Ultimate VFX - Massive Visual Effects and Particle System Collection

I keep getting these debug error messages in the console whenever I use the VFX effects on my map and zoom all the way out ... is this coming from your stuff?

Code (csharp):

1.  
2. IsNormalized (normal, 0.001f)
3.  

Cheers.

 

Nope, none of my scripts should be printing anything.

 

Cool, must be coming from something else then. Thanks!

 

Hi Mirza,

I want to Change your "pf_vfx-ult_particle_perpetual_digger".

I want to have it in form of a cube, and a Little bit larger than my cube.

I reduced size with your particle scaler until it had the correct size (was way too large before). Worked perfect.

Now I want it to have the form of a cube and a very Little bit larger spawning area.

So I changed all sub-particles like this:



But no matter how I Change the Box values under "Shape" it still has the same size and appears to be a sphere still.
Of Course I used the apply button. The changes are saved in the prefab. But nothing seems to Change. What am I doing wrong?

By the way if you search for more new ideas: a particle prefab would be nice, if somebody falls into a ground, which quick Pops up some dirt Cloud then which slowly goes down again. Could be useful for others too?
And falling water Drops would be nice (like a mini waterfall).
And of Course Magic spell effects

Thanks a lot,

Firlefanz

 

It may be that the box size is too small. I'm not sure how the scale of your project is set up. To increase the spawn area, increase the values in there (currently I see, (1, 1, 1)).

I can definitely make a footsteps/dirt cluster prefab!

 

That does not seem to work. I set to 2, apply in my prefab and nothing happens.
And the spawning-shape still Looks like a sphere...

 

Hi @MirzaBeig,

I downloaded the free Inferno VFX pack today and want to say thanks for giving such a top quality asset away for free. It is very nice and appreciated.

Just a quick clarification please. Is the `shuriken to spritesheet` asset a completely separate asset to the `UVFX pack` or is it included in it?

Also do you see a performance gain on mobile using the shuriken to spritesheet?

Thanks again

doc

 

Can you save the modified prefab and post it here? Just the prefab (without textures, materials, scripts, etc.) is enough since I only want to look at the settings.

Glad you like it! Shuriken to Spritesheet is indeed a completely different asset than UVFX. The performance gain depends on the original complexity of your effect before it's baked. If you had a lot of particles + overdraw, and then you bake that into a spritesheet to use as a single particle emission, the gain should be significant.

The demo video may clarify exactly how it works.

 

Hi Mirza,

thanks a lot for investigating

Here it is:

www.magicstorm.de/download/pf_vfx-ult_particle_perpetual_digger.prefab
www.magicstorm.de/download/pf_vfx-ult_particle_perpetual_digger.prefab.meta

Have a nice sunday!

 

It's a quality asset. Will be getting the shuriken spritesheet as soon as some funds come through. I have a number of uses for my current game.

Any advice on how to use the pack to simulate waterfalls, underwater bubbles, and also dust clouds generated by large moving objects would be appreciated as they are the most needed for my game.

Thanks

 

I don't have the spritesheet thingie yet. Every time I think of an effect I want to do, it's more of a 3D effect and this tool doesn't seem to apply. I know it will be very useful for the right sorts of effects, though.

 

I am thinking thinking that a waterfall effect may be made using the generated sprites but rotated randomly or even towards camera. Similar to grass textures on the terrain. A lot of them together may produce the desired effect at a better overhead. Only guessing though.

 

The more I think about the waterfall use the less I think it will work. I do have a load of other uses for the asset though on my current project. Very decent product this.

 

@Firlefanz73



Your local positions for the particle system game objects are fine, but the parent has this scale which is affecting the scale of the emitters. The local scales are multiplied by the parent object scale, which is why you're having the issue.

@docsavage

If you have some (pref. video) examples of those bubbles, waterfall, etc. I can try and replicate them and do some tests with baking to see what sort of difference it makes.

 

Hi MirzaBeig, This is very generous of you to offer. The nearest thing I have seen to the waterfall effect is actually a water version of the particle 18 magma 1 in your inferno pack. Very nice.

 

Interesting you should say that! The majority of that package was actually made as a test for Shuriken to Spritesheet before it was released. If you go back a few pages you can see I mention that process with pre-release screens.

It's also the reason why on the asset store page for Inferno VFX you see on the image panel, "Made with Ultimate VFX Particle Pack v1.5". I used UVFX to create some effects and baked them with an older version of Shruken to Spritesheet.

So, that waterfall is actually a result of baking a spritesheet animation and then having animated particles flowing down.

 

Thanks for the hint. But after Setting it to 1 1 1 there is no Change at all...
Is the Scaling or Shape somehow overwritten in the source Code?

