PA Particle Field - Superfast, GPU Based, Persistent Particles

Ah, cool then, thanks.

I have a scene with pretty long loading times in general, not because of PA Particles (And I'm generally looking for ways to improve that), so, no worries!

 

So yes indeed PA Particle Field v1.23 is now on the store!

What's new in 1.22 and 1.23?
Local With Delta simulation space combines the best of world and local space simulations.
Reduced memory in Unity 5+ by using shader_option rather than multi_compile.
Animated Rows texture mode on mesh particles.
Rebuild Cache Option allows users to decide if the particle mesh should be cached from the editor or generated at runtime, caching results in a faster start time but a larger file size while generating at runtime has a longer start up time but very low file size.
Plus bug fixes and performance increases on transparent shaders on desktop platforms.

Local With Delta allows you to move the field and have the particles recycle as world space simulation does, but also allows the field to be rotated, check out below to see it in action.

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And Animated Rows mesh particles adds further features to the set.

​

 

Thanks for the Local With Delta.

Nice support and upgrades from this vendor.

 

So, I did notice an instance where PA Particle Field was making the load times higher on iOS (on the actual device).

I was using ~300 particles and the scene file size was ~700kb so that's not the problem.

I did see XCode report "Error: Failed to post to a semaphore (errno:15)" (multiple times)

The messages went away after I removed the PA Particle Field from the scene.

 

Addendum:

Same behaviour on Android (a scene with only a few particles, (only like 10, used as pseudo god rays)) used to load in a couple of second, now it took like 7 or 8.

I really have no idea what is causing this, it's kind of a bummer, since the performance is pretty great afterwards.

I'm using Unity 4.7

 

Cheers for that detailed description, it doesn't sound right especially with "Rebuild at runtime" unticked, I'll try find out what's going on

 

Hello popupAsylum
,

is it possible that you reduce your shader keywords?

 

For anyone reading this thread: With help from the developers my issue has been completely dealt with, support from them has been great. I highly recommend PA Particle Field.

 

Thanks @AcidArrow!

Version 1.24 has been submitted for review, this release is mostly bug fixes

What's new:
Fixed bug causing cache to be rebuilt unnecessarily
Smaller Scene Files (for versioning) as the particle cache is no longer serialized in scene if "Rebuild" is ticked
And the Stardust Demo has been made more configurable

Some features currently in the works include a couple of turbulence modes and keyword reductions.

I'm also thinking that, unless anyone has any objections, v1.24 will be the last version to support versions of Unity less than 4.7, mostly this will greatly reduce the time each update takes to test.

 

PA Particle Field's currently being featured in Unity's VR Essentials List!

 

PA Particle Field v1.24 is now on the store

What's new (as mentioned earlier):
Fixed bug causing cache to be rebuilt unnecessarily
Smaller Scene Files (for versioning) as the particle cache is no longer serialized in scene if "Rebuild" is ticked
And the Stardust Demo has been made more configurable

 

Just had a "weird" thing happen. I had some fields (not all) that "disappeared" after clicking outside the unity application (so the unity app running in the editor auto-paused) and then clicking back on the running app in the editor. I hope that made sense. It's like PA lost its particles and wasn't recreating them. I then paused the program (pause button) and going into the editor, looking at the object...it all looked normal from the inspector contents. What's weird is that the "higher level" object of the prefab instance kept its particles but lower ones didn't. They were still "active" in the inspector and all the item check boxes looked like they were enabled. Highlighting one of them gave be a "field box" with size handles, but no little squares representing particle billboards. This happened for all instances of that prefab.

IDK if I can isolate a case easily or not. I was hoping that someone else may notice this with a quick test of a moving nested PA fields. It wasn't the pause button, it was the auto-pause by clicking away from the editor while in run mode.

I'll keep digging. It could easily be something I did or some change Unity Tech made too. I should note this was just now found and I just upgraded to 5.3.3.p1. However that could be coincidental. I'm on the latest PA field (1.24) too.

I have to say PAPF's been so flawless that I haven't needed to post much here. So I hope this is taken with an "early grain of salt". Still digging... like I said, could be me...and not all of them vanished as I have other PA fields on different prefab types that were OK. It was mostly one particular prefab and it happened for all instances (and they're all moving) but not for the "top" object in each instance...just for the sub-objects.

