â„–10 | October 2016
SourceSTUFF Light #Weapon Effects #Exactol #Map Particles #DA_SFM #Unusual Effects #Team Fortress 2 #Particle System #Mapmaking
#Deleted Effects #SFM_RU #Interactive #Unused Unusuals #ScurvyOrange #Rain Particle #Particle Editor #Source Engine
Contents
Introduction to particles
It’s a large guide written by Rayko dedicated to the particles: what those things are and what they do, pg. 6
Different particles A short illustrated list of particles that may be interesting for our readers, pg. 38
Particle power Exactol describes his work with different particles and shares his interesting experience, pg. 26
Interactive results The most interesting and original posters made by our participants, pg. 11
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Contents
You still think that this issue will be less interesting than others? You think you can continue without the knowledge about particles? As you can see, even the heroes of your comic books need those particles. You think Doctor Strange would be more resplendent without them? I doubt that. So off you go, explore the pages, gather all the knowledge you can get.
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SourceSTUFF
Editor-In-Chief Evil Witchy Редакторы Victory, Enigmus Proof-readers MysticTheMeem, engicat, Adel, GotchaBakin, Nadezhda, Sundownsyndrome Illustrators ScurvyOrange, FrvrStallone, Darthbodan Переводчики OPyshkin, SzB, Nessy Cyrodiil, Porontobello, Black Harrier Schizo Frankie, Chiara, Ilart
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Authors Rayko, Exactol Correspondent Darthbodan Special Thanks Facepunch, SFM_RU, Menaria, DA SFM group, Zacharian Scott Where you can find us vk.com, Facepunch thread, Steam group
Letter from the Editor
Greetings, Dear readers! Our new issue is dedicated to particles. We invited the best authors so they could tell you about the importance of this mysterious part of Source Filmmaker. Hope that this issue will inspire you for new experiments. Thanks for staying with us!
Evil Witchy, Editor-in-Chief 5
PARTICLES : An introduction to particles
pros, cons, interface and the usage of particles
Author: Rayko
Before you start working with SFM particle systems, you should have decided if they are really necessary. If they are, this article will help you to understand how they work and the basics of their creation and editing.
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An introduction to particles
ADVANTAGES OF WORKING WITH PARTICLES IN SFM: • Easy process of creation of tens, hundreds or even thousands of particles; • Ability to make every particle move in a specific way; • Relocating particle systems in SFM is as easy as relocating models; • Built-in motion blur applies itself to particles too.
DISADVANTAGES OF WORKING WITH PARTICLES: • Limited functionality – Particle Editor tool only lets you work with pre-made functions, which sometimes makes the creation of a needed effect rather complicated; • Particles have some bugs associated with them – this can make the creation of a particle system worthless for some applications.
SOME NOTICED BUGS: • Particles are illuminated only by static lights of a map. While for most cases particles should not be illuminated (sparks are bright enough by themselves), there are some situations when an unlit particle looks ugly whenever dynamic lighting comes in; • Some built-in functions work or process incorrectly. For example, ‘Oscillate Vector’ operator blurs a particle way too much, because of some issues with SFM’s motion blur; • Some built-in functions are either not working or cannot be described or explained without proper documentation.
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An introduction to particles
Thus, if you need tons of moving particles (like snow, rain, fire, shooting, explosions or smoke) on your screen, particle systems are your choice, especially if you make a video – it will require good tracking. Otherwise, if you think you can
easily handle all special effects with use of additional software – go for it.
Unusual effect Ghost unusual made by SedimentarySocks
INTRODUCTION TO PARTICLE EDITOR Particle Editor – an SFM tool for editing particle systems. You can see that its interface differs from one that SFM has – that’s probably because it wasn’t updated with SFM since it was in open beta. Unfortunately, SFM has changed separately from Particle Editor, which is the reason of some incompatibilities or bugs. For example, in previous versions of SFM particles could be illuminated by 8
dynamic lights. When you enter the tool via the ‘Particle Editor Tool’ button in the Windows menu, you can easily see that Particle Editor replaces SFM’s window. Be careful: a Particle Editor crash means an SFM crash as well, you will lose all your unsaved progress.
