Particle Force

The three ParticleForces: from left to right, Velocity Particle, ParticleConcentrate and KillParticle.

'Particle Forces are new actors introduced by 227, designed to interact with a Particle Emitter. There are three different Forces: KillParticleForce, ParticleConcentrateForce and VelocityForce.

ParticleForces are added to the map and linked to a ParticleEmitter. When an emitter is linked to a force, the behaviour of its particles is modified whenever they enter the radius of the ParticleForce. KillParticle destroys particles. ParticleConcentrate acts a magnet, and the surrounding particles will be drawn towards the particle emitter or an offest point relative to it. VelocityForce modifies the speed at which the particles are moving.

To use a ParticleForce, add it to the map in the vicinity of a working emitter, and make sure you have activated the RealTime Preview. The classes you need to select in the ActorBrowser are the subclasses of XParticleForces*. When added to the map, it will affect nothing: to link it to an emitter, give the ParticleForce a tag, and in the properties of the emitter, under emForces, add the new tag to the list of ForcesTag. If you did it correctly, a line appears when the emitter (not the force)is selected, linking the forces to the emitter itself.

Notice the two blue lines linking the emitter to the two forces (map DmExar)

Generic Force settings

All ParticleForces have the XParticleForces properties which are generic properties not dependant on the way the force itself acts.

• bEnabled: Default True; Is the force active? You should not need to change this, except for testing purpose.
• bUseBoxForcePosition: Default False; is set to False, the particles will be affected by the force when entering the spherical radius around the Force determined by the EffectingRadius property. If set to True, the particles will be affected when entering the box specified by the settings of EffectingBox.
• EffectingBox: Default: all max to 200, all min to -200; Allows you to enter the boudaries of a box in which the particles will be affected instead of a radius. bUseBoxForcePosition must be set to true for this to have an impact.
• EffectingRadius: Default 300; The size of the sphere in which the particles will be affected by the force. bUseBoxForcePosition must be set to False for this to have an impact.
• EffectPartLifeTime: Default Min 0, Max 1; This property determines which particles are affected by the force: 0 is the moment a particle is spawned and 1 is the moment it is destroyed. A particle's lifetime is always ranged on such a 0-1 scale. If this property is set to Min 0.5, Max 1, only the particles that have lived half their lives will be affected. If you set it to Min 0, Max 0.5, particles will be affected from the moment they are spawned until they reach the middle of their lives.