 

Hi @CarpeFunSoftware, I think I've been able to reproduce the issue, out of curiosity in your situation before Unity gained focus again did any assets change causing an asset database refresh?

It seems to be because PAPF serializes its material, which handles the bounds, then when a prefab's updated the changes are applied to the others and since that material is serialized all field start using the same material, then all fields are rendered in the same location and it would appear there is only 1 field rendering. If this is what happened in your case then I have a fix and I'm just testing it now.

 

I'm pretty sure I understood that...But IDK what that has to do with the "click away pause/un-pause"...do things get re-serialized when that happens while the game is running? I could see that happening between run/edit modes.

This happens during running. Run the app. Watch it go...click away from the app (like on the task bar or something), the app stops. Click back on the app to unpause it...the fields don't show particle squares inside the boundary cube.

I don't think I changed a material. But maybe, due to transparency or something. I'd have to dig through all the code (I WILL do that for you. Pending.)

BTW...thank you for the fantastic quick response support. But I don't want you to feel you have to "rush an update" if the issue is different.

P.S.
What was that last update where you added a fix to not rebuild cache sometimes? Could this be one of the "sometimes" where the cache needs to be rebuilt?

 

I've been on a hunt to find a faster particle solution for my Wii U game when I finally landed here today. Just when I thought there wasn't a fast GPU particle system for rain & snow, I find this and the possibilities seem very promising. You say it works on all platforms, so I just want to confirm that it does, in fact, work on the Wii U. If it does, you definitely have a sale on your hands.

 

Would that cause the field to say where it is (the "bounding boxes for them) but the particles to vanish?

I'm trying to isolate a test case for you. Maybe your new-found-issue is the same as the issue I'm seeing. I haven't as yet isolated a test case but I'm working on it. There's a lot of variables to eliminate/isolate.

It's possible that the lost-focus causes material re-serialization. IDK why it would be my code, but I can't rule that out either yet. The simple test-case so far works. So I can't as yet re-create the issue. Which make me suspect my code, but IDK what I did to make it happen. Or it's a "size/complexity" thing. Like I said, I'm isolating...

 

@CarpeFunSoftware hard to say, it will make the bounds gizmo show at the expected/desired location and the renderer bounds used for culling would also be at that location, but the particles would all appear stacked at 1 fields location. It might be an unrelated issue like you say.

I still haven't managed to make them disappear simply by unfocusing and refocusing Unity but you could try removing the condition at line 1181 in OnWillRenderObject

@magique I sent you an email but that's the idea (although it doesn't support flash), PAPFs minimum Unity version is 4.3, doesn't use fixed function shaders and only requires SM2 features

 

Thanks. I responded to the e-mail so hopefully you got that.

 

*** I commented the conditional out....the issue went away. Added it back in. Issue came back. ***
So we know WHERE the culprit is...

As to WHY/What that means and if it is something I'm doing in code that is forcing it to trigger this situation, IDK. I haven't backtracked/followed your code enough to know those conditionals. I assume Application.IsPlaying is false at one point because of loss of focus (doesn't play in background) but usually true. As to custom material, I do assign materials (like ParticleFireCloud, or StaandardParticle) to the sprite property.... I use additive or additive lit material.

P.S.
Why it doesn't happen in your testing, IDK. But I couldn't create it in my simple-test-case either.
WIndows 10. ATI drivers. Older Graphics card. Tried it for DX9 and DX11.


I 1/2 suspect that the card is discarding info and it needs to be refreshed but re-creating the situation isn't reliable. So rebuilding the cache every time worked. You know more abut that GPU side than me, so...I wish I could isolate it more for you.

Is there a way I could add a debugging statement for you to see anything (since I can create the issue somehow)??? Like checking a render texture??? Or show an event source? I'll probably get a 1000 lines of output.... but I'm up for it.

 

Having now tried this for a little bit and tested on the Wii U all I can say is Wow! Not only does this work on the Wii U, it is as if it isn't even running because the performance impact is basically nil. This has exceeded my performance expectations by far. I highly recommend this asset to anyone. You absolutely can't lose.

 

Hi guys

First of all, great asset! Thanks for it!

I have a quick question about exclusion zones.
Have you guys managed to use those exlusion zones ? I want to exclude one zone around my FPS controller and another around an object but I can't figure out how to do that with only an enable/disable option.