An introduction to particles
INTERFACE When Particle Editor is launched, you will see a mostly blank window with a menu strip on the top, a stripcontainer for info and developer mini-console on the bottom and an ‘Engine Viewport’ window on the upper-right part of the main window. Frankly speaking, ‘Engine Viewport’ is more of an annoyance than anything else, you’d be better off not touching it. It displays the view from the The Particle Editor’s interface player’s camera (which you can view in the F11 Game Mode). Be careful, by default the volume level of this game mode is quite high. Let’s go through the menu sub-menus. There are ‘File’, ‘Edit’, ‘Pet’, ‘View’ and ‘Tools’. ‘File’ menu contains buttons named: — New – creates a temporary empty file (of ‘.pcf’ format), which you then can fill with particle systems, give it a name and save; — Open – opens a chosen ‘.psf’ file; — Save – saves a current file. The process of saving is rather long and is accompanied by window that asks you if you want to ‘Perforce’; — Save as… – saves a copy of current file with chosen name; — Close – closes a current file (not the Particle Editor); — Perforce – the functionality of this button is unknown, it seems that it is used for synchronizing files with particles in computer network. The known fact is: by default this function is not working and using it will bring some additional waiting and an ‘Error!’ window. It will not crash the Particle Editor and it will not mess up the save process; — Recent – not a button, but a submenu that will show all recently used ‘.pcf’ files; — Exit – exits the program (not just Particle Editor!).
“Be careful, by default the volume level of this game mode is quite high”.
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An introduction to particles
‘Edit’ menu contains buttons named: — Undo ‘***’ – cancels a previous action named ‘***’; — Redo ‘***’ – returns a previously cancelled action named ‘***’; — Describe Undo History – should spawn a window with actions history, but not doing it; — Clear Undo History – clears action history; — Copy Systems – should copy particle systems, but it’s actual function is a mystery instead; — Copy Functions – copies a function to a buffer (see 2.Fuctions: What do they do); — Paste – copies a function from a buffer to the right place. Works only with functions; — Keyboard… – opens a window, where you can change not-so-many Particle Editor hotkeys.
‘View’ menu contains buttons named: — Properties – shows or closes ‘Properties’ window only if ‘.pcf’ file is opened; — Particle System Browser – shows or closes ‘Particle System Browser’ window only if ‘.pcf’ file is opened; — Particle System Preview – shows or closes ‘Particle System Preview’ window only if ‘.pcf’ file is opened; — Default Layout – return every window to theirs’ default place and size. ‘Tools’ menu only contains one button: — Switch to SFM – switches the window from Particle Editor mode to SFM mode. 10
«SFM and TF2 workshop have got tons of interesting particles».
Frontline Particles made by Chaofanatic
An introduction to particles
‘Pet’ menu contains buttons named: — PetAdvancedOptions – swithes ‘AdvancedOptions’ mode. What it does it not known. ♋ means that this mode is enabled;
— PetSortAttributes – enables or disables sorting by name for function attributes. It’s better to keep this off: in that case the most important attributes come together in the list.
Halloween Particles made by ZtG|Cheesypuff, Aardvark, Retro4214, m0rxx, heartLyss
A Particle Editor’s interface if (empty) file is open
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An introduction to particles
Let’s go through the Properties, Particle System Browser and the Particle System Preview windows’ interface. First one is the Particle System Browser. It is located in the upper left corner of the window and, in this example, is empty: this file was created by the ‘New’ button in the ‘File’ menu. It has a few buttons too: — Save – saves current file, equal to the button ‘Save’ of ‘File’ menu; — Save and Test – saves the file and activates game mode (F11); — Create – asks you to name a particle system and creates an empty one. New systems are placed in the main part of this window. By default, particle systems have animated thumbnails, in which they are trying (surprisingly successfully) to show how this or that particle system works. It’s possible to display them as a list (and viceversa) by clicking on ‘&’ symbol near ‘Show Previews’ text or by clicking on the text itself; — Delete – deletes a chosen particle system; — Duplicate – asks for a name for a copy and then copies a chosen particle system. A Particle System Preview window displays work of a particle system. It has two tabs – ‘Render’ and ‘Ctrl Pts’. Everything in this window works only with the visual
display of a particle system and does not change anything else. ‘Render’ tab contains: — ‘Render Bounding Box’ mode – displays a box that contains all particles within itself; — ‘Render Culling Bounds’ – displays bounds that will destroy a particle if it pass through them; — ‘Background Color’ color – lets you change the background color of the preview’ — ‘Render Helpers’ mode – makes special ‘helper’ objects visible; — ‘Render Control Points’ mode – makes control points’ axes visible; — ‘Render Grid’ mode – displays XY plane as a grid; — ‘Lock Preview System’ mode – functional is unknown; — ‘Stop Effect’ button – restarts particle system’s effect (more precisely, triggers ‘EndCap’ event for particle system). ‘Ctrl Pts’ tab contains particle system’s control points, which are used by system’s functions. You can edit their coordinates to see how your system reacts. Remember: these control points will have bones in SFM mode, which you can pose and animate. To explain ‘Properties’ window we will need an empty particle system. Let’s create one and name it as ‘123’.
