I’m trying to have a niagara particle effect activate on a vehicle blueprint when the throttle is activated.
I thought it would be setting up a function to activate the particle system component:
and then attaching it to the throttle on the event graph:
alas it doesn’t work, any clues? what step am I missing?
Axis Inputs are always active. Even if you don’t press any key, it will still enable your Niagara system. In this case you need to check the axis input value, e.g. if Axis Value > 0.5 => Activate Niagara, if not => deactivate.
What I meant was simply this:
However, after thinking about it, that’s not the best idea. And Was Input Key Just Pressed is not the best either, since it reads actual keys, not inputs defined in the project, and if players change key bindings, it’ll fall apart.
What you can do is set an Action Input to the same key; the action input and axis input will work in parallel, but the action input is actually event-based and it has Pressed and Unpressed, just what you need.
okay, I’m not very familiar with how to do that. what about the “wasjustpressed” nodes and the "was just released nodes?
Is there a way to arrange them in the function coming off of the throttle that could activate and deactivate the particle system?
This didn’t work but something similar:
There’s a checkbox called Auto Activate in the particle component details, and it’s on by default, that’s why it’s active from the start. Just uncheck it.
As for the velocity, yes, that would make sense.
ah okay, so an action input being the “w” key? this seems to work (I’ve changed vehicles to a something with a simpler setup)
the only issue is what you mentioned, it starts the particle effect initially as soon as I spawn, but after I take the controls and move forward, pressing and releasing the key activates and deactivates it.
This might be good enough for my purposes, I’m trying to set up a scene for virtual production, not get a fully functional vehicle.
However, I have just realized something: When the vehicle is traveling 60+ miles an hour and I release the W key,the dust particle effect should continue. So maybe I shouldn’t be associating it with the throttle, I should be associating it with the velocity of the vehicle?!
