Add flickering light to flame effect.

Development Asset Creation
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I found a flame asset and a wall sconce asset on Fab. I attached one to the other. It looks so cool. I am so happy….except…it doesn’t give out any light.

To be honest, at this stage I think I would be reasonably happy with a static light effect, but if I could get a light effect that leaps and flickers in time to the flame…that would be awesome.

So, do I need to attach a light component to my torch mesh component, to my particle effect component, or can I get the flame particle effect to also give out light as if it were a light component?

If I need a separate component, how do I sync it to the flame? Do I even need to or is the human eye so easily fooled that any sort of flicker effect will work even if not synced to the flame?

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You can do both/either, keep in mind they can be expensive if used a lot, esp if casting shadows with them:

Niagara particle lights:

Light functions for changing light intensity/shadow projection:

For flickering flames, i don’t find it necessary to sync. It’s not noticeable.

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Thanks. Bogged down in something else right now, will get back to this.

Note that the fire particle effect may not already be using Niagara, so not sure how that is going to go until I have tried it.

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Ok, so, for clarity…this is what I think I have learnt.

To use the light function option, I can only use it on the mesh, I need to have a part of the mesh to apply it to, and I then need to apply the light source material to that part of the mesh.

So in the case of my torch, I would need to create a cone or cylinder where the flame is going to go, create a light source material, and apply it to that new part of the mesh?

As a related question, is it possible to attach particle effects to static meshes? So I could have one asset as an unlit torch and a separate asset as a lit torch with the particle effects already applied?

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Light Function Materials are used in the Light, under the Light Function category. The function applies to the light, so you could create a material to give a flicker effect that changes the light intensity and channel balance. You could also add an effect to cast the shadow from a lantern or to simulate caustic effects in the material like from a flashlight lens if you go that far with it.

To ‘attach particle effect to static mesh’ you create an Actor Blueprint, Add Static Mesh component. Select the mesh component, Add Niagara Particle component. The particles will be attached to the mesh. You can Activate/Deactivate your particle component as you need to have the flames on/off.

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I had a look at the light function. I previously had a glass globe with a light inside and tried to change it to have a light material instead, and now it just looks like a white circle. I suck at this.

I will try to convert the particle effect I have to a Niagara particle component. I am not even sure that is possible. I have zero experience with all this sort of stuff as I am a C++ programmer. Hopefully if I succeed I can then save the blueprint as an individual asset?

I found I could add a light emitter to the particle effect I already had - which I don’t think is Niagara.