LogParticles: Warning: MaxCount = 501 for Emitter

Development Asset Creation
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1

Hi, I am getting warning in one of the explosion effects I downloaded:
LogParticles: Warning: MaxCount = 501 for Emitter ParticleSpriteEmitter_2
What does this mean? Is it that the effect tries to emit more than 501 particles and the limit is somewhere bellow?

How do I fix this, in any way?

max-particle-count
max-particle-count594×609 125 KB

Thank you.

2

Try to check this value - looks like you are hitting this limit:

grafik
grafik800×617 51 KB

Also, maybe a conversion to Niagara could be an option (not sure, if this would raise the limits). Just in case, you are not aware of this: there’s a nice conversion utility available. This needs to be enabled as plugin.

grafik

I did test this, and it worked perfectly.

1 Like
3

Thanks for answer, I tried Max Draw Count, it doesn’t change anything and I still get the warning.

I am not sure if I should move to Niagara yet, unless this conversion plugin you are referring to works super well. I just started looking into effects, and we bought few effect packs, they are all build in the old system, whatever it is called.

4

The ‘old’ system is called Cascade. I was curious and did search in the source code. Having 4.26.2 at the moment in a project, I found some code with a hard coded 500…

In ParticleModules.cpp, theres a function CalculateMaxActiveParticleCount() which does calculate CurrMaxAPC based on some LOD stuff - I do not really understand this in detail. But that value (where APC means Active Particle Count I assume) is then compared to that hard coded limit.

#if WITH_EDITOR
	if ((GIsEditor == true) && (CurrMaxAPC > 500))
	{
		//@todo. Added an option to the emitter to disable this warning - for 
		// the RARE cases where it is really required to render that many.
		UE_LOG(LogParticles, Warning, TEXT("MaxCount = %4d for Emitter %s (%s)"),
			CurrMaxAPC, *(GetName()), GetOuter() ? *(GetOuter()->GetPathName()) : TEXT("????"));
	}
#endif
	return true;

Makes me believe, that this is a fixed limit and you cannot do anything here.

On the other hand, it is a warning only, so does it break functionality? The warning is only issued while in editor build - should not influence shipped builds.

And, another option: you could reduce the settings in Spawn section to lower value, so that Particle Emitter value goes below the limit - which should not affect the quality of your effect and even could be better in terms of performance.

1 Like
5

Thank you very much for detailed answer.
It doesn’t brake anything, it is just ugly to look at yellow warnings.

I only see one option, where the number is bellow 500 anyway.
Is it the Required>Max Draw Count I should be looking at? Or it is hidden somewhere else too?

6

You can play with the spawn rate to reduce the number.

grafik
grafik787×303 34.2 KB

7

Thanks @herb64
Mine is set to 0 now. If I set to 400, the total value will be 601.

8

It also depends on the Settings in the Lifetime section below Spawn… If lifetime is long, spawned particles will live longer and sum up to a higher number in combination with the spawn rate. So, using 400 may exceed 500 depending on the lifetime.