Hello everyone
Hello everyone, this is Professor Ok-hee Cho from Sangmyung University
Who will be in charge of introducing and using Unreal Engine third-party solutions
This time, we will take a look at
The introduction of Niagara VFX
Which can be said to be a feature as powerful as metahumans in Unreal
Niagara has been quite an issue
so you may have heard of it
Most 3D or 2D graphic programs
will have a feature called effects
By effects I mean the ones you might think of like fire or the sparkles on the surface of water
One thing essential to effects is the concept of particles
Small particles move to make it look like there is a flame
or give the impression of water
For things like water, of course you could
make some Materials move around instead of using particles
But Niagara has powerful features
That allow you to make basically any effect
like fire, water, or smoke
It's a particle of sorts
A powerful feature that can make particle effects
In older Unreal versions, it was called by a different name
I will introduce the older ones as well
Just by learning about Niagara, even if you are a beginner
you'll be able to produce high quality results
and not have to buy effects from the marketplace
I really have to make it clear
that learning about Niagara
is one of the shortcuts to gaining Unreal skills fast
What is on screen right now
Is an example image of Niagara from Unreal
Sparkly effects like those
always show up in animations
as well as video games
In the case of games, a lot of MMORPGs
will give that kind of sparkle effect when you use magic
along with some musical sound effects
Or if you take a certain action, like a kicking attack
Or swinging a sword
That's called a sword trail
It's used to make the light effect
in sword trails
They are everywhere in games
In the past, when there was a separation between
the graphical part and programming part of development
there would be someone who specializes in effects
and someone else would do modeling, and another would do textures
And rendering, all of those tasks were distributed among people
But nowadays there are engines for creating games
so someone else can make the effects
And the developer can just get those effects
and put them where they need in their game
You can tell Niagara when to show which effects
For example, if a certain asset does a certain action
If a specific sword is being swung
You can set light effects to start following it around
the moment it starts swinging
Or you can set flames to burst from the sword
after a bit of delay
And the way it's set up
makes it so, so easy to edit
It is a program completely optimized for game development
All of the effects you have seen in video games
In the past they were created one by one
Set up all of the particles
And use 2D image sprites for sparkly effects
to make it look more 3D
Effects were an extremely complicated and labor-intensive field
Nowadays in Unreal, you can just use Niagar
and you can create commercial level effects
better than any you would find on the marketplace
with your own hands
Before we begin, you should think about it for a moment
Especially if you have used Unreal
even if you haven't tried using Niagara
What are some effects that are not the movement of an asset
or a character's actions
or effects with some preset inputs?
Those would be sparkles, explosions
or whirlwinds
Debris spreading from an exploding building
It doesn't have to be that big
A little firecracker popping on a table
Effects like those
How could you make them?
How can you render effects like those in Unreal?
What menu do you use?
You should think about that
as you start this lesson
We will look at four things today
First is what Niagara VFX does
and its functions
By the way, of course Niagara is hard at the extra high-quality level
But even the bottom line quality is pretty high
Even if you don't plan on using Unreal
If you want to study 3D or effects for video games
You should give Niagara a try
because you can make so many amazing things with it
Next we will take a look at the layout and functions of Niagara Editor
Next, because properties are very important for particles
and they vary greatly by program
After Effects and Premiere also have particles
But you have to study how their menus work to use them
In Niagara, you can choose from a bunch of modules
Whether you want the particles to spin like a tornado
Or spread all over the place like a fountain
There are settings like that
And ways to control the simulation
The number and speed of particles
They are all made really easy to set up
It will look a bit complicated at first
But I will give you a breakdown of the menu
I also highly recommend trying it out yourself as you watch the lesson
And so, once a Niagara effect is created
you can apply it wherever you want
as if you were applying Materials
Like Materials, Niagara can be created and stored to use later
You can make it move
or follow a character around
You can mix it with other effects
Each Niagara effect is a kind of asset
You can even integrate it with Unreal Engine Materials
We will also take a look at that as well
