A (Not So) Brief Overview of 3D Particles in Godot 4

A video in which I try to cover the main options available out of the box when working with 3D particle effects in the Godot 4 Game Engine using the 3DGPUparticle node.
* 3DCPUparticles work roughly the same way but use the CPU to render rather than the GPU.
Official Particle Documentation:
GPU Particles 3D: docs.godotengine.org/en/stabl...
Particle Process Material: docs.godotengine.org/en/stabl...
If you’re able to, and want to help support more content from me you can buy me a coffee here: ko-fi.com/wattinteractive
Thanks to StreamBeats by Harris Heller for the music.

[@TheLastPhoen1x]

Thanks for the overview, seeing all the options you can do with those particles filled me with a lot of ideas!

[@wattinteractive]

I'm glad it was helpful, and I'm glad you've found some inspiration from the video! 😄

[@joshuastelly4256]

Thank you so much! The quality is on par with a paid course. It took me 30 minutes to get through because I kept exploring ideas. Can't wait to see the rest of your channel.

[@EdwardG-el9fd]

Thanks to Unity''s new Install fee, I'm here

[@wattinteractive]

Welcome! Hopefully the videos here are useful to you! I'm sorry to hear about the Unity drama though; it's a great tool with some... interesting management choices.

[@spirit5923]

I'm here for the same reasons. Right now, I'm torn between flax and godot.

[@wattinteractive]

@@spirit5923 Honestly, it really depends on your needs and where you are in your game dev journey. If you're already pretty proficient in C++ or C# (I'm assuming you are if you're coming from Unity) it looks like Flax might be the better choice, at least until Godot brings C# language parity with the rest of the languages supported by GDExtension. That said, engines are just tools and for the most part skills you learn in one can usually be transferred to another so there is no "wrong" answer. Unless you're looking to be hired in the industry, in which case Unreal is probably the best engine to learn now. I just happen to like open source software and the games that I'm planning to make are probably going to work in any 3D engine so that's why I went with Godot.

[@spirit5923]

@@wattinteractive Thank you for the insight. I ended up going with Flax, so it makes me feel a little more confident with my decision.

[@sneakyamxx]

Great video. Looking forward to part 2 if you're going to touch on the particle texture stuff.

[@wattinteractive]

Thanks! Yeah, that's the plan. Going forward they'll probably be more dedicated to a particular effect, but I might do a full "part 2" if I come up with an effect that does a good job of showing off most of the options I didn't cover in this video.

[@DevJorvan]

Great overview of particles, mate. Thanks for sharing 🤝

[@wattinteractive]

My pleasure! 👍

[@j.d.waterhouse4197]

Thanks, till now I haven't found ONE start to finish tutorial on Godot 4 particles in 3D, how to create various types of applications such as making a fire. Most just explain how to manipulate the particles after the particle node has already been created! It's as if we're already all supposed to be experts!

[@wattinteractive]

It's funny you should mention that because I actually made this video so I could do just that and skip straight to the more specific applications and direct people to this video for more details. I'm glad that you found this video useful!

[@theyellowarchitect4504]

Thank you. There is a weirdly low amount of particle videos for Godot 4.

[@j.d.waterhouse4197]

Yes, I just mentioned that also. I can't find a single easy to follow 'Start to Finish' G4 tutorial on using 3d particles. Also, they all seem to start with meshes already made, without explaining how to make those meshes, or where they got them, for instance to create a 3d fire.

[@wattinteractive]

You're welcome! I'm glad you found it useful 😄

[@NewFunnyAnimations]

thanks for the help!

[@solitary200]

Thanks for the overview! Looking forward to more VFX videos!

[@wattinteractive]

You're welcome! Thanks for watching! 😄

[@thefufuu3157]

lets fucking go .... im ready for part two ... i even shaved

[@jasonwilliams8730]

Great video thanks for covering this. would love to see an example from someone as skilled as yourself like a waterfall or something every scene should have:)

[@wattinteractive]

Making a video about a waterfall effect is something that I'm currently experimenting with (along with a fire effect, but no idea which will turn into a video first). I like the idea of talking what every scene should have, maybe an overlooked nodes/resources idea, so I'll add that to my list of topics to consider. Thanks for the suggestion! 😄👍

[@UltimatePerfection]

But I've read the title as "A (Not So) Brief Overview of 3D _Parties_ in Godot 4" and prepared cute balloons, silly hats, and everything... 😢 Still, a very useful video!

[@bonsaipropaganda]

this is great

[@wattinteractive]

Thanks! 😄👍

[@D.E.Nicolas.Goncalves]

Thanks!

[@wattinteractive]

You're welcome! 😄

[@adrainmunteanu125]

:O awesome

[@wattinteractive]

Thanks! 😄

[@godofdream9112]

big video, need...

[@sanketsbrush8790]

do you know how to controle projectsettings in gd script in godot 4 ?

[@wattinteractive]

In general it's something like ProjectSettings.set_setting("[setting name/path goes here]", [setting value goes here]). I will caution though that a lot of the project settings are read only when the game is running so this might not get the results that you're expecting.

[@LexGear]

What is the purpose of the yellow cube surrounding the emitter?

[@wattinteractive]

The yellow box around the emitter is the Visibility box ("Visibility Aabb", technically). Essentially it means that if any part of this box is in view of the camera, the particle system will be rendered.

[@yoshidude64595]

I experience major lag spikes when enabling CPUParticles3D, even after precaching the material. Any advice?

[@wattinteractive]

Unfortunately, I don't have that much experience optimizing CPU particles instead of GPU particles. If you're unable to use the GPUParticle3D node, a couple of things I would try first are to reduce the number of particles being created, get rid of any transparency, or remove any shadows or lighting effects from it. Again, I'm not sure if those will help with the CPU particle 3D but it's where I would start 🤷‍♂️

[@yoshidude64595]

@@wattinteractive I got lag spikes even with just a single particle. It had some transparency and emission. Enabling it or toggling its shown/hidden state caused around ten frames of lag. I feel like I tried absolutely everything to fix it.

[@wattinteractive]

@@yoshidude64595 What's the mesh that you're trying to render? Is it just a quad mesh?

[@yoshidude64595]

@@wattinteractive Yes, just a quadmesh. Should I be using a plane instead?

[@wattinteractive]

@@yoshidude64595 No, I don't think a plane would offer any improvement over the quadmesh. Do you have collisions enabled for the particles?