Part
A Part emitter makes particles out of a part: a block, a ball, a mesh, or a flat card that carries a picture. It is made by transforming a Part, a MeshPart or a Part with a SpecialMesh. Each particle is a duplicate of that part, and its size, colour and transparency follow graphs over its life. Most effects are built from Part emitters. Exercise 1 builds one step by step.
What it makes possible:
- A flame on a card. A flat Part with Transparency
1, a flipbook from the Inventory, OrientationFacingCamera. - A puff that swells and fades. A Size graph from 1 to 6 on all three axes, and a Transparency graph from 0 to 1.
- A shard that stretches as it flies. Size with only the Y button lit, and a graph from 1 to 4.
- A mesh and its picture that fade at different times. One Transparency graph in Appearance, another under Decals.
At a glance
Section titled “At a glance”| Made from | A Part, a MeshPart, or a Part with a SpecialMesh |
| One particle is | One duplicate of the part |
| Emit count starts at | 1 |
| Modes | Emit and Animate |
| Sections | Emission, Appearance, Decals, Spawn, Motion, Flipbook, Mesh Frames, Link, Events, Advanced |
| Only on this type | Appearance, Decals, Flipbook and Mesh Frames. In Spawn, the Use shape rows. In Motion, the Accel toward rows. |
The Properties panel lists a Part emitter under the title Meshes.
The Emit count starts at 1. A new Part emitter makes one particle at the first press of the Emit button.
Speed starts at 0. The particle of a new emitter appears at the Part and stays there. See Speed of 0.
What it is made from
Section titled “What it is made from”A Part emitter is made from one of these:
- A Part.
- A MeshPart.
- A Part with a SpecialMesh.
Each of them may carry Decals, Textures or a SurfaceAppearance. Transform keeps all three, and the particles show them. A union or a wedge is accepted too.
Build the part as the particle should look before Transform: its size, its colour, its material and its pictures. Transform reads them, so the first particles match the part you built.
Transform
Section titled “Transform”Transform hides the Part and keeps a copy of it inside it, named RenderTemplate. Every particle is a duplicate of that copy. RenderTemplate says why.
| From the Part | Goes to |
|---|---|
| Size | Level graphs on Size X, Y and Z. On a Part with a SpecialMesh, the Scale of the SpecialMesh is used. |
| Color | The Color row. |
| Transparency | A level graph on the Transparency row. |
| Material | Kept on the RenderTemplate, and shown in the Material row. |
| SpecialMesh, Decals, Textures | Removed from the Part. The RenderTemplate holds them. |
| SurfaceAppearance, Attachments | Kept on the RenderTemplate. An Attachment keeps what it holds. |
The Part itself is given a Transparency of 1. It stays where it is, with the same name. See The invisible Part.
Anything else inside the Part is left out of the RenderTemplate. Attributes you added to the Part are kept on the RenderTemplate. A stock ParticleEmitter placed directly in the Part stays in the Part, as it was. To have every particle carry it, move it into the RenderTemplate.
Transform sets these on the RenderTemplate, so every particle has them:
| Property | Set to |
|---|---|
| Anchored | On |
| CanCollide, CanQuery, CanTouch | Off |
| CastShadow | Off |
| Massless, Locked | On |
| Transparency | 1, and 1 on each Decal and Texture |
The RenderTemplate is invisible. A particle takes its Transparency from the rows of the Properties panel, not from the template.
Stock ParticleEmitters and Trails inside an Attachment of the template are switched off. They fire once for each particle. See Editing stock ParticleEmitters, Trails and Beams.
Whatever is placed inside the RenderTemplate afterwards is duplicated with each particle. An emitter placed there fires once for each particle. See Nesting.
Transform adds seven things under the Part:
| Added | What it is |
|---|---|
PartIcleProperties | Holds every value of the Properties panel. See PartIcleProperties. |
RenderTemplate | The copy that every particle is a duplicate of. |
MeshFlipbooks | An empty folder for flipbook frames. See Decals and flipbooks. |
EmitParent, Link, AccelTarget, ShapePart | Four values that each point at another instance. See EmitParent, Link, AccelTarget, ShapePart. |
The sections
Section titled “The sections”The sections are listed in the order the Properties panel shows them.
| Section | What it holds | Described in |
|---|---|---|
| Emission | How the emitter runs by itself: Mode, Loop, Enabled, Rate, Lifetime, Linger and Timescale. | Emission and the HUD |
| Appearance | The look of the part: Material, Color, Brightness, Transparency and Size. | Appearance, below |
| Decals | One entry for each Decal or Texture on the template, with its own Transparency, Color and Brightness. | Decals and flipbooks |
| Spawn | Where each particle is made and how it is turned at that moment. The Use shape rows are here. | Spawn |
| Motion | How a particle travels and turns after it is made. The Accel toward rows are here. | Motion |
| Flipbook | How the frames of a flipbook are played: Mode, Framerate, StartRandom and Reverse. | Decals and flipbooks |
| Mesh Frames | Changes the particle’s mesh through a numbered series of meshes over its life. | Mesh Frames |
| Link | Makes particles appear at another object and travel with it. | Link |
| Events | Works as on any emitter. | Events |
| Advanced | Anim. Steps, Emit Into, Preload Texture and Pool. | Advanced |
Emission, Appearance and Motion start open. The other sections start collapsed. The panel remembers which sections you opened. Decals and Events are the exceptions: they start collapsed every time.