Concept of Niagara VFX and the Layout and Functions of Niagara Editor
Now we will look at what Niagara VFX is meant to do
and what its functions are
This is something I made for this lesson
It's not Niagara, but Cascade
Something important is
Niagara became popular and started to be used a lot
when Unreal was at version 5.0
What Cascade is
is the particle system for Unreal
before Niagara came along
You could create fire with it, make water
smoke effects, all of the effects
It was especially used to make smoke and fire effects
When you are playing a game
you will notice torches
or fires lit on both sides inside caves
Some games just rendered flames with a texture
Other games put a 2D image there
and made it move around slightly
And some games had realistic looking flames
Nowadays you would
make fire effects in a moment's notice with Niagara
But when Niagara didn't exist yet and you were developing games using Unreal
When you needed fire effects, you would go to Cascade
An important thing is right now on the marketplace
if you purchase some particle effects related to fire or water
it might turn out to be a Cascade effect
Niagara is much more prevalent now
But this could very likely happen, which is why you need to know about Cascade
There are also plugins
that allow you to convert effect between Cascade and Niagara
So it is important to know about Cascade before you study Niagara
In Unreal Engine's old particle system
Naturally the interface changes a bit depending on the version
Cascade is of course a good system
But Niagara is so much more simple
and you can do more in a given time
So Niagara is a much more efficient upgrade of Cascade
You could think of it that way
It is very similar to Cascade, though
Using Niagara, you can more directly
see and edit the engine's variables
Because you can see and make changes to
the particles, their speed, and gravity, et cetera
By accessing more engine-level data
you are able to make it create more complex effects
That is why Niagara is such a good system
That is a good way to think of Niagara
But I did say that you should at least know about Cascade
So this is the Cascade interface
I will show you the Niagara interface later
And you will notice
that it is much more simple
So, on the top is the menu bar, and right below it is the toolbar
Niagara doesn't really need toolbars
you just have to pay attention to the emitter
which is why I am showing you cascade, so you can notice the improvements
Then there is the Viewport panel
which is a visualization of the effect itself
It is the interface through which you can see the effect you are making
If it looks like water, fire, or smoke
Next, number four is the emitter panel
Emitters also exist in Niagara
Whatever kind of particles they are
particles have to appear from somewhere
in order for an effect to occur
A location where the particles
can be emitted from
That is what an emitter is
It is very important in effects
The emitter panel is here is very large
In contrast, as you will see later
Niagara's emitter panel is much simpler
Next are all of the details
Things like number of particles
or whether to apply Materials
Those settings can be adjusted in the Details panel
Next is the Curve Editor
Through the Curve editor you can adjust speed
And other parameters beside that
That was the how the interface
of Cascade looks
Niagara was only made possible
Because Cascade existed before it
That is something you should remember
Now we will look at what Niagara VFX does
and what its functions are
The Niagara VFX system is a powerful tool
for creating and controlling visual effects in Unreal Engine
Just by creating a default emitter
and tweaking a few settings, you can get a sparkle effect
And another important thing
We learned about Materials in Unreal
If you use Emissive Color in Materials
you can make a light effect
with just one color
If you set that Material
as the Material of a particle in Niagara
And the hundreds and thousands of particles
will act as a light
So if you know some basic stuff
about Materials and how Niagara works
You can make an effect that looks like a swarm of fireflies
The more you try it, the easier and exciting it becomes
Niagara is a program
that makes you feel
that visual effects is not that hard
Niagara does work on versions as early as 4.27
It was introduced pretty later on
And it was designed to replace
the existing Cascade particle system
That is what Niagara is
Cascade is a good program
I keep comparing the two
because I really want to stress that
Cascade came first
And Niagara, based on Cascade, is a more efficient and effective upgrade
The main goal of the Niagara system
is to give the user
more detailed control of the particle system
And to make it easier to create
more complicated and dynamic visual effects
That is the goal of the Niagara system
Now let's take a look at
the main functions and features of Niagara VFX
Niagara has a modular structure
You should understand modular
for example, as if it were
a very complex drawer
but you can open and close just the parts you need
That is how you control Niagara
What? You need gravity or physics?