 

Nothing in the code affects that. But as of Unity 5.3 particles can be scaled in Unity using either the hierarchy scale or other things. I think something else in your project is causing this problem.

Here's what it looks like with the original scale:



And with uniform 1.

 

Good Point! I found it, thanks

 

Good to know as they are really nice effects and the fps counter is running well.

 

Hello Mirza,

I just downloaded the public unity 5.4 beta.
I cannot compile because of some Errors now in your DepthOfField.cs:


Assets/Mirza Beig/_assets/Unity/Standard Assets/Effects/ImageEffects/Scripts/DepthOfField.cs(92,74): error CS0117: `UnityEngine.ComputeBufferType' does not contain a definition for `IndirectArguments'


Assets/Mirza Beig/_assets/Unity/Standard Assets/Effects/ImageEffects/Scripts/DepthOfField.cs(92,92): error CS1502: The best overloaded method match for `UnityEngine.ComputeBuffer.ComputeBuffer(int, int, UnityEngine.ComputeBufferType)' has some invalid Arguments


Assets/Mirza Beig/_assets/Unity/Standard Assets/Effects/ImageEffects/Scripts/DepthOfField.cs(92,92): error CS1503: Argument `#3' cannot convert `object' expression to type `UnityEngine.ComputeBufferType'

Could you please have a look at it? Thanks

PS:
Changing
cbDrawArgs=newComputeBuffer(1,16,ComputeBufferType.IndirectArguments);
to
cbDrawArgs=newComputeBuffer(1,16,ComputeBufferType.DrawIndirect);
seems to help.

 

Just delete Assets/Mirza Beig/_assets/Unity/Standard Assets/Effects/ImageEffects and instead import the Image Effects that come with Unity 5.4 beta.

 

^Exactly what Manny said. In the next version I plan on publishing without any external assets, including the Standard Assets image effects since it just adds clutter more than anything else.

EDIT:

Cleanup in-progress.



No more external assets.

 

Hello,

for your Info:

The new 5.40b11 does it itself (refresh the Standard assets) and now works without Problems.
But the particels I use look different somehow, seems like they are spawning one same positions often and not spread randomly like before... or less randomly.

 

Thanks for letting me know. I haven't tested with the 5.4 beta yet. If something like that changed and it's not in the release notes, maybe it's a bug? I'm holding off on upgrading even though I was looking forward to this update because I've seen a few complaints. But I am running the latest stable build and everything is fine on my end with v5.3.4f1.

 

I have both 3.4 and 5.4 beta installed, it seems to be on 5.4 only or after conversion maybe.
I'll Keep an eye on it, thanks for the info.

Ideas for new particles: desert storm, snow storm, falling on a dry ground makes some fast partlicle-cloud...

Have a nice Weekend

 

Fixing the scale and lighting for all the prefabs for the v2.1 release. I'll try to remember to add some of the suggestions posted here as well beforehand!



This should be following the standard Unity scale, where Ethan (the Unity character above) is about 150cm not including his weird hair (4'11?). The long thing to the left is a stack of two cubes, each 1 unit high.

I don't think I was too familiar with the scale during the time of the original release since I wasn't working with humanoid characters, hence why I'm fixing it this late.

 

Done going through every single prefab and fixing the scale manually. I've added some improvements along the way.



v2.1 is almost ready for uploading. Just need to do some final quality checks because I realized some materials are missing in a clean import test (picture above).





I should be publishing tomorrow night, or over the weekend.

 

The update is now ready for owners to try out early as I'm putting in some more prefabs (as per the requests made so far). Just send me an email as always or PM me.

@Firlefanz73's desert storm:




Animated GIF ("dusty3"): gfycat.com/UnrealisticGleefulGuppy

Animated GIF ("desertStorm"): http://gfycat.com/SolidKlutzyEarwig
Animated GIF ("desertStorm2"): gfycat.com/TestySeveralBluebird

 

The desert storm looks great! Thanks for that.

I'll sent an E-Mail

 

Sent! There's also a small note about how to get that body drop dust effect which is a "hidden" prefab (not showcased in the demo scene). Snow storm is also there in both the main showcase scene and as several versions in the STORM expansion.

I just finalized everything and did a fresh import test. I've set all individual sprite textures to a maximum of 1024 in the texture importer, and spritesheets to 4096. Several of the textures are still larger than this, but it saves on import time, totaling about ~8min. while also browsing around and doing other things on my laptop.

Mipmaps and transparency settings have been turned off to further facilitate this as was mentioned a while back after the release of v2.0. Also, no more external assets are included, Standard or otherwise, but the image effect scripts are still attached in case you have them already imported so you can see the demo scenes with those.

I've also tested the package on both 5.1 and 5.3.4 and everything is intact (minus the missing features of 5.1 such as animated mesh particles).

 

v2.1 was released a few days ago!

