Particles are used to create a wide range of effects in games, from smoke and fire to splashing water. They can help bring your game world to life and can provide valuable visual feedback for your players.
In this tutorial, you will use a ParticleEmitter object to create a sparkling effect around a part.
Particle Emitters
The ParticleEmitter is a special type of object that will emit particles from its position when parented to a part or Attachment.
The particles themselves are 2D images that always face the camera. Particles move or change color according to the emitter's properties. By changing just a few of these, you can make an incredible array of different effects.
The example provided below is a model of a gold nugget. A simple particle effect will be used to make it sparkle.
Create a MeshPart in the Workspace and name it GoldNugget.
Set the MeshId property to rbxassetid://2903918852.
Set the Material property to Neon and the Color property to 255, 180, 0.
Insert a ParticleEmitter object into the part.
Once you add the emitter, white stars will immediately start emitting from the part. The star is the default particle image.
Particle Emission
Particles are generated randomly throughout the entire volume of a part. They emerge from one face of the part according to the EmissionDirection property. It defaults to Top, meaning the top surface of a part. If you rotate the part, the direction the particles are emitted from will change accordingly.
If you resize the part to be bigger, the particles will be emitted over a wider area.
Particle Properties
Color
The first thing to change is the emitter color — gold would be a much more appropriate color for a sparkle effect.
Change the Color property to 255, 200, 50.
Lifetime
By default, the particles last for 5 to 10 seconds, which is too long for sparkles. You can change this using the Lifetime property.
Lifetime can have either a single value or a Min and a Max value, with particles lasting for a random amount of time in seconds between the two values.
Change the Lifetime property of the emitter to 0.5, 1 to shorten the duration of the particles.
Rate
The Rate property specifies how many particles are emitted per second. The default value is 20 which is fairly high for a sparkle effect. Change the Rate property of the emitter to 7.
Speed
The Speed property determines how fast a particle will travel in studs per second. It can be either a single value or a range of values.
A sparkle effect should be nice and slow — a range of 2 to 3 seconds works nicely. Change the Speed property to 2, 3.
SpreadAngle
The particles are currently emitting straight up from the part. To get an even spread of particles in all directions, change the SpreadAngle property.
SpreadAngle has an X and a Y value which determine the range of angles that a particle can be emitted. This is calculated from both sides around the axes. A value of 180, 0 would emit particles in a flat circle across the X-axis; a value of 180, 180 would emit particles in every direction around the part. Change the SpreadAngle property of the emitter to 180, 180.
Additional Properties
To further improve the sparkle effect, try the following property values.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Size | 0.3 |
| LightEmission | 1 |
| Transparency | 0.5 |
| Drag | 1.5 |
With that, your sparkling part is complete. You can try complementing the sparkling effect with a gentle glow by adding a PointLight to the part, as shown at the start of the course — check out the Lighting with Props course to learn more about light objects.