Just set up those modules
If you need to adjust speed?
Just tweak the speed module
If you need to decide the number of particles
Or how the effect looks overall
There are modules for those
That is how a modular structure works
It makes control intuitive, even if the whole is very complex
And importantly, it's so easy to view
If you look at regular scripted code for a while
then come back to blueprint code, you can see the difference clearly
Like so, modular structure
helps you control particles more easilly
That's the key point
Next is real time simulation and interactions
So, you can use Niagara
to make the particles interact with the environment in real time
For example, make them collide with the floor
Or make them follow the character around
You can make it so they are affected by elements like wind
Or give them properties that make them pass through walls
If you want to simulate realistic dust
They should probably phase through walls
But if the particles are little grains of something
Or represent fairies
Then they can be made to interact with the wall
And pile up on the floor below
Giving particles such properties
allow you to make extra realistic effects
And you can set particles
to be emitted from characters
If you also make them be affected by wind
Then sparkles that come out of the character
would blow away with the wind
Or you could make them ignore the wind
Then while the character's hair is ruffled by the wind
The particles just stay in place
All of that can be rendered in Unreal
And you can apply gravity as well as wind
If you reverse gravity, the particles will float to the sky
I've given you a lot of examples now
And seriously, you could make all of them yourself right now
Niagara makes that possible
Next, data-centered design
Niagara has adopted a data-centered approach
which means the movements and properties of particles are managed using data
Which can hugely improve the flexibility and expandability of the particle system
The fourth feature is the advanced visual editor
This also has to do with Blueprints
Every concept in Unreal has a well built in visual scripting system
You can code with Blueprints
And with Materials, you don't even have to code
And just connect the nodes you want
to create the desired Material
Niagara is like this as well
The resulting system is an extremely complex
high-quality particle system
But you interact with it
by just connecting some nodes
And even if you don't know what you're doing
and click on random nodes
you might just create something cool
Because of the modular structure
It's like opening and closing some drawers
So even small changes are a big influence on the final product
And there is a tutorial on the Unreal website
But even without it
There are very nice presets
so anyone can make cool particles
and explosions, water effects, or fire effects based on them
You can change them the way you like
All of that is very easy
The menus are so intuitive that just by viewing them
you can understand the complex logic behind them
This is the greatest advantage of Niagara
Next up is scripting support
Niagara supports scripting
so that the user can have more detailed control of the particle system's functions
Because of scripting
you can connect interactions and little details
with Niagara to control them
And it works well with other systems as well
You can mix with an animation or an action file
so when a certain action is activated
the Niagara effect will be shown at the right timing
That's another way you can code things
And integration
with any Blueprint system is also a breeze
Which allows the user
to go beyond standard functions
and render the exact custom effects that they want
This Niagara VFX system
can be utilized in so many fields
like game development, movie and animation production
and real-time visualization projects
It was first developed for video game VFX
But it's also useful in animation
It can be used to create a rainbow
Or sparks coming off of a character
There are a lot of explosions in animations
Explosions can also be made to look super realistic
So much so that Niagara is used not only for animation
but also for special effects in movies
Fire, water, or smoke
Before Niagara, you would create those in After Effects
put them into movies, and hope the audience doesn't notice
But special effects can be created in Unreal
in actual 3D, with the click of a button
It can be put into live action movies
and still look realistic
And particles have more uses than you might think, too
Particles can be used to create a haze effect
Snow and rain is also made with particles
Of course there are weather systems on the marketplace
But just by using Niagara
you can create snow effects
that pile up on a character's shoulders
