Turning off and On emitters?

[Angelhelm]

Hey,

So I have the high level goal of adding a boost mechanic to the toon tank game. When boosting the tank will move faster.

I have created and attached two UsceneComponets where I want to attach a emitter to spawn a vfx to only be active when boosting. However looking through the documentation I can’t find anything to turn off emitters only to spawn them? What would be the best way of actually controlling emitters. I noticed that some of the emitters can be set to die when their lifespan has expired. Would it be to constantly spawn in the vfx or is there a better way.

	UPROPERTY(VisibleAnywhere, BlueprintReadOnly, Category= "Components", meta = (AllowPrivateAccess = "true"))
	USceneComponent* BoostEmitterPointLeft;

	UPROPERTY(VisibleAnywhere, BlueprintReadOnly, Category= "Components", meta = (AllowPrivateAccess = "true"))
	USceneComponent* BoostEmitterPointRight;

// In the cpp

	BoostEmitterPointLeft = CreateDefaultSubobject<UStaticMeshComponent>(TEXT("BoostEmitterPointLeft)"));
	BoostEmitterPointLeft->SetupAttachment(BaseMesh);

	BoostEmitterPointRight = CreateDefaultSubobject<UStaticMeshComponent>(TEXT("BoostEmitterPointRight)"));
	BoostEmitterPointRight->SetupAttachment(BaseMesh);

if(Boosting){

UGameplayStatics::SpawnEmitterAtLocation(this(Not sure if I should be using this or if I can use BoostEmitterPointRight , HitParticle,GetActorLocation());

}

I hope this makes sense what I am trying to accomplish thank you for any advice or feedback.

[DanM]

Using the particle component you should be able to use deactive

UParticleSystemComponent::DeactivateSystem

[Angelhelm]

That should do the trick! Thanks I will let you know how it goes!~

[Angelhelm]

I am using this code to active the emitters but nothing is appearing. I was using an if statement to check if they were nullptr and they always come out as nullptrs??? I have no idea why as I have set them in the BP version of the tank.

Anything look wrong here:

On Startup: ( in the .cpp)
	BoostEmitterPointLeft = CreateDefaultSubobject<UStaticMeshComponent>(TEXT("BoostEmitterPointLeft)"));
	BoostEmitterPointLeft->SetupAttachment(BaseMesh);

	BoostEmitterPointRight = CreateDefaultSubobject<UStaticMeshComponent>(TEXT("BoostEmitterPointRight)"));
	BoostEmitterPointRight->SetupAttachment(BaseMesh);

// in a function: 
	UGameplayStatics::SpawnEmitterAtLocation(this, TrackParticle, BoostEmitterPointRight->GetComponentLocation());
	UGameplayStatics::SpawnEmitterAtLocation(this, TrackParticle, BoostEmitterPointLeft->GetComponentLocation());


Header: 

	UPROPERTY(EditAnywhere,Category="Effects")
	UParticleSystem* TrackParticle;

	UPROPERTY(VisibleAnywhere, BlueprintReadOnly, Category= "Components", meta = (AllowPrivateAccess = "true"))
	USceneComponent* BoostEmitterPointLeft;

	UPROPERTY(VisibleAnywhere, BlueprintReadOnly, Category= "Components", meta = (AllowPrivateAccess = "true"))
	USceneComponent* BoostEmitterPointRight;

[DanM]

Change BoostEmitterPointLeft/Right to be ParticleSystemComponents with auto activate disabled and properly attached.

Then you should be able to use Activate/Deactivate as needed.

[Angelhelm]

Thanks Dan, ( you can skip this question as I found a solution)

I am a bit lost on how to replace BoostEmitterPointLeft/Right to be ParticleSystemComponents with auto activate disabled and properly attached.

As far as I can tell the BoostEmitterPointLeft/Right are just point in space that point to a location.

I am looking at the documentation and have seem to found myself a bit lost

Is there any way you could point out exactly where in my code I would replace the reference! Thank you in advance for taking the time to look at this I really appreciate it!

[Angelhelm]

	ParticleTrailLeft = CreateDefaultSubobject<UParticleSystemComponent>(TEXT("Particle Trail Left"));
	ParticleTrailLeft->SetupAttachment(BaseMesh);


	ParticleTrailRight = CreateDefaultSubobject<UParticleSystemComponent>(TEXT("Particle Trail Right"));
	ParticleTrailRight->SetupAttachment(BaseMesh);

Header:


	UPROPERTY(VisibleAnywhere, BlueprintReadOnly, Category = "Components", meta = (AllowPrivateAccess = "true"))
	UParticleSystemComponent* ParticleTrailRight;
	UPROPERTY(VisibleAnywhere, BlueprintReadOnly, Category = "Components", meta = (AllowPrivateAccess = "true"))
	UParticleSystemComponent* ParticleTrailLeft;

This is the solution I ended up on so far.

I was then able to move the locations and scale in BP.

[DanM]

Are you saying you’ve got a working solution?

[Angelhelm]

Yes I still can’t turn off or on the emitter however it doesn’t really matter in this case.