[question] Particles - draw behind & in-front:

[Bikerdude]

Morning

 

I did have a look for this yesaterday, but can someone remind me what the spawn arg or proceedure is for getting a particle to drawn under the top of another shader/brush/patch?

 

Atm I have a water droplete particle thats appearing through a solid brush and into and under the water next to said brush, see attached image.

 

ta.

 

[Obsttorte]

Do you use a func_emitter or a patch for the particle effect?

[Bikerdude]

Do you use a func_emitter or a patch for the particle effect?

I used several func_emitters.

[Obsttorte]

Try using patches instead. First create a material file with the following shader definition

[i]shader_name_here[/i]
{
deform particle2 [i]particle_name_here[/i]
  qer_editorimage textures/editor/rainsplash //the image to use as editor preview, does not affect ingame rendering
  nonsolid
  noshadows
  {  //needed to emit particles
  blend   filter
  map	  _white
  }
}

Than create patches whichs surfaces are covering the areas where you want the particles to appear. Paste the above texture on them. Note that the texture scale affects how much particles aer spawned.

[Bikerdude]

Grand, I will try that.

[SteveL]

@Obsttorte: nb the [/i]s have been printed in the above snippet.

 

I don't know anything about the pros and cons of using patches vs func emitters for particle generation. Does anyone have a useful link? I haven't found one yet. I'm wondering what's the difference and whether the two methods have a different set of particle effects available or why you'd choose one over the other.

[Bikerdude]

Grand, I will try that.

 

Not working, just getting black flying squares -

 

textures/water_source/Water_splash_test
{
qer_editorimage  textures/particles/droppuddle
deform particle  textures/particles/droppuddle
nonsolid
noshadows
//needed to emit particles
{
  blend   filter
  map	 _white
}
}

[Obsttorte]

deform particle has to point towards a particle, not a material shader!

[Obsttorte]

I don't know anything about the pros and cons of using patches vs func emitters for particle generation. Does anyone have a useful link? I haven't found one yet. I'm wondering what's the difference and whether the two methods have a different set of particle effects available or why you'd choose one over the other.

Patches spawn particles across their surface, func_emitters from one point.

[Bikerdude]

Patches spawn particles across their surface, func_emitters from one point.

but they also spread beyond thier boundries, using the above patch method didnt work.

[Obsttorte]

With spawning I've meant the origin. How far they spread depends on the particle definition.

[Bikerdude]

With spawning I've meant the origin. How far they spread depends on the particle definition.

hence why I was original looking for the draw over spawn arg. Someone did mention it before but I can't find the post with that info or weither it worked.

[Obsttorte]

Doing a quick search in the wiki, the only thing I've found is that it seems that visportals affect particle rendering. If you are on one side of a vp and the particle emitter is on the other side, the vp serves as a blocking wall for those. However, once you've passed the vp it renders in the whole area.

[Bikerdude]

Anyone else remember the thread..? or the args Im refering too..?

[Obsttorte]

IIRC grayman once told me that the engine handles gas arrows in a special way, so that the stim does not go through walls. Maybe this is also true for the gas particle used by this arrow?! So maybe he has a clue.

[grayman]

The gas arrow has special code to keep it from affecting objects on the other side of walls. There's no way I know of to keep the green particle effect from going through walls.

[Bikerdude]

Ok, looks like Im gonna have to try and cut the image used for the dip particle in-half - so its only rendered in one direction.