and fall to the ground
So you should keep that in mind
Real-time visualization projects
They use a lot of special effects too,
ones that can dazzle the eye
For example, neon sign-like effects
Many of those flashy graphic effects
can be categorized into VFX
Real-time visualization projects
because they need attractive visuals
are another field that Niagara effects are often used
I have used Niagara for about 2 years now
And it is so easy to create beautiful scenes
Whether it's animation or video games
The placement of effects has such a big impact
They should be backed up by good sound effects, though
Anyway, Niagara is a system
that rewards you for constant practice
It is very well thought out
One thing about Unreal is that not only is Unreal itself bulky
you have to keep downloading the stuff you need
We call those plugins
Some plugins are paid, others are free
So, Unreal is a bulky, heavy, advanced game engine
that you can expand further using plugins
If you search for 'Niagara' in the list of plugins
You will get five results
That number will probably get bigger
since Unreal itself and the plugins are constantly being expanded
So on this screen, there is no need to install that first one
That's Cascade to Niagara Converter
If you have used Unreal since the legacy versions
And you have this cool Cascade effect you really wanted to use
But you don't want to use Cascade anymore
and want to switch to Niagara instead
You can use the cool visual effects
by using this converter
to change them from Cascade effects to Niagara effects
So that is a thing that exists
If you need it, you can install it
But the other four are absolutely necessary when using Niagara
Especially the fourth one
Niagara Example CUstom DataInterface
You must install this one
Because as the name implies, it has examples
so presets created using Niagara, and there is a lot of them
Be sure to install that one
And the next plugin became more powerful since 5.2
Using Niagara, you could always make beautiful water effects
Like water rippling when a character jumps from it
Or waves forming and splashing when a character touches the water
Underwater effects
that make it look like
a video shot from under the real life ocean
Effects like those were already
very good in the initial version of Niagara
But it became even more powerful after 5.2 launched
If you create a ravine out of rocks
and let Niagara water effects flow from the top
The water will actually flow like real water
It will froth in tight corners
That is what is now possible with Niagara Fluid
And because of these kinds of updates
The most expensive assets in the marketplace
used to be ones related to fluid simulation
There were programs on there
that cost hundreds of dollars or even up to a thousand
After the Niagara Fluid function got upgraded
The prices started going down
Before Niagara Fluid
so before we rendered water using particles
How you would render water
is just use a plane as the water surface
And put some moving Material on it
to make it look like water
Obviously, because it's a plane
if you go under the water and look upwards
the underwater would just be a void
It's an empty indent in the ground
If you look at retro games, that's how water is rendered
Games these days have better systems
So under the surface will be actual blue water
And you can simulate swimming underwater better
There are paid plugins or marketplace assets
But even with just Niagara Fluid
You can render all of those in detail now
You can also simulate still bodies of water
Or flowing tap water
And you can change the density as well
And use fluid particles
to render things like honey
or sticky paint
Things that are thicker than water, like oil or milk
or even pudding
But to do all of that
the Niagara Fluid plugin has to be on
And no matter how many plugins you have in Unreal
You can't just tick the box and instantly turn them on
Once you turn a plugin on, you have to reboot
Just a reminder
Now let's take a better look
at the Niagara interface
The reason I showed you
the Cascade interface beforehand
is while the Cascade interface is complicated and has so many menus
With Niagara you just get this neat menu
There are a lot of rows here
There are a lot of them
But this is a screenshot of everything that can go in the interface
Sometimes there will be only five modules
So not all of those modules will always be on the interface
That's how Niagara interface works
The ones highlighted in yellow
are the big handles for our theoretical drawers
Let's take a look
at the important stuff
First is the Emitter Spawn
In games or interactive content
The concept of spawn
is someplace that objects appear from
In an MMORPG you would say,
"Hey, where does that mob spawn from?"