Energy Orb This is an unusual effect from the Gun Mettle Update. It’s brought a brand new type of unusual effects connected with weapons. At this moment there are four such effects: Isotope, Hot, Cool and Energy Orb.
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An introduction to particles
The Particle Editor’s interface if (empty) file is open
After selection of the particle system this window is filled with information. It consists of two zones, one being the list of all functions that particle system uses (System Properties contains also has that info in it) and is located in the left part of the window. The other (on the right side) is the list of parameters of a selected
Will-o’-the-Wisp Unusual effect made by Mr. Tinder
function, all parameters have input fields. The details on how a particle system works will be given later. The picture above shows us sorted parameter names: as I noted before, their relative positions are better when not sorted. Further examples will be given with with an unsorted list.
Manor Flames Unusual effect made by Lombax и Testinglol
Arcane Runes Unusual effect made by Testinglol
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An introduction to particles
ABOUT PARTICLE SYSTEMS Particle systems are complex structures which consist of functions. These functions exist inside one global function named ‘System Properties’, which also sets system’s attributes. The particle system, as you can guess, is made of particles. Particles – points, that have position and other parameters that determine what will be displayed on that particle’s position and how it will be displayed. It is important to remember that particle is not just a sprite or a model – it’s an object, on which place sprite or a model will be placed. Every particle has it’s own
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velocity and acceleration, but their whole being is determined by system’s functions. The particle system contains the following types of functions: ‘Renderer’, ‘Operator’, ‘Initializer’, ‘Emitter’, ‘ForceGenerator’ and ‘Constraint’. Particle systems can also have children and contain other particle systems as ‘Children’ type of functions. Not every type is needed to make a particle system work. The simplest system can have just only one renderer, a position initializer and an emitter.
An introduction to particles
FUNCTIONS: WHAT DO THEY DO In this part we will briefly look through the roles of functions in particle systems’. ‘Operator’ functions change particle attributes as time goes. It might be a movement, a color change, an opacity change and so on. Keep in mind that attributes are recalculated every frame. They can be categorized in groups: • Functions that change specific
When you add a new operator function to a system, you will be able to filter them using these groups:
attributes. • Functions that change one attribute using another attribute. • Functions that inherit attributes from parent system. • Mathematical functions. • Movement/rotation functions. • Functions that manipulate control points.
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}
OPERATOR
All
Normal
EndCap
Hitbox
Rotation
Size
Control Points
Color and Opacity
Parameter Remapping
Position and Velocity
Life Duration
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An introduction to particles
‘Renderer’ functions display something a particles’ position. The particle Editor has many renderer functions, but only 4 of them are actually functional:
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}
RENDERER
render _animated_sprites – puts sprites on particle positions;
render models – places a model on particle positions.
render _rope – connects particles using sprites;
‘Children’ functions contain other particle systems. A particle system cannot hold itself as a child. A particle system may consist of other particle systems and children systems have references to their parents. A system cannot be it’s own children/parent. Sometimes people create special parent systems that have no functions and only children particles are present.
