Im working on a VFX portfolio peice. Part of the effect consists of the animated character reaching down to his hip and pulling out a small spark which will later become a fire. The animation shows the character reach across to his hip grab something between his finger and thumb, hold it up and then throw it in front of him.
I have made a Niagara system for the small fire that he pulls from his hip, What I would like to do is to have the system move with the character’s hand for the first part of the animation and then when the animation reaches the point where he throws it, the fire is then not linked to the movement of the character’s arm and can be controlled independently. I have used anim notifies and sockets to make niagara assets move with an animation before but I dont know how i can do this and then after a certain point disconnect the system from the socket so i can control its movement independently.
One method i considered would be to make use of a point attractor within the niagara system, as the attraction strength can be adjusted over time. So theoretically I could use a point attractor and make it an exposed “user paramater” so that the point they are attracted to is undefined. Then I could link this user parameter to an empty object that is itself socketed to the arm in the animation, resulting in the point the particles are attracted towards be moving with the animation and then at the desired point i could set the attraction strength to 0 and stop the fire being linked to the socket position.
However I have no idea how I could link the niagara user parameter to an object socketed to the animated skeleton and create that link. So far I have been using notifies within the animation assets and using those to contorl movement. If anyone knows how to Link a point attraction user parameter in a niagara system to an empty object, and have that object be socketed to an animated skeleton asset, Or if enyone knows any less complicated or alternative way to let an animation drive a niagara assets movement temporarily and then allow it to be controlled seperatly then please let me know cos i am out of ideas and am really struggling.
Thanks in advance for any advice offered.
Ben.