You would have conversations like that
So the spawn location of a certain mob means that is where the mob appears from
And monsters would keep respawning
from a certain location
The appearing of particles
is also called spawning
And the particle has to spawn from a certain location
which is the emitter
That is what an emitter is
So, emitter spawn would mean
That particles keep spawning from somewhere
And because we call it 'spawning'
You can easily think of particles as having a life cycle
Spawning from somewhere and dying after a set number of seconds
So it has a life span of sorts
That is what you set up in Emitter Spawn
So the most basic settings
The particles could be fire, or water
They could be explosions or glitter
But the initial settings are done here
Emitter Updates are important as well
In the case of updates
If there was a single burst of particles and then nothing that wouldn't look great
You need a constant stream of particles
That is what Emitter Updates does
If you set it to infinite, the particles will never stop spawning
If you set it to once, there will be a burst of particles and that's it
Niagara can create diverse and fun effects
just by changing around some properties
If you change properties related to updating
For example, explosions
An explosion should happen once
when, say, a car crashes into a wall
If you change the properties
There might be endless explosions
Or you can set it to happen just once
You can modify that in Niagara
Next, Particle Spawn
This has to do with the spawning of particles itself
To put it simply
It is the module you will tweak the most
when trying to change details about shape or visuals
The position, color, and size of particles
are all determined in Particle Spawn
For example, the sample I showed you earlier
Had light purple or blue sparkly particles
You can modify the color, or the size
Or the position of particles
You can change a particle to be the size of dust and make it sparkly
to make them look like real-life confetti
Or make a single particle the size of a baseball or watermelon
There aren't many situations you would use that kind of particle
But it is an option
Just by changing color and size
the particles feel a lot different
That is what you define in Particle Spawn
Next is Particle Update
The color of particles could turn more transparent as time passes
Or it could be white at spawn and blue before it disappears
Particles don't stay in place
they keep moving around
Changing their properties while they move around is what Particle Update does
You could make it look like there's noise
You can set all of that up in Particle Update
And Particle Update has sub-drawers in it
You can insert the ones you need and modify them
If there's a node you don't need, just take it out
Next, Event Handler literally
handles events, or interactions
And Event Handlers can connect to each other
To cause new effects
It's a bit comlicated
Next is Render, the visual part
If you look up close to a single particle
whatever type of particle it is
If you look at it from close up
It could be a 2D object
Like a piece of paper
cut out to be a circle
Or it could be 3D mesh, in the shape of a sphere
With the mesh render option
you can model tiny people
or a rock
So to do that you would select Niagara - Mesh Renderer - Rock
That will set the mesh to look like a rock
Then, just by using Niagara
you could simulate a pile of rocks rolling away
Or make the particles into human figures
to quickly create crowds with hundreds of people
That is another way
you can effectively use Niagara
Particle Properties and How to Control Simulations
There are various render options
So let me show you how to create one
You first have to create a Niagara
There are a few options on how to do that
You could start from a preset
which is the second option here
The option that is shown in blue right now
the one on the top
will show you a variety of emitters
There's Empty, so an invisible emitter, as well
Like a flame spewing from a jet
There's an emitter that spews to the side
Fountain is a popular one
which creates a literal fountain of particles
There 's Hanging Particulates
which creates dust-like particles
that just float in the air
You could use Hanging Particulates to render
just airborne dust, or fairy dust
Other things that suspend in the air
are dandelion seeds, or pollen
You can give it slight gravity
So it floats for a while before naturally falling to the ground
So there are a lot of emitters
you can use to create in Niagara
There were some samples that we installed as a plugin
Don't forget to install those
then you will always have the examples to turn to
Try creating different initial settings depending on what you want to make
Gain some experience in Niagara
You could outline in your head
which modules you will use
and how you will set them up
If you have the skill to do that
You could start from an empty emitter and still create something cool
New system from a template or behavior example
So this is just the second option but zoomed in
There are a huge variety of templates
Fire, water, smoke, you name it
Just by taking advantage of these samples
you can effectively render events
But what is really important
is studying a lot of samples
Because if you search for effects
on the marketplace
You can get smoke effects
You can get complete weather systems
where you can control whether it snows or rains
Make an aurora, or make it a full moon
as if you were a god
Those types of things are on the market as well
The most famous one is a system called Ultra Weather
And you can make ridiculously realistic weather effects with it
Snow builds up on the ground
And characters will leave footprints in the snow