 

Hi @Oilived

It sounds like you have done this already, but first enable exclusion zones on the field, then create some exclusion zones, you can do this using GameObject > Create Other > PA Exclusion Zone from the top menu, or you can create a new gameobject and add the PAExclusionZone.cs script.

You'll need to create a new zone, size it to fit and parent it to your FPS controller.

The exclusion zone will show a box gizmo in the scene view, this is the zone, you can scale move and rotate it using normal transform controls, when this intersects with the particle field the particles in the intersection will be excluded.

Each field can support 3 exclusion zones at once, meaning that if 4 exclusion zones are intersecting 1 field all at the same time, 1 will not be applied. To pick which three are applied the zones are sorted by 'importance' then by distance from the center of the field.

Sometimes sorting from the center of the field is not right for the effect, for example with a large field parented in front of the camera its likely the exclusion zones nearest the camera are more important than those at the center of the field. To sort them by distance from a position other than the center, a transform can be assigned as an anchor override, in this case the camera.

Lastly, because your FPS controller exclusion zone always wants to be excluded you can tag it as 'important', when the zones are sorted, 'important' zones are sorted first, then unimportant.

 

Wow ok, thx for this answer
It worked perfectly!

 

PAPF 1.25
Shader error in 'PA/ParticleField/Additive': Compiled shader code uses too many instruction slots (269). Max. allowed by the target (vs_2_0) is 256. at Assets/PopupAsylum/PAParticleField/Shaders/ParticleField.cginc(293) (on d3d9)

Compiling Vertex program with EXCLUSION_OFF DIRECTIONAL_OFF SOFTPARTICLES_OFF WORLDSPACE_OFF TURBULENCE_VALUE SHAPE_SPHERE
Platform defines: UNITY_ENABLE_REFLECTION_BUFFERS UNITY_PBS_USE_BRDF1 UNITY_SPECCUBE_BOX_PROJECTION UNITY_SPECCUBE_BLENDING
....(similar repeats for variants)
Older ATI test card, Windows build (not in editor) dx9 and dx11 drivers enabled in Unity.
Unity 5.3.4.p1, Windows 10

I can run in editor, but not in stand-alone (nothing appears).
The "other error" above...post 69...is probably gone now (can't reproduce in editor mode in v 1.25).

 

Glad the post 69 problem is fixed, that SM2 issue you've got there has been fixed and already submitted to the store, I can send you a direct link to download the package if that's OK?

 

No need for an additional link. I'll just wait for it to come out, as it works in the editor now.
I almost didn't post at all and then decided to mention it since it could have been "just me" since nobody else said anything. I should have known you'd have it solved already...

As usual, fantastic support. Thank you.

 

Good evening!

I purchased your asset today, and it is absolutely fantastic. I've been searching for an a shader to add a small amount of dust to an environment, and with just a few tweaks to your snow example, it is perfect. The addition of the turbulence feature made it even better than I had expected. I am overwhelmingly happy.

Thank you for that!

That said, I am receiving the following error:

GetComponentFastPath is not allowed to be called during serialization, call it from Awake or Start instead. Called from script 'PABillboardParticle' on game object 'Snow'.​

Everything still runs beautifully, but I'm wondering if there is a quick fix to remove this console spam.

Thank you so much in advance, and be well!
- S.

 

Hi @S_Darkwell, overwhelmingly happy is great to hear!

that spam should be fixed in the next version that was submitted last week, I'll post on here as well when it's approved

 

Sounds fantastic. Thank you so much!

- S.

 

Hi! I just bought this, and I'm seriously loving it. Been wanting a GPU accelerated particle system since day 1, and I finally got one. I really like the UI, very simple and easy to understand, and the performance is amazing. Really digging the new turbulence stuff as well.

Just have one minor issue: Size and Speed Variation under Per Particle Properties don't seem to do anything for me. I tried changing them to 50%, but they just reset to their default values when I run the game. Did I miss something?

Thanks for an awesome product!

 

Hi @Sir Spunky, no your not missing anything, looks like the inspector was not not marking the mesh/cache as dirty on those changes.
A quick fix is just to click the rebuild at runtime tickbox which should force a regeneration when you hit play.
It's fixed now and the fix will be in the next submission

 

Great! Thanks a lot!

