Hello folks! Been using UE for a few months on and off and am finally getting a real project together. I have reached an issue trying to give the player a sense of direction and velocity. What I am wanting to do, is as the player moves forward, back, left and right, I want ‘stars’ or ‘space debris’ to fly by the player in the opposite direction, the way it does in Elite: Dangerous.
Would particles be the best way to do this? I’m unsure of was the ‘best practice’ for something like this would be. If anyone could point me in the right direction I would greatly appreciate it!
If you are piloting a ship, you can have an attached particle system to the ship actor, set it to be oriented with Velocity and you can use the Velocity Module with parameters to be fed for the Direction the particles will move, so whatever your direction and speed changes, you can set it up accordingly.
Pretty good example of “space debris” was on Dead Space 3. There was 2 “layers” of space debris.
1 “far layer”: billboards with some space debris pieces textures. Billboards are always keep same distance between them and camera, so you cant flight closer.
2 “surround layers”: a pieces of real geometry randomly placed around enviroment, you can fly around them and interact with them.
Both layers give nice feel of pretty huge enviroment all covered with space debris and doesnt take too much performance. Dead Space 3: Space Flying Debris Gameplay - YouTube
Thanks for the input guys! I think I may have found somewhat of a solution after tinkering with Cascade for a bit. I have a particle system that I have attached to my ship character, and using the SpawnPerUnit event in Cascade, have successfully managed to pull this off!
Also, @Alexander.L I appreciate the input! Definitely going to try that route with billboards for a ‘far layer’ and real 3d geometry for a closer layer!