Magic Sword Particles - FILES
Added 2020-12-22 13:33:37 +0000 UTCA simple way to make particles spawn on a weapon and leave a trail behind, plus a few fun particle shader variations for magic weapons - because sharp steel isn't deadly enough, it has to do elemental damage as well.
We want the weapon to leave a trail of particles behind when it's moved. But since you'd normally put the pivot point of a weapon at the handle, to make it line up easier for grab attachment, you won't be able to use the Rate Over Distance emission to spawn particles when the weapon is swung (rotated around the pivot) - you'll only get a trail when the weapon is translated. And having just emission over time won't guarantee a nice coverage on large movements.
To adjust for this, we use a mesh emitter (of the blade part of the sword), and offset the particle system (which is a child of the weapon object) to a point where it would register a decent amount of movement from a normal weapon swing (higher up on the weapon), and then counter offset the emission mesh to line it back up with the weapon. This allows us to still use Rate Over Distance and get a nice particle cascade when the weapon is swung.
It doesn't give a perfect rotational velocity across the weapon length, so some particles will move in unrealistic ways, but it's definitely good enough to fake this particular effect, while keeping the system very simple and easy to adjust. No need for additional scripts or trail renderers.
Spawning particles via a mesh emitter is a very useful tool, especially when using vertex colours derived from the mesh colours - helpful for more than just colour too. I'll be playing with that more in the future.