And there are so many effects, too
Explosion effects are going to be the most abundant
Fluid simulations are also there
Other effects, including smoke
And effects in video games aren't
Just fire, water, or smoke
There are a whole other variety of effects
There are sword trails
effects related to combat
Another thing that appears often in games
are portals, of course
You enter a portal and you can move to another locations
The portal could be star-shaped
All kinds of sparkly cool
portal effects that you would see
in fantasy games or movies
They are all on the marketplace
One important thing is, though
You can render without studying Niagara
and just get effects from the marketplace
But with just a bit more experience in Niagara
And you really just need to know the basics
Like what the primary elements are and how you can change them
Even that small amount of knowledge
will allow you to leverage paid assets
A hundred times better
That's the important part
At least knowing the basics
as you use these assets
Is a completely different experience
from knowing nothing and simply using them
It expands your abilities so much
But, when studying Niagara
Rather than starting from an Empty emitter
and trying to create something from there
Please install the example plugin
And 2D, 3D Fluid plugin
It allows you to create waves
or stuff like pudding
You can simulate tap water
or softly rippling water
There are a huge variety of explosions as well
Some are generic explosions
Some simulate real grenades
giving off flames and smoke
And there are both 2D and 3D assets
There are both 2D and 3D assets for water as well
And trying to analyze how complex emitters
have their modules set up
will boost your skills in an instant
You can of course get better
by trying to create things yourself
But I recommend
trying to break down the emitters
of Unreal's example templates
And growing your skills that way
There are two forms of Niagara in Unreal
2D and 3D, and the reason 2D exists is
Say you need close up shot
of an explosion
The camera would view it from the side at first
Then the character moves around as it sees the explosion
In a scene like that you would need a 3D explosion
that looks very realistic
That is when you use 3D
If you just need to show an explosion in the background
And there will be no close up shots
and the characters are not going near it
In that case, you just need the effects to be visible and nothing more
Then you can use the 2D form of Niagara
The video quality is the same
but it would be a bit less processing for the computer
That's how you can use 2D effects
Now let's look at particle property settings and
controlling simulations
You can see the Shape Location module
And here is the Offset Mode setting
Shape Location is set to Sphere
And below there are boxes with blue check marks
These options have a huge effect on the final effect
I can't possibly explain
every single component
So I will tell you about the important ones
What Shape Location is is
If particles of fire are spawning
they could become part of a smoke or fire effect
So there are all these particles
and I if look at them from far away
it would seem as if they were forming a cloud
That cloud could be in the shape of a column
Or a square box
Or it could be flat as a plane
Or a thin rod
Clouds are large groups of steam particles
But from far away they look a certain shape
Shape location determines that shape
It's a very important concept
You can use Offset to modify distance
For example, the Niagara asset itself
is on the ground
But if you set the Z axis in Offset to 400
The particles would float down all the way from Z=400
So Offset is a very important part of visual effects
And in Add Velocity, velocity basically meansthe force at which the particles fall
Add Velocity is also a key module
Whether it's fire or water, and especially for snow or rain effects
The particles wouldn't fall straight down like this
They would fall at a slight slant
which is why you need some invisible force to push them
by changing the values in Add Velocity
If you set Z to -50
The particles will fall slower
By the way, in Unity 3D
The Y axis is diagonal
But in Unreal the Z axis is the diagonal axis
So you can set X or Y to a small positive number
around 0.1 to 10
And the particles will slant a bit as they fall
like an invisible force is pushing them
Because the Z axis is diagonal
If the X and Z values were all set to 0
the particles would stay where they are
But if Z=-50, the particles would move downwards
You should try it out yourself
Sometimes you have to carefully adjust the values in decimals
Other values you can test out
by going from 10 to 100, then to 1000
I strongly recommend experimenting with X, Y and Z values
Anyway, the Z axis in Add Velocity
has to do with up and down movement
which is similar to another concept, gravity
Changing the Z values
and modifying the Gravity values
seems very similar
But they are separate modules
Also, this Drag module is turned on by default
This is an invisible force holding the particles back
For example, it lets snow fall
not like a downpour of rain
but like actual snow
The invisible force holds it back
If you turn it off, it will fall straight down
You could say it gives the particles friction
Depending on how you use Add Velocity
you can give some pattern or rule to the movement of particles
If snow fell in a straight line, it wouldn't feel like snow
Giving a bit of X and Y values would allow it
to fall in slant, in a slightly random fashion
Next, Initialize Particles
'Initial' means the beginning letter of a word
And Initialize Particle
has to do with the spawning of particles
so the fashion in which they are spawned
Where are these settings?
