I want to emit a trail of particles from each particle in a top-level emitter. I know about Ribbon and it’s not what I’m looking for. Ribbon connects subparticles into a continuous trail, whereas I want a trail of independent particles.
You can use particle events to accomplish this. Check out the docs here:
The Content Examples for UE4 has this effect in it. You can copy it and use it as a starting point for your own effect.
It seems like particle events only support instantaneously emitting X particles when birth/death occurs. What about emitting particles at rate Y between birth and death?
Hmmm. I’m not sure. You might be able to trigger it from Blueprint code that’s on a timer.
Have you tried the “Emitter Init Loc” or “Emitter Direct Loc” nodes?
both emit particles from another particles location, though, I dont know if they take movement from that location in consideration.
Emitter Init Location does the right thing to the location of the subemitter. Only problem is if the top-level emitter doesn’t have any particles, the subemitter will be active with position [0,0,0]. Perhaps I can combine Emitter Init Location with an event handler that stops the subemitter whenever the top-level emitter doesn’t have any particle - but I’m not sure how to do the second part!