Overview

A PopcornFX Emitter (PKFxEmitter.cs) is an instance of a PopcornFX Effect (PKFxEffectAsset.cs).

Emitters are updated and rendered in a scene, allowing configuration during edition and control over emitters during runtime.

Emitter properties

1. The emitter can be started, stopped, restarted and terminated using the three buttons.
2. Exposes general properties of the emitter.
3. Provides control and configuration over attributes and attributes samplers.

You can also interact with the emitter by getting the component and calling the appropriates methods:

Sample code

Here’s an example of a class that can create new emitter components in a scene and sets one of its attributes when a key is pressed:

using UnityEngine;
public class SpawnEffectOnKeyPressed : MonoBehaviour
{
    // We expose a PopcornFX asset to be set in Unity's UI
    public PopcornFX.PKFxEffectAsset m_EffectAsset = null;
    private int m_ColorAttributeIndex = -1;
    private void Start()
    {
        // We retrieve the "ParticlesColor" attribute index in the asset:
        if (m_EffectAsset != null)
            m_ColorAttributeIndex = m_EffectAsset.AttributeIdFromName("ParticlesColor");
    }
    // Update is called once per frame
    void Update()
    {
        // When the player press the "space" key
        if (Input.GetKey(KeyCode.Space))
        {
            // We create a new GameObject in the scene at a random position:
            GameObject effectGameObject = new GameObject();
            Vector3 gameObjectRandomPosition = new Vector3(Random.value, Random.value, Random.value);
            effectGameObject.transform.position = gameObjectRandomPosition * 5.0f;
            // We attach a PopcornFX emitter component to this new GameObject:
            PopcornFX.PKFxEmitter emitterComponent = effectGameObject.AddComponent<PopcornFX.PKFxEmitter>();
            // We set the PopcornFX asset on the emitter component:
            emitterComponent.UpdateEffectAsset(m_EffectAsset, true);
            emitterComponent.m_OnFxStopped = new PopcornFX.PKFxEmitter.OnFxStoppedDelegate(OnEffectStoppedPlaying);
            // We check if the attribute "ParticlesColor" was indeed retrieved corretly in the "Start" method:
            if (m_ColorAttributeIndex != -1)
            {
                // We can now set the attributes values on the component
                Vector4 randomColor = Random.ColorHSV(0, 1); // We compute a random color value to set as the particles color
                // Here we use the attribute index instead of the attribute name to avoid string comparisons in the "SetAttributeSafe" method:
                emitterComponent.SetAttributeSafe(m_ColorAttributeIndex, randomColor);
                // We could also have used:
                // emitterComponent.SetAttributeSafe("ParticlesColor", randomColor);
                // This completly avoid retrieving the attribute index, but it is also less efficient.
            }
        }
    }
    void OnEffectStoppedPlaying(PopcornFX.PKFxEmitter emitterComponent)
    {
        // When the effect has stopped playing, we remove its parent GameObject from the scene:
        Destroy(emitterComponent.gameObject);
    }
}