I really want to push forward with the standalone releases of the already-included expansion packs before making more, but without ready access to Photoshop I have trouble creating "non-ugly" key images for the asset store, haha. In case anyone is wondering, I use Pixlr as an alternative, but it's just not the same.

Still also have that backlog for updating Inferno VFX to conform to the UVFX hierarchy and naming scheme, as well as throwing in some minor updates for Shuriken to Spritesheet.

Well, either way, I'm always open for more prefabs suggestions. =D

EDIT:

Forgot to mention one more [sort of exciting?] thing: I've started experimenting with Particle Playground now after purchasing it a while back when it was on sale. I have some new effects ready that should work standalone without the plugin once I create presets out of them and they look really nice with the turbulence. Will add screenshots and gifs later!

 

+1 for Particle Playground.

 

@MirzaBeig
I recently purchased your asset to use as fullscreen background effects in a mobile quiz game. I couldnt find any documentation regarding available partciles and i see only 4 prefabs in loop-mobile (2.0 version).
Can you please tell me where are mobile related particles which i can use as fullscreen effects?

 

There's a readme explaining how to easily locate prefabs in the root if you're looking for those.





The mobile particles you see are the only ones that are available, but you can re-purpose any of the other prefabs with some tweaking on your own (swapping out shaders, lowering particle counts, etc.) if you know how to do that. If not, let me know by pointing out the ones you're interested in the most and I can do it for you!

 

Thanks for your reply, i hopefully check all the non-mobile BUT looping particles tonight and let you know.
Can you please tell me meanwhile how can i use them as fullscreen? for example whatever the android device is particles always appear covering whole screen area.

 

It should be as simple as just scaling the particle until it covers the whole screen in the editor. If you go to Windows -> Mirza Beig -> Particle Scaler, you can use that. And if you're using the version of Unity which allows you to just scale the particles with the transform tool, you can use that, too (although you may have to change the settings of each system to allow for hierarchical scaling).

 

@MirzaBeig
Using Particle Scale seems like a static/fixed scaling which may show in small screen but not in large. What should i do

 

Assuming you're using a straight render with a perspective camera, you'll want to watch the aspect ratio and manually set the scale accordingly (through a script). The easiest way to do this would be setting the transform scale with particles configured in Unity 5.3 and higher to scale based on that.

 

I want to use it in a 2d game as an animated background. Camera is orthographic.
Can you provide an example script?

 

Hi guys,
I've been trying for a few hours to change the alpha color of my particleSystem at runtime.
I use the "Random Between two Colors" option so I can't really change the startColor.

I tried a lot of things like changing the tintColor of materials ("_Color","_SpecColor","_EmissionColor", etc) didn't worked.
I tried it on the ParticleSystemRenderer and the Renderer. Nothing worked.

Could anyone tell me how to do it?

Thanks

 

I can, but I'll have to test for this later.

 

I think what you're looking for is "_TintColor" as far as the material goes.



But the correct way of doing it would be to get all the particles and then assign their alpha to whatever you'd like.

Code (CSharp):

1. // The alpha you want to assign the particles.
2.  
3. float particleAlpha = 0.4f;
4.  
5. // Put this in Start:
6.  
7. ParticleSystem ps = GetComponent<ParticleSystem>();
8.  
9. // And this in Update:
10.  
11. ParticleSystem.Particle[] particles = new ParticleSystem.Particle[ps.particleCount];
12. ps.GetParticles(particles);
13.  
14. for (int i = 0; i < particles.Length; i++)
15. {
16.    Color particleColour = particles[i].color;
17.  
18.     particleColour.a = particleAlpha;
19.     particles[i].startColor = particleColour;
20. }
21.  
22. ps.SetParticles(particles, particles.Length);

I haven't tested this, but this is why it should work.

 

Alright waiting then

 

Thanks Mirza. The _TintColor's perfect for what I'm doing.

 

Hello,

I am using some particles of this great pack. But not all.
Can anybody tell me, how I can find out, which of the textures from the pack are used in my Scene and which I can delete? Or do I have to Control each single particle I use and ist components? Thanks!

 

This should be able to sort out what is and isn't used in your project, but it tends to not be very reliable. Or maybe it's just me

 

Thanks for the hint. If I use it on the textures, it marks everything. If I use it one the particle prefabs I get a large texture of everything. It does not help this way, but thanks a lot!

 

I don't know what normal people do, but one approach is to have your particle plugin(s) in a separate project, develop your FX, then export the FX you want in your main project, with dependencies. Import those FX and their dependencies into your main project, plug them in where they need to go, and build.

This should bring in just what you need to run those FX.

 

Considering how selecting the dependencies doesn't seem to be working, this seems like a normal and sensible alternative

Especially with large packages, it probably comes in handy.