Exercise 1: First emission

Purpose. To convert a Part into an emitter and make its particles travel.

A particle in this plugin is a duplicate of something you built. You make one Part look the way a single particle should look. The plugin then duplicates it for you, many times a second, and moves each duplicate. This exercise builds the smallest emitter that does that.

Before starting

• The plugin is on. A ≡ button shows at the bottom right of the viewport. If it does not, press Toggle on the Qwinkle’s Part-Icles 2 toolbar and wait a few seconds.
• Studio is in edit mode. The plugin does not run while the game is playing.
• The workspace holds one new Part with Size 0.5, 0.5, 0.5 and Material Neon. Set both in Studio’s own Properties window, as for any Part. The colour is your choice.

Procedure

A value typed into a box is taken when you press Enter or click elsewhere.

Step	Control	Action	Result
1	The Part	Select	A Transform button appears at the top left of the viewport.
2	Transform	Press	The Part turns invisible. A small panel, the HUD, opens at the top left. The Properties panel opens at the top right.
3	Properties ▸ Emission ▸ Enabled	Switch on	Ten particles a second appear where the Part is. Each lasts one second. None of them moves, so together they look like one Part.
4	Properties ▸ Motion ▸ Speed	Enter 20	Particles leave along the Part’s up axis at 20 studs per second and vanish 20 studs away.
5	Properties ▸ Motion ▸ Drag	Enter 2	Particles still leave at 20 studs per second, then slow as they age. Each now travels about 8.6 studs.
6	Explorer	Expand the Part	The Part has new children, among them PartIcleProperties and RenderTemplate. Leave them as they are.
7	Properties ▸ Emission ▸ Enabled	Switch off	No new particles appear. Those in flight finish their second.

NOTE

Speed is 0 on every new emitter. Particles do not travel until a Speed is entered.

What the numbers did

Rate and Lifetime, in the Emission section, were left at their starting values of 10 and 1. Rate is the number of particles made each second while Enabled is on. Lifetime is the number of seconds each one lasts.

Speed is measured in studs per second. At 20, with a Lifetime of 1 second, a particle covers 20 studs.

Drag slows a particle as it ages. The larger the number, the sooner the particle stops.

Drag	Speed left after 1 second
0	all of it
1	37 percent
2	14 percent
5	under 1 percent

At Drag 2 a particle has half its speed after 0.35 seconds and a quarter after 0.7 seconds. However long a particle lives, it can never travel farther than Speed divided by Drag. Here that is 20 ÷ 2, or 10 studs.

Why these things appeared

Transform changed more than the panel shows. Each change has an entry in the Why Dictionary:

• The invisible Part: where your Part went.
• RenderTemplate: the template every particle is duplicated from.
• PartIcleProperties: where the panel keeps its values.
• Part_Icles: the module that appeared in ReplicatedStorage.

If the result differs

Symptom	Cause	Action
No Transform button at step 1	The selection includes something that is already an emitter.	Select the new Part only.
No ≡ button anywhere	The plugin is off, or the game is running.	Stop the game. Press Toggle on the plugin’s toolbar.
No HUD or no Properties panel at step 2	The panel was closed in an earlier session.	Press ≡, then Emit for the HUD or Properties for the panel.
Particles appear but stay in place	Speed is still 0.	Repeat step 4.
A typed value flashes red and the old value returns	The text was not a number.	Enter the number again.

Variations

Change	Result
Speed 5	Slower particles. Each covers less ground in its second.
Speed 8, 20	Each particle takes one speed of its own between 8 and 20 and keeps it for life.
Drag 0	No slowing. The particle holds its speed until it vanishes.
Drag 5	Particles stop almost at once, within 4 studs.

Log

New in this exercise	Transform. Enabled. Speed. Drag.
Done before	Nothing yet.
Carried forward	Keep this Part. Exercise 2 continues with it.