }
18.  
19.        if (_particles.Length > particlePositions.Length)
20.        {
21.            for (var j = 0; j + particlePositions.Length < _particles.Length; j++)
22.            {
23.                _particles[j + particlePositions.Length].remainingLifetime = -1;
24.                _particles[j + particlePositions.Length].startLifetime = 1;
25.            }
26.        }
27.        _particleSystem.SetParticles(_particles);
28.        _particleSystem.Emit(_particles.Length);
29.    }

 

Why not just use instanced drawing if you are having such a headache from particles? Doesn't sound like you really need the particle effects anyway?

 

Thanks @joshuacwilde - perhaps that is a good idea. The particles are a range of little hand drawn hatch marks that I scanned - it gives the image a hand-drawn feel. Is something like this possible with instanced drawing? I'll explore instancing further...