Unreal Engine Bullet emitter

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pr0fesseur
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2020 3:25 am

Unreal Engine Bullet emitter

Post by pr0fesseur »

Hello all,

Im working on a 3D Bullet spawn system in Unreal engine.

want to share what ive done so far and the progress that I've made.
https://prnt.sc/u789g7
https://prnt.sc/u789m4
https://prnt.sc/u789s7
https://prnt.sc/u789x4
https://gyazo.com/e950ef42e38e42f1453d93cd4e4b061b
https://prnt.sc/u78aw8
https://prnt.sc/u78brf
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laurabuzz
Posts: 17
Joined: Thu Aug 20, 2020 2:35 pm
Location: Ireland

Re: Unreal Engine Bullet emitter

Post by laurabuzz »

Nice patterns!
How does it work?
Image
pr0fesseur
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2020 3:25 am

Re: Unreal Engine Bullet emitter

Post by pr0fesseur »

laurabuzz wrote:Nice patterns!
How does it work?
Its actually a pretty simple system using some of the methods i learned from boards like this.
https://prnt.sc/u8zdba
Each Emitter is a BP (Blueprint) in Unreal Engine UE4

Each emitter is given an Array

Each Array has a firing rate and position, vector, angle etc from the emitter where it spawns a projectile actor.

You can select any type of static mesh or VFX you create.

you can set rotation speed, acceleration, bullet spread, number of projectiles from each array, the projectile curve, Burst iteration and repeat so many more options
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opt2not
Posts: 1283
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Location: Southern California

Re: Unreal Engine Bullet emitter

Post by opt2not »

Nice, will you be sharing the BP somewhere?

Also, is supporting skeletal meshes a posibility? I guess that would be too heavy, performance-wise, but i guess static meshes with some procedural animation updates would be a work-around.
pr0fesseur
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2020 3:25 am

Re: Unreal Engine Bullet emitter

Post by pr0fesseur »

opt2not wrote:Nice, will you be sharing the BP somewhere?

Also, is supporting skeletal meshes a posibility? I guess that would be too heavy, performance-wise, but i guess static meshes with some procedural animation updates would be a work-around.
Yes you can do a skeletal mesh or anything really. but performance would be based on how you optimize. Ideally what you would want to do is spawn groups, and GPU particles.
I will be selling the BP on the market once its finished

I am building a framework that can be expanded upon simply. I will be including 3 particle types when listed
Fireball
Laser
missiles
pr0fesseur
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2020 3:25 am

Re: Unreal Engine Bullet emitter

Post by pr0fesseur »

Ive added an array point offset you can now create and spawn point grid arrays
https://prnt.sc/uacdmr
https://prnt.sc/uacd4j
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n0rtygames
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Re: Unreal Engine Bullet emitter

Post by n0rtygames »

Neat - done some similar stuff in UE4 but nothing I wanna show off cos I'm not switching over fully for shmup dev yet.

Out of interest, are you using Niagara and have a module to set positions based on an array of bullet positions that the bullet system feeds in? Or is this just your standard gpu instancing approach?

You can do a lot with Niagara - there are limitations on gpu systems that can't fire off certain events and I think the collision is done with a depth pass using the camera (I have a demo right now that uses collision but particles will disappear if you look away)
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pr0fesseur
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Aug 28, 2020 3:25 am

Re: Unreal Engine Bullet emitter

Post by pr0fesseur »

Niagara can do alot, however i find a gpu instancing approach to be ideal in this instance.

I use niagara for the bullets and instancing for the emitters. i have an array that can select a specific niagara particle to emit.

similar to this https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/vfx-tool ... lex-cortes
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