Appearance
Section titled “Appearance”| Row | Kind | Starts at | Unit | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Material | List | The Part’s own | The material of every particle. | |
| Color | Colour | The Part’s own | The colour of the particle. Drawn as a gradient, it changes over the particle’s life. | |
| Brightness | Graph | 1 | Multiplies the Color, over the particle’s life. | |
| Transparency | Graph | The Part’s own | 0 to 1 | How far the particle is seen through, over its life. |
| Size | Graph for each of X, Y, Z | The Part’s own Size | Studs | The size of the particle along each axis, over its life. |
Material
Section titled “Material”The list offers 20 materials:
Plastic, SmoothPlastic, Neon, Glass, Metal, DiamondPlate, Foil, Brick, Concrete, Granite, Marble, Slate, Wood, WoodPlanks, Fabric, Ice, Sand, Grass, Pebble, Rock.
The row sets the Material of the RenderTemplate. Material has no graph. A particle keeps one material for its whole life.
The Color row has three controls.
| Control | Action | Result |
|---|---|---|
| The swatch | Click | The colour picker opens. A colour picked there replaces a gradient with one colour. |
| The box | Enter R, G, B, each from 0 to 255 | The particle has that one colour for its whole life. |
| ⋯ | Press | The colour editor opens. A gradient drawn there changes the colour over the particle’s life. |
The colour editor and colour picker describes both.
Color replaces the colour of the part. It is not mixed with the colour the Part had.
Color has no random spread. Every particle of one emitter has the same colour at the same age.
Brightness
Section titled “Brightness”Brightness multiplies the Color before the colour is put on the particle. At 1 the colour is unchanged. At 0.5, a Color of 200, 100, 50 becomes 100, 50, 25. At 0 the colour is black.
The plugin sets no limit on Brightness.
Transparency
Section titled “Transparency”Transparency follows a graph over the particle’s life. At 0 the particle is solid. At 1 it cannot be seen.
One number typed into the box gives a level graph. Two numbers give each particle one value between them for its whole life. Transparency 0.2, 0.6 makes every particle a little more or less see-through than the next.
Press ⋯ to draw a graph. The graph editor describes it.
Size is measured in studs. It is not a multiple of the Part’s size. A Size of 1 is 1 stud, whatever size the Part had.
Transform fills the three graphs with the Part’s own Size. A new emitter therefore makes particles the size of the Part.
Take a Size graph from 2 to 6 on X and a Lifetime of 1 second. The particle measures 2 studs along X at the start. It measures 4 studs at 0.5 seconds and 6 studs at the end.
On a template with a SpecialMesh, Size sets the Scale of the SpecialMesh. A Size of 1 is then a mesh scale of 1.
The X, Y and Z buttons choose which axes the box edits. They do not switch an axis on or off.
- The first button clicked is outlined. The box shows the graph of that axis.
- A value typed into the box is written to every lit axis.
- ⋯ opens the graph editor on the outlined axis. The graph drawn there is written to every lit axis.
- With no button lit, typed text flashes red and ⋯ does nothing.
The * button on the Size label links axes. A linked axis uses the graph of the axis it is linked to, and the same random pick. With Y and Z linked to X, one graph sizes the particle evenly. Spawn describes axis linking.
Inside a Model emitter, Size is multiplied by the Model’s Scale.
What Color, Brightness and Transparency act on
Section titled “What Color, Brightness and Transparency act on”The three rows act on different things, depending on what the RenderTemplate holds.
| The template | Transparency | Color | Brightness |
|---|---|---|---|
| A Part, a MeshPart or a Part with a SpecialMesh, with no pictures on it | The part | The part | Multiplies the Color of the part. |
| The same, with Decals or Textures on it | The part only | The part only | The part only |
| Has a SurfaceAppearance | The part | The part, and the Color of the SurfaceAppearance | The EmissiveTint of the SurfaceAppearance, which is set to Color multiplied by Brightness. Nothing else. |
Each Decal and Texture on the template is a layer. A layer has its own Transparency, Color and Brightness rows in the Decals section. The Appearance rows do not reach it. See Decal layers.
A card can therefore be invisible while its picture shows. Enter 1 in Appearance ▸ Transparency and leave the layer’s Transparency at 0.
On a Studio version whose SurfaceAppearance has no EmissiveTint, Brightness does nothing on such a template.
An emitter made with an older version of the plugin is upgraded the first time it is selected. It looks the same afterwards.
Limits
Section titled “Limits”- Size, Color and Transparency are set from the Properties panel. They are not set on the
RenderTemplate. - In Animate mode no flipbook plays on a Part emitter. Mesh Frames and the rows of each layer do play.
- A flipbook on a SurfaceAppearance plays in Studio only. See Decals and flipbooks.
- Color has no random spread.
- Each particle counts as one particle toward the Particle Cap.