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render _sprite_trail – creates a stretched sprite behind moving particle;
An introduction to particles
‘Initializer’ functions set particle attributes at construction. There are various functions and the variety is especially rich for initializing the position of particles. While their functionality groups are similar to ones that operators have, they can be filtered using these:
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}
INITIALIZER
All
Normal
Hitbox
Size
Rotation
Normal
Position and Velocity
Life Duration
Animation Sequence
Parameter Remapping
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An introduction to particles
‘Constraint’ functions calculate collisions between particles and the world. They then limit particles’ movement according to these calculations. These functions are:
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}
CONSTRAINT
Constrain particles to a box – doesn’t let particles out of the box;
Prevent passing through plane – doesn’t let particles go through the plane;
Prevent passing through static part of world – Does what it says on the tin;
Constrain distance to control point – keep particles inside a sphere which center is a specified control point;
Collision via traces – stops particles moving through objects of certain collision groups. Impacts performance, poorly explored;
Constrain distance to path between two control points – transits particles from one control point to another while not letting them too far from the path between points;
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An introduction to particles
‘Emitter’ functions create particles in specific ways. There are only 4 functions:
4
}
EMIT TER
emit noise – a continuous emission with floating emission speed;
emit_continuously – a continuous emission, you can set the emission speed;
emit_instanteneously – an instantaneous, emits a set amount of particle once;
emit to maintain count – a continuous emission that tries to maintain a specific amount of particles;
Cool This is an unusual effect for sniper rifle from the Gun Mettle Update.
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An introduction to particles
‘ForceGenerator’ functions apply specific accelerations to particles. Present functions are:
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}
FORCEGENERATOR
Create vortices from parent particles – draws child particles towards parent particles;
Pull towards control point – draws particles towards a specific control point;
random force – applies random accelerations in a specific range to particles;
Force based on distance from plane – accelerates particles depending on how far they are from the plane;
time varying force – Applies an acceleration which changes over time;
turbulent force – is a turbulence emulation for particles;
twist around axis – spins particles around a specific axis.
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An introduction to particles
EDITING FUNCTIONS’ ATTRIBUTES When it comes to changing attributes of added functions, newbies get dazzled by amounts of things that can be changed. Fortunately, it is much easier and simple when it comes to practice. The thing is, every function has a set of attributes that is common in it’s group (renderer/ operator). These attributes do influence the way a function is working, but the changes are not always visible and even less often useful. Therefore, they can be ignored. See, on the right picture you can see a Editing attributes of ‘Movement Basic’ function long list of attributes whose names start with ‘operator Don’t forget to check if a new value is in …’. These are ‘common’ attributes proper format: attributes of ‘vector3’ type and, with an exception of a very useful requires 3 numbers separated by spaces ‘operator enabled’, that conveniently and will not accept 1, 2 or 4 numbers. turns functions off and on, you can How to understand what this or that forget about these attributes. It happens function do? As documentation is absent that this particular function has only 4 – only by looking at function’s name ‘interesting’ attributes: ‘operator enabled’, and experimenting! Fortunately, a lot of ‘gravity’, ‘drag’ and ‘max constraing functions were explained on the official passes’. Source Engine developer wiki and on Do you remember what was said about the local wiki of Russian Community (in sorting attribute names? If sorting is Russian). present, then some ‘common’ attributes can be mixed with others, while without sorting you can skip their whole section. To change an attribute, simply write another value instead of former one in a string field. ‘bool’ attributes can also be switched off/on using the ‘&’ sign near it. 21
An introduction to particles
USING PARTICLE SYSTEMS The particle systems may vary – be simple or complex. Simple systems are usually more universal, but complex systems are more spectacular. Working with particle systems requires the same creativity that scenebuilding requires: one cannot simply find the exact model (or make a particle system) that looks like that was imagined, but sometimes a good choice of lighting or an angle for the camera can make one thing look like another. This is true for making both posters and videos. For example, a simple particle system with ‘render_rope’ renderer can be used as a rope, a cable, a laser, a stylish line or a censorship strip if you tint the used material just right! To prevent you constantly overwriting particle files or duplicating particle systems whenever you need a small change, there is a local particle system override function. If you select a particle system in the Animation Set Editor (SFM mode) and right click, you can press an ‘Instance Particle System’ button. Press it and then in it’s place will be an ‘Edit Particle System’ list of all particle systems used in this one (parent and children). Click on the name of a particle system you want to change 22
and then a Particle Editor window will appear. All changes you do in there can be instantly seen in previews of SFM mode.
Waterfall particle The environment in Team Fortress 2 is usually filled with different particles and this waterfall isn’t an exception
An introduction to particles
CREATING A COMPLEX PARTICLE SYSTEM Let’s create a complex particle system that will use functions of every group. Let it be a rain particle system, but don’t forget: in the wide range of particle systems in Team Fortress 2 SFM has, by default, a rain particle system. Start from the basics. Create a new file and a new particle system named ‘rain’. Press the right mouse button on the ‘Renderer’ group, press the ‘Add…’ button in a newly opened contextual menu and then choose ‘render_animated_sprites’. Visually, it won’t do anything.
