ParticleSystemProxy

The ParticleSystemProxy entity is used to place predefined particle systems throughout the level. It is possible to override the default values of each type of particle system to provide some variation between each instance of this entity.

Field Descriptions

The fields for the ParticleSystemProxy entity are:

Field	Description
BirthRate	Number of particles per second to create
BoneName	Name of actor bone to attach to
clrColor	Color of particles
EntityName	Name of the entity to attach this entity to
fRadius	Maximum distance at which sound can be heard
MaxParticleCount	Maximum number of particles active at any one time
Model	Name of the world model to attach to
nStyle	Style of particle system - ranges from 1 to 12
ParticleLifespan	Number of milliseconds that particle is alive
Scale	Scale of particle size - 1.0 = 100%
szAlpha	Name of alpha bitmap file to use to texture particles
szEntityName	Name of this entity
szSoundFile	Sound file to play while particle system is active
szTexture	Name of bitmap file to use to texture particles
TriggerName	Name of trigger entity

For more information on attaching the ParticleSystemProxy entity to another entity or model see Attaching Entities to an Actor, Player, or Model.

If there is a name in the TriggerName entry then the particle system will run only if the state of the trigger is on.

Note: You must specify a bitmap name for szTexture in order to have particles appear. There is no default texture used by the ParticleSystemProxy entity.

To override the default values used for each type of particle system a non-zero value for BirthRate, MaxParticleCount or ParticleLifespan must be used. If these entries have a zero value then the defaults will be used.

There are 12 different styles of particle systems you can use. They are:

nStyle Value	Description
1	SHOCKWAVE - particles emitted on horizontal plane
2	FOUNTAIN - particles emitted with gravity, velocity
3	RAIN - particles emitted a random distance on X/Z planes
4	SPHERE - particles emitted with varying velocity vectors
5	COLUMN - particles emitted with velocity, no gravity
6	EXPLOSIVE ARRAY - particles emitted UPWARD (+Y) from emitter plane
7	SPIRAL ARM - Kinda like the Milky Way Galaxy
8	TRAIL - Typical particle trail
9	GUARDIAN - Pseudo-columnal-spiral effect
10	IMPLODING SPHERE - An imploding sphere
11	IMPLODING SHOCKWAVE - Imploding shockwave
12	IMPLODING SPIRAL ARM - Collapsing galaxy

Examples

Here are two examples of ParticleSystemProxy entities in different configurations.


Example #1	Example #2

Example #1 is a particle system of type FOUNTAIN. It uses the standard default values and each particle is textured using the bitmap lvsmoke.bmp.

Example #2 is the same as Example #1 except that the BirthRate default has been overridden to be 800 particles per second and the size of the particles are now 50% of the default.