Performance tips for rocket smoke trail(s)?

General (non-technical) Off-Topic
#1

We have used the Particle Designer for creating smoke for flying rockets. But in general we noticed when we have some particle systems on screen simultaneously that this will slow down performance really really heavy.

 

So is there a solution to create some smoke trails which allows a lot of them to appear on screen simultaneously without to much performance costs?

 

Is it maybe better to work with images and transitions for the smoke? But I guess this will also allow only some rockets flying around at the same time, right?

#2

Hi @qkzkfkzkwlsh1,

With particle effects in general, you should try to do “more with less”. Perhaps make the emitted particles larger so that they blend together into a smoke trail reasonably well, but keep each particle on the screen for a shorter time. Perhaps consider using blending effects to blend the emitted particles into a trail that fades off at the edges. Basically, it’s easily possible to overload any device/GPU with a massive amount of particles, so if you can find a way to minimize the on-screen amount while achieving a fairly nice appearance, that will be the best overall solution.

Brent

#3

Reduce the max particles by as much as you can. One trick is to put 4 or 5 particles in a single image so they look more complex than they really are…

Most of our particle systems only have 25 or 30 particles on screen at the same time. Here’s an example of a complicated looking fire system with only 40 on screen particles

http://i.imgur.com/iJMefJi.gif iJMefJi.gif

#4

Hi @qkzkfkzkwlsh1,

With particle effects in general, you should try to do “more with less”. Perhaps make the emitted particles larger so that they blend together into a smoke trail reasonably well, but keep each particle on the screen for a shorter time. Perhaps consider using blending effects to blend the emitted particles into a trail that fades off at the edges. Basically, it’s easily possible to overload any device/GPU with a massive amount of particles, so if you can find a way to minimize the on-screen amount while achieving a fairly nice appearance, that will be the best overall solution.

Brent

#5

Reduce the max particles by as much as you can. One trick is to put 4 or 5 particles in a single image so they look more complex than they really are…

Most of our particle systems only have 25 or 30 particles on screen at the same time. Here’s an example of a complicated looking fire system with only 40 on screen particles

http://i.imgur.com/iJMefJi.gif iJMefJi.gif