Add ‘emit_continuously’ to the ‘Emitter’ group. Now lots of white rectangles will appear in the cente of a preview and the amount of created particles in the corner will quickly increase. In the ‘Initializer’ group add a ‘Position Within Sphere Random’ function. Increase the attribute ‘distance_max’ to something big, like ‘1000’. To make ‘raindrops’ appear on a plane, change ‘distance_bias’ from ‘1 1 1’ to ‘1 1 0’ – this will collapse the sphere into circle. Now white rectangles appear throughout the wide circle. To change white rectangles for something more raindrop-y, select the main function – System Properties, find a ‘material’ attribute and press the ‘…’ button on its left. You can write a path string directly to this attribute, but it’s usually more convenient to search for it in the material browser. Choose a material named ‘waterdrop001.vmt’. Find a ‘radius’ attribute and change it from ‘5’ to ‘3’ to make the drops smaller. Now, when drops are being created, let them move. Add ‘Movement Basic’ to the ‘Operator’ group. Change it’s attribute named ‘gravity’ to ‘0 0 -980’. This will make the drops fall downwards, but you might notice that once there are 1000 particles the rain will stop. This means we have redundant particles. Which particles are redundant? For rain – ones that reached the ground. They can be removed in many ways, but the more difficult are conditions, the more functions it will need. Let’s go the simplest way: all particles that reached a specific height will be removed. Add ‘Cull when crossing plane’ in the ‘Operator’ group, that does exactly what we need. When you add it 23
An introduction to particles
you will notice that all particles disappeared. It’s okay: culling plane starts in the same place as particles’ starting position. To change that, toggle on the ‘Control Point for point on plane’ attribute of a freshly added function. At the first glance nothing changed, but if you look in ‘Ctrl Pts’ window you will see that now there are now two control points. To remind you, control points are specific points that are used by functions. Their main feature is that their position can be animated, which adds flexibility when using particle systems in SFM mode. Change the other control point’s position to ‘0 0 -1000’. You will see that particles are disappearing down below and the flow of rain is not stopping. You now have a working rain generator, although there is lots of space for improvement. You can add different functions to the system. For example, you can add ‘Pull towards control point’ and change the attributes: ‘component scale’ to ‘1 1 0’, so that gravity will not be affected, ‘amount of force’ to ‘200’ to make force appear, ‘control point number’ to ‘1’ to make particles move towards point 1 (the second point) and change ‘fallof power’ to ‘0’ to amplify the effect. Now we created a ‘wind’ effect and it blows from the first point control point to a second one. Now it’s time to test our particle system! Save the file and load a proper map. Add your particle system via ‘Animation Set Editor’. Choose a proper angle for the camera, put control point 0 up high in the sky and control point 1 in the ground. Adjust some attributes if you want and don’t forget about motion blur! Here is the result. 24
The Result Particles can be used for posters and for shorts as well. If you are familiar with particles you can improve them in different graphics software. For some posters it could be rather easier to use particles which are already used in SFM to achieve a better identity. For example, for the preview of any item from TF2 it’s way better to use particles from this exact game
An introduction to particles
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Map Particles 26
From serene snow showers to violent explosions, particles are versatile tools that can make your map pop with vibrancy and life. Particles can set the ambience and tone of a map with a variety of effects that range from rain to lasers. My name is Zach, but many people know me as Exactol.