They're in Particle Spawn
Initialize Particle is a sub property of Particle Spawn
Lifetime Min and Max
are the minimum and maximum amount of time
can live before it disappears
Pretty straight forward, right?
You can derandomize the lifetime as well
If you want all particles to survive a set time
Just change the Lifetime Mode to Set and give it a value
If the value is 3, each particle will life exactly 3 seconds
As for the color mode
You can make everything a single color with Direct Set mode
or give it a gradient
So the color of particles
can also be set in Initialize Particle
which is a sub menu of Particle Spawn
You should try not to forget
Then there are the other properties
Shape Location is the shape that all the particles make up
We learned about that
And in that window is Scale Mode
For example, you set up the shape of the Particle Location
to be a column
You can modify the height or diameter
of the column in Scale Mode
If you're making a snow effect
and you wanted to decide the number of snowflakes
You could compare it to the the number of hairs a person has
That has to do with Spawn Rate
which is in Emitter Update
For a snow effect, about 2000 should be enough
If each particle were the size of a baseball
You should probably test a spawn rate of a few dozen
This is Noise Strength
If you want to create a dust effect
if the dust is just distributed evenly in the air
It won't feel like dust
The effect needs some noise
which disturbs the movement of particles
So noise is in the menu as well
Noise can be used
to make the movement of natural particles
like rain or petals seem more natural
Then there is a recently added feature, called Collision
Collision is the concept
of whether or not the particles perceive walls
They could just ignore the walls and go through them
But if the particles are solid and visible
It wouldn't make sense for them to phase through walls
That is when you should turn on collision
and you can set the collision resolution
If it's snow, some would roll off the wall
Some might just stop moving
Some might slow down and stop
You can set all of that up in Collision
Lastly, there are Render options
The most commonly used render options
are Mesh, Sprite, and Ribbon
Mesh is a 3D model
You can assign any 3D model you want
To be the shape of the particle
And the Ribbon Renderer can be used to render lines
This is also used a lot in effects
And Sprite Renderer
allows a PNG file to act as the render for the particles
So those were the renderer options
And lastly, let's take a look at Material Override
If this parameter is checked on
you can define a Material arrangement
that will be used instead of Static Mesh Material
So it is not static mesh
and the Materials
of different Meshes that arrange together
to look as if they are a single Material
So you can choose to use Materials
that are not the static Mesh Material
That is what Override Material is
Modern Override Material requires
the Niagara Mesh Particle flag
to be turned on
If the particle Mesh requires more Material
than exists in the arrangement
or if a component in this arrya
the emitter will take the place of the particle Mesh Material
And of course, Material settings become important
the moment you use Mesh on a particle
And how you modify
the Mesh Material
can also lead to a variety of effects
I hope you try Niagara yourself
to create amazing particles
The Concept of Niagara VFX and Layout & Functions of Editor Concept of Niagara VFX A tool for creating controlling VFX Replaced Cascade since UE 4.27
User has detailed control of particle system Easy to create complex and dynamic VFX Utilization: Games, movies, animation, RTV projects
Functions & Features Modular structure Real-time simulation & interactions Data centered design Advanced visual editor Scripting support
Niagara Interface Emitter Spawn Emitter Update Particle Spawn Particle Update Event Handler Render
Particle Property Settings & Controlling Simulation Creating Niagara Right click to create Niagara Choose from a variety of emitters depending on desired effect
Particle Property Settings & Controlling Simulation Shape Location: Set overall shape of particle cloud Add velocity: Define movement of falling particles
Initialize Particle: Define particle lifetime Spawn Rate: Define number of particles Collision: Define wall perception
Override Materials Define array of Materials to replace static Mesh Material Material settings matter the moment Mesh is used in particle