Particle Renderer (Legacy)
Switch to ScriptingThe Particle Renderer renders the Particle SystemA component that simulates fluid entities such as liquids, clouds and flames by generating and animating large numbers of small 2D images in the scene. More info
See in Glossary on screen.
Properties
| Property: | Function: |
|---|---|
| Cast Shadows | If enabled, this allows the MeshThe main graphics primitive of Unity. Meshes make up a large part of your 3D worlds. Unity supports triangulated or Quadrangulated polygon meshes. Nurbs, Nurms, Subdiv surfaces must be converted to polygons. More info See in Glossary to cast shadows. |
| Receive Shadows | If enabled, this allows the Mesh to receive shadows. |
| Motion Vectors | If enabled, the line has motion vectors rendered into the Camera motion vector Texture. See Renderer.motionVectors in the Scripting API reference documentation to learn more. |
| MaterialsAn asset that defines how a surface should be rendered, by including references to the Textures it uses, tiling information, Color tints and more. The available options for a Material depend on which Shader the Material is using. More info See in Glossary |
Reference to a list of Materials that are displayed in the position of each individual particle. |
| Light ProbesLight probes store information about how light passes through space in your scene. A collection of light probes arranged within a given space can improve lighting on moving objects and static LOD scenery within that space. More info See in Glossary |
Probe-based lighting interpolationThe estimation of values that determine the shape of an animation curve between two keys. More info See in Glossary mode. |
| Reflection ProbesA rendering component that captures a spherical view of its surroundings in all directions, rather like a camera. The captured image is then stored as a Cubemap that can be used by objects with reflective materials. More info See in Glossary |
If enabled and reflection probes are present in the SceneA Scene contains the environments and menus of your game. Think of each unique Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, you place your environments, obstacles, and decorations, essentially designing and building your game in pieces. More info See in Glossary, a reflection Texture is picked for this Particle Renderer and set as a built-in Shader uniform variable. |
| Probe Anchor | If defined (using a GameObject), the Renderer uses this GameObjectThe fundamental object in Unity scenes, which can represent characters, props, scenery, cameras, waypoints, and more. A GameObject’s functionality is defined by the Components attached to it. More info See in Glossary’s position to find the interpolated Light Probe. |
| Camera Velocity Scale | The amount of stretching that is applied to the Particles based on CameraA component which creates an image of a particular viewpoint in your scene. The output is either drawn to the screen or captured as a texture. More info See in Glossary movement. |
| Stretch Particles | Determines how the particles are rendered: |
| BillboardA textured 2D object that rotates as it, or the Camera, moves so that it always faces the Camera. See Billboard RendererRenders Billboard Assets, either from a pre-made Asset (exported from SpeedTree) or from a custom-created file that you create using a script at runtime or from a custom editor, for example. More info See in Glossary See in Glossary |
The particles are rendered as if facing the Camera. |
| Stretched | The particles are facing the direction they are moving. |
| SortedBillboard | The particles are sorted by depth. Use this when using a blending Material. |
| VerticalBillboard | All particles are aligned flat along the X/Z axes. |
| HorizontalBillboard | All particles are aligned flat along the X/Y axes. |
| Length Scale | If Stretch Particles is set to Stretched, this value determines how long the particles are in their direction of motion. |
| Velocity Scale | If Stretch Particles is set to Stretched, this value determines the rate at which particles are stretched, based on their movement speed. |
| UV Animation | If X, Y or both are defined, the UV coordinates of the particles are generated for use with a tile animated texture. See Animated Textures, below. |
| X Tile | Number of frames located across the X axis. |
| Y Tile | Number of frames located across the Y axis. |
| Cycles | How many times to loop the animation sequence. |
Details
Particle Renderers are required for any Particle System to be displayed on the screen.
Choosing a Material
When setting up a Particle Renderer, it is very important to use an appropriate Material and Shader that renders both sides of the Material. Unity recommends using Particle Shaders with the Particle Renderer.; most of the time you can simply use a Material with one of the built-in Particle Shaders. There are some premade Materials in the Standard AssetsA collection of useful assets supplied with Unity. Unity ships with multiple Standard Asset such as 2D, Cameras, Characters, CrossPlatformInput, Effects, Environment, ParticleSystems, Prototyping, Utility, and Vehicles. More info
See in Glossary > ParticlesA small, simple image or mesh that is emitted by a particle system. A particle system can display and move particles in great numbers to represent a fluid or amorphous entity. The effect of all the particles together creates the impression of the complete entity, such as smoke. More info
See in Glossary > Sources folder that you can use.
Creating a new Material is easy:
- In the Unity menu bar, go to AssetsAny media or data that can be used in your game or Project. An asset may come from a file created outside of Unity, such as a 3D model, an audio file or an image. You can also create some asset types in Unity, such as an Animator Controller, an Audio Mixer or a Render Texture. More info
See in Glossary > Create > Material. - In the Inspector window, navigate to New Material and click the ShaderA small script that contains the mathematical calculations and algorithms for calculating the Color of each pixel rendered, based on the lighting input and the Material configuration. More info
See in Glossary dropdown. Choose one of the Shaders in the Particles group (for example: Particles > Multiply). - To assign a Texture, navigate to the grey box in the InspectorA Unity window that displays information about the currently selected GameObject, Asset or Project Settings, alowing you to inspect and edit the values. More info
See in Glossary window containing the text None (Texture) and click the Select button to launch a pop-up menu containing the Textures available.
Note that different Shaders use the alpha channel of the Textures slightly differently, but most of the time a value of black in the alpha channel makes it invisible, and a value of white displays it on screen.
Distorting particles
By default, particles are rendered billboarded (that is, as simple square sprites). This is useful for smoke, explosions, and most other particle effects. See Billboard Renderer for more information.
Particles can be made to stretch with the velocity. Length Scale and Velocity Scale affects how long the stretched particle is. This is useful for effects like sparks, lightning or laser beams.
Sorted Billboard can be used to make all particles sort by depth. Sometimes this is necessary, mostly when using Alpha Blended particle shaders. This can be resource-demanding and affect performance; it should only be used if it makes a significant quality difference when renderingThe process of drawing graphics to the screen (or to a render texture). By default, the main camera in Unity renders its view to the screen. More info
See in Glossary.
Animated textures
Particle Systems can be rendered with an animated tile Texture. To use this feature, make the Texture out of a grid of images. As the particles go through their life cycle, they cycle through the images. This is good for adding more life to your particles, or making small rotating debris pieces.
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