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Map Particles
I first got into particles in the fall of 2015 after seeing what particles could do to improve a map. Before going into particles, I should note that I have been a mapper since 2012. I’ve worked on numerous maps including pd_snowville, co_rapture, cp_okinawa and koth_eerie. I had some basic experience in making them from doing small edits for SFM posters. I learned most of my early skills from watching Zachariah Scott’s particle tutorials and looking at existing particles. Chaofanatic and Fissionmeteroid helped me a lot and they were kind enough to answer my never ending questions. The first time I started making my own particles was when I met the two mappers Fubar and Vel0city - a three man team to make a map for the Winter Wonderland showcase. The end product was Snowville, a festive remake of Sawmill
with the player destruction gamemode instead of King of the Hill or Capture the Flag. At first I was tasked with making a few miscellaneous effects like a snow trail for the sled. After some discussion, we thought it would be cool to have an Aurora Borealis in the map. I immediately set out to work on figuring out how to do this and went through many iterations before coming up with a final version. At first, it was a complete mess. My lack of experience combined with such a complex particle system led to some very bad first versions. The first step was to attempt to create a sine wave, which I eventually succeeded in doing by spawning the particles on a position along a path that was sequential with a curve, and parenting it to duplicate particle that went in the opposite direction. As my knowledge of particles grew, I slowly
Aurora Borealis Early version
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Map Particles
improved upon my Aurora Borealis each day. Eventually, it went from sticks in a line into something that somewhat resembled an actual Aurora Borealis. One problem was trying to emulate the colors of an Aurora Borealis. I tried using a color oscillator, but it ended up creating colors of blue, purple, and green that clashed garishly. Instead of trying to be 100% accurate, I chose to stick to a blue and turquoise Aurora Borealis. When we were finally able to test out the aurora in our Aurora Borealis Ended version
Aurora Borealis Wave Early curve
Early colors Early color scheme
Aurora Borealis Wave near final aurora
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Map Particles
map, disaster struck. It turns out having 500 large particles on the screen can be a bit of a framerate killer and the particles looked terrible from underneath. It was back to the drawing boards or be forced to use the particle as part of the end of the round only. This is when I looked towards other Source games that had used an Aurora Borealis. I was in luck - one of the Half Life games (I don’t remember which) had an Aurora Borealis particle. I was able to find and it download, but I never actually knew what it looked like as I didn’t have Half Life or the textures for it. A quick substitution with my Aurora Borealis texture of the time, softglow. vmt, showed promise, and after some editing and a custom texture, the final version emerged ingame. This aurora
Aurora Borealis on the map Finished version of the particle
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was a ring shape and required much less particles to look good. However, even these still caused some bad drops in FPS. We eventually decided to just deal with the performance loss in a trade off for aesthetics. In the end, I believe the particles were the icing on the cake, turning a good reskin into a unique one. Our hard work had paid off - Snowville rocketed to the top of the workshop becoming the 7th top rated TF2 map of all time. If you look hard enough, under all of the Bob spam, you can find people commenting on the Aurora Borealis. Every time I see someone comment on the Aurora Borealis, I can’t help but smile, knowing that my hard work paid off and someone took the time to recognize it. My biggest accomplishment by far is the set
Map Particles
Aurora Borealis Finished version that was used on the map
SnowVille It’s a wintery remake of the popular Sawmill map with “player destruction” mode.
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Map Particles
set of particles I made for Yrrzy’s map. This was my first large scale project and in total I made 46 different particles. These included meteors, explosions and warning particles. Rapture is a different take on the player destruction gamemode where the pickups are spawned into the map through meteors instead of being dropped by players. My task was to create a set of particles to sell the effect that meteors were bombarding the battlefield. Yrrzy came up with the idea around the time the TF2Maps 72 hour contest was going on. Coincidentally, I had made a set of meteor particles during it. Yrrzy contacted me after seeing my work for the 72 hour
contest, and I started remaking them to be even better. I started making the meteors by creating 2 render_sprite_trail particles with a glow texture and then parenting it to a fast moving particle that was angled downwards at 45 degrees. The hard part of these particles was to line them up to perfectly go through the origin, so Yrrzy could accurately know where the particles would end up in hammer. One large problem with these particles is parts can sometimes go faster than the main particle for some reason, making it look disjointed. I’ve yet to find a fix, but my guess is it has something to do with drag. I also made a set of meteor explosions that were heavily inspired by
Rapture There is a variety of particles made by Exactol that were used on the map: meteorites, explosions, etc. Every of this particles seems very nice on map itself
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Map Particles
Rapture Much more particles, that was used on this map
