Niagara: Looping beam with infinite lifetime

[polygon]

Hi,

what's the correct way to create a simple beam with infinite lifetime?

In cascade I'd simply create a beam with a lifetime of 1 and an infinite looping emitter with a duration of 1. I did this in Niagara but after each loop you can notice a single frame without a particle on the screen and you see when the current loop ends. My workaround is to create a particle with a very long lifetime like 5000 or so. But what's the intended way to achieve this looping behavior?

Thanks,
Daniel

[TobberHarley]

Bump! I also can't figure out how to have infinite life particles without getting that flicker (particles visibly disappear and re-appear every loop).

[MindfieldsTech]

why not just use a cylinder static mesh with an emissive material?
Turn off Shadows and collision, unless you need it, and just set it to overlap only

[Seed 37]

Bump.... Just encountered this problem also. I'll use the large duration for now but a solution would be nice. If I ever figure it out ill post ill post the solution on here. The reason I want to use Niagara instead of a static mesh is because while its a simple beam now I want to add other variations and effect to it and it seems like doing it with the Niagara system will give me more options and better visual effects.

[MostHost LA]

There's an option to destroy the emitter once the lifetime ends, and one to allow "unlimited" lifetime.
can't recall where it is at (my guess is emitter settings), but I would bet that's where you need to look to keep the beam active.

[Seed 37]

There is an option under the emitter state called loop behavior, you can set it to infinite, loop or once. The problem is on infinite between the end of the loop and beginning of the next loop it stops emitting particles for a frame and resultants in a flicker. I am not sure if it has something to do with the initial beam set up or it's just a glitch.

I have also tried setting the "Lifetime" in the particle spawn module to a higher and lower number then the "loop duration" and it either causes a longer flicker or a brighter pulse. That's why I thought it might be something in the way the (Ribbon) beam particle spawns and how it's not at its full brightness on the first few frames or something. I don't really know, but I'll look into that some more later.

I am also very new to Niagara. The unlimited lifetime option, I don't know where it is or how to implement it yet.

I will keep searching for the solution.

[MostHost LA]

... its probably translucent so, more ribbons = brighter?

Anyway the problem seems to be that the beam takes time from starting to reaching its full size, so you would have to use a never looping cycle that never dies off...
there is an option to get particles to not be removed. Perhaps try that?

[Seed 37]

Solved - Found the right configuration of options to get a constant unblinking Beam (Ribbon) particle.
Checked the Interpolated spawning in the emitter properties.
Changed some options in the Emitter State, shown in the pic below.
Under Particle state, you need to uncheck the kill particle option before the others show up. Then check the loop particle option.
I believe there was an extra color module that I removed to not 100% sure on that.
Seems to work fine for mesh particles also