So the concept was simple enough; particles float around randomly, then upon the player entering trigger they come together to form a rectangular shape. This has proven to be a lot harder than expected with little online to help. I’ve learned how to make particles take the shape of a mesh using Niagara, and there’s a way to do it with Cascade, but I don’t know how to make either of these methods to behave as I need (floating then forming shape upon trigger). Can anyone give any advice? I appreciate all of the help I can get.
As I remember from the video by Epic Games when Niagara was first introduced, Niagara is reversible, so you may play if backwards, if I understand it right. So maybe you can try doing it the other way around? Like spawn particles in the desired shape, then apply some forces for them to start flying around chaotically, and then just reverse it when triggered, and make them return to the shape?
I have actually never tried that and don’t know if it’s even possible, just a thought.
Or maybe you can set attraction, but use shape instead of point or sphere?
that could be useful, i’ll look into that! the problem is that i still need to loop two “modes”, when the particles are floating around and when the particles are in shape and trigger them to switch. I’m not even sure how to integrate niagara with a trigger.
I took a look at it yesterday, and didn’t find anything useful. Apparently, the reverse thing only applies to Niagara editor: you can rewind the timeline there, but it’s not possible in game, at least with blueprints it’s not.
And as for attraction, you can only use Point or Line, and not mesh, so that’s not an option either.
Maybe you can fake it. Let’s say, your particles fly around, then when triggered, you turn on Line Attraction placed where your shape should be, and use Kill Radius to destroy the particles when they reach the destination. At the same time, you begin spawning the same particles in the desired shape - you already know how to do that. With high enough number of particles, the player won’t see any difference, for him the particles will fly in and form a shape.
Edit: maybe you can add several Line/Point Attractions to create a more uniform attraction field.
Just need two Node:“Spring Force” and “Static mesh Location” or"Skeletal mesh location".
You can also add another location to spawn your particles from other shape or anywhere.you need to set the Static mesh Location 's attribute named SampledPosition to Spring Force attribute named “Particle Equilibrium Position”,and set offset and transform what you want.Then set ForceCurve to make particles attracted at the right time and “balabala…”.Now maybe you understand how to do next.Sorry my English very bad,I can only briefly describe the idea.It going to be work, I did do something like it for this way.
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