Chaofanatic’s invasion 2Fort explosions. I’ve always struggled with making explosions, but I think these ones managed to come out great. There was also a added challenge to make the particles as minimalistic as possible to avoid performance issues. During the heavy meteor showers there would be 1 meteor per second, and each meteor has a warning particle at its destination and then an explosion. That adds up to a decent amount of particles being rendered at once. This combined with some smoke particles at mid can make it a little laggy at times. Properly optimizing my
particles seems to be a big struggle for me, balancing aesthetics with performance. Recently I’ve been experimenting with unusual effects. So far I’ve made four unusuals: Candy Rain, Orbiting Asteroid, Holy Temple and Awakened Temple. The orbiting asteroid effect was my first test at unusual making. It used a render_ rope as a trail for the asteroid and had a orbiting asteroid sprite spinning in the center. However, I was unable to finish it because I couldn’t get the motion of the trail to lock to the control point without it glitching out. Looking back, I probably could have easily remade the trail with a 33
Map Particles
trail of sprites instead of a render_rope. Candy Rain was my first finished unusual. It’s just a simple alternative version of the weather type unusuals, and instead of falling rain or snow it rains sprinkles candy canes and lollipops with a candy rain cloud. I made Sunlit Sacrifice and Midnight Offering for the Mayann Project. Logan McCloud was kind enough to create a fantastic pyramid texture. Holy Temple was my first unusual that I’m actually proud of. It’s a glowing Mayan pyramid on top of a layer of clouds, sparkling with energy. Awakened Temple is a similar idea, but instead of a glowing pyramid, it’s a moonlit pyramid. Logan McCloud later improved upon the unusuals and released them to the workshop. The hardest part about making unusuals for me is coming up with an original idea. There are so many possibilities, yet I always go blank when I try to think of one. My biggest advice to those who want to start making their own particles is to watch tutorials on the basics and look at existing particles. Learning the what each system does is crucial: The first function in the list is the renderer. This affects what type of particle it will be. There are only a few renderer functions in Tf2; animated_sprites, render_ rope, render_screen_velocity_rotate and render_sprite_trail. Animated_sprites is the most common renderer and it renders your particle as the material looks. Render_ sprite_trail is probably the second most commonly used system, and it changes the particles length depending on its speed. If you don’t set a speed to them, these particles will not show up. Initializers are what they sound like, they are things affecting the particle 34
Ancient Temples Unusual effect made for the “Mayann Project”
Candy Rain Unusual effect made for Team Fortress 2
Map Particles
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Map Particles
when it initially appears. Common parameters of these would include lifetime, spawn within sphere random, and sometimes the velocity of the particle. You can also set transparency, color and offset with initializers. When making a particle, remember to set a initializer for its position, or else it will spawn at the origin coordinates of the map, which would be 0, 0, 0. Operators affect the particle once it has spawned. If your particle has movement, it will need a movement basic operator. Movement basic can also be used to set the velocities of the particle if you want them to always move in a certain direction. Other examples of operators are alpha fade and decay, which will fade in and out your particle and kill it once its lifetime ends.
Radius scale, which changes the radius depending on the time it has been alive, and movement lock to control point, which as it’s name implies, locks the movement to the control point. Emitters are what spawn the particles. There are three emitters in TF2, emit_ continuously, emit_instantaneously, and emit_noise. All of the emitters are rather self explanatory, so I won’t be going into them with too much detail. Force generators apply force to your particle and can be rather useful. In TF2 there are three force generators: Pull towards control points, random force, and twist around axis. Pull towards control points pulls the particle towards the control point of your choice, and can also be used to repel particle if you set
Map Particles
the force value to a negative number. Random force is a random force where you can set min and max forces for the axis, and is useful for effects like snow. Twist around axis makes your particles circle around a axis. One useful trick to test your particles is to override existing ones. This can be done by renaming a particle to the name of an existing one. To test explosions, I usually make a empty particle named ExplosionCore_Wall and parent my explosion to it. By naming the particle ExplosionCore_Wall, it overrides that existing particle, which is the explosion for the default rocket launcher, and can be useful for testing the scale of your particle and how it actually looks ingame. While it looks intimidating at first,
“From explosions to magma, the possibilities only end with your imagination”. particles aren’t too hard once you get the hang of it. Through hard work and dedication, it is possible to master the source particle editor. Although there might be limitations, it is still a powerful and versatile tool. From explosions to magma, the possibilities only end with your imagination.
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Different particles
DIFFERENT PARTICLES You can meet the particles almost everywhere: on the maps or different items. In this article we’ve decided to go through a couple of interesting particles that you may see in TF2.
The mysterious construction that is known to all and located in the centre of this map is actually a mess that consists of static models from Half-Lifes 2 citadels core, that is surrounded by the carts flashing lights and intermittently appearing lightnings from the charged Kritzkrieg.
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Different particles
Nucleus Core Particle that is used on koth_nucleus
Sawmill flush Waterfall particle that is used on sawmill map
Yet another demonstration of Valve`s love for the smallest details while creating content. The waterfall that’s located on the one side of the map consists of one dynamical model, surrounded by seven different particles. The foggy underwater disks deserves some special attention.
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Different particles
Soon rd_asteroid will celebrate its second anniversary in beta-testing. Although nothing has been changed for over a year, it’s still remains the most beautiful and detailed location in the game. Aside from the interesting design and texture quality, asteroid can boast about its skybox that consists of particles representing intermittently twinkling stars and the sun that lights the battlefield. As shown to the right, the screen of the effect, that`s imitating the eruption of an alien miasma.
Asteroid Miasm Particle that is used on rd_asteroid
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Different particles
The queen among maps that uses an unjustified amount of all sorts of effects, by all rights is Helltower. Namely its underground part. Apart from the orange fog, which is covering almost the entire map, the floor is one solid dynamical object with lava splashes appearing in random spots, bursting out flameballs and smoke.
Helltower Fireball The one of many effects that’s used on plr_helltower_event. You can also see lots of particles, such as lava bursts, smoke, lightings, or the orange hot air streams.
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Different particles
The Short Circuit Test version of this weapon shot effect
If you thought that Short Circuit can’t be a more annoying weapon, we advise you to take a look at a screenshot of an early prototype version of its effect. The rapidly twitching lightning will make you have an epileptic seizure.
Widowmaker unused particle for the Widowmaker
A unique and visually pleasing effect, the nuts and bolt that are used as ammo are symbolizing the metal, which the Widowmaker uses to shoot. It is a bit strange to see this weapon being an outcast even though the game has a plethora of useless items. 42
Different particles
Despite the plethora of blood and dismembered limbs in our beloved TF2, Valve decided that a blood rain over someone’s head will be a bit over the top and didn’t add this marvelous effect to the game. Unusual Blood Unusual effect for Team Fortress 2 hats
Detonator Fireworks The old Detonator explosion effect
When the Team Fortress 2 Beta existed, this effect was a huge sized firework that eclipsed (with it’s beauty) the view of other players, which was more than enough for them to hate this item with shaking monitors due to the unexpected arson.
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Different particles
Capper Crit The C.A.P.P.E.R’s critical shot effect
An incredibly beautiful effect, which maybe not everyone has seen, because of the item’s price and also because of particles that it shoots disappears very fast. Fast as a bullet, a beam of light with sparkling core surrounded by energy halos gets the target in split seconds.
One of the primordial versions of telling the other players about the used Vaccinator type should have been a small pulsing aura around the feet, like the one you can see using the Amputator taunt. Eventually came the common and more comfortable icons that you see currently in the game.
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Vacc_color Coloured charges of the Vaccinator. Yellow is responsible for fire, white is for bullets and the green one - for explosions
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Particles Interactive
Author — chunkyboi Really fiery work with particles and scenebuild
Particles Interactive 46
Particles Interactive
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Particles Interactive
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Particles Interactive
Author — lolripk It’s time to turn on Kavinsky in the player
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Particles Interactive
Author — Golbex Little walkaround in the magical cave
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Particles Interactive
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Particles Interactive
Author — Mikhail Ushakov The women in red is almost seeing stars from all that noise
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Particles Interactive
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Particles Interactive
Author — ScurvyOrange You should always be more precise with getting rid of your memories.
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Particles Interactive
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Particles Interactive
Author — Atlasuir Spending the night by the fire has always been a great thing
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Particles Interactive
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Particles Interactive
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Particles Interactive
Author — S1l3nts There’s nothing like a calm evening at City 17
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Particles Interactive
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Particles Interactive
Author — Nikolay Chernov Sometimes our road can lead to nowhere
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Particles Interactive
Author — HexadecimalComputing Here comes the blasts and SWAT
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Particles Interactive
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Particles Interactive
Author — deadsky313 There can be the only one...
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Particles Interactive
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Particles Interactive
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Particles Interactive
Author — PuzzlerDK Two videos took part in our interactive contest and, oh boy, do they have some good-looking particle effects in them: The Pyroland planet and a chakra system inside the human body.
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