 

Using this right now to visualize gas buildup inside a scene and it is working quite well, one thing that would take this to a whole new level would be to do a fluid simulation using this packages particles

 

Hi,
I'm having an issue when I change a mesh's material type from Mesh Default to Additive lit.
The mesh becomes very large and they all stack in the same spot...somethings breaking them, curious if anyone has seen this before. Maybe a scale issue... Otherwise great Fx system,thank you for turbulence!
update:
I was randomly able to get the other material types to work by just changing other settings like size variation. It would hang for a few seconds then remake them. Most of the time changing the mode from "mesh default" to anything else breaks the mesh, but seems like I can unbreak them by having it rebuild itself..? seems like a bug

 

I'm having a lot of fun with this, but I just encountered something strange. When I have multiple different particle fields that intersect over large areas, I seem to get some strange z-order issues. I'm using Linear/Deferred, and the built-in Transparent Lit billboard shader.

Any ideas what could be causing this? It seems related to distances, as it usually gets better if I move closer to the particle system (with the exception of the screenshot below).



To clarify, both the tornados and the clouds are separate particle fields with between 6000-16000 particles each. The closest and furthest away tornado gets incorrectly rendered behind all the clouds.

 

@Haagndaaz it's really tempting to expand the system into those kind of areas, mainly one shots and vector fields, definitely thinking about it

@HeadTrip the material types, apart from custom, are only compatible with their corresponding particle type, those prefixed with "Mesh", which is "Mesh Default" and "Mesh Unlit" in the latest version (v1.251) are compatible with Mesh particles, the others are compatible with billboard particles. I should probably check the particle type and hide incompatible shaders in the dropdown.

The Custom material type is there to allow you to add the features you need that aren't in built in shaders, to create additive mesh particles it's a few steps but hopefully not too many;

1. First duplicate one of the Mesh shaders from the Shaders folder in PAParticleField and name it something like "MeshAdditive",
2. Then open it up and change name at the top to the same and the blend mode from "SrcAlpha OneMinusSrcAlpha" to "One One" and probably change "ZWrite On" to "ZWrite Off",
3. Create a new material with that shader,
4. Finally change the field's material type to custom and drop in your new material

@Sir Spunky The order is sorted by the center of the field and rendered in the transparent queue so from back to front, the transparent and additive types don't write to depth so for now at lease I don't think it'll be possible to sort these intersecting fields using the alpha blended shader, could you half and half them? have 2 fields, one on top and one below the cloud layer

 

Thanks for the info! That explains what's happening. I solved it for now by placing the cloud system center of origin very far away and made it follow the player's position/rotation (on some axis). I don't really need the tornadoes to pass through the clouds, as long as they don't render behind them.

The only problem is if you view the tornadoes from above the clouds, they will pass through, but that probably won't be a common situation anways. I might try later to split the cloud system into more layers at different distances if this remains an issue.

Considering that we only use 1 draw call per 16000 particles, I think this limitation is more than worth it

 

Still getting "Too many instructions" errors for DX9. Was that to be fixed in 1.251?

My (limited) understanding is that you can only output 256 instructions per shader and remain 2.0 compatible.

Maybe the reduction in keywords cause more code to output? Or adding the new features did it? Anyway, 1.24 was fine. 1.25 and 1.26 have had errors.

What troubles me is that others are not saying this. IDK if my project could be corrupted or maybe they just use DX11 and aren't worried about supporting older platforms. I've reimported and all files seem updated.

I suppose I could drop DX9 support. IDK what platforms require DX9 support, but some may and that MAY affect your (and thus my) compatiblity cross-platform. One of the things that was so appealing to me is that you advertised cross-platform features. So it's a quandary if I should continue using it.

Maybe the pending fix you spoke of is in the next release? IDK, but I'd love to have DX9 2.0 support back somehow if you can work your magic.

Just in case you need to know my settings:
Using Deferred Linear model right now. WIn 10, old ATI 6670 Card.
Go to Project Settings->Player
Uncheck Auto Graphics API for Windows
Order the API's in the list with DX9 first, or only select DX9.

You may have to try an old card...IDK if the new cards are "hiding" the error message or not. I can give you several examples of messages too if you want. See previous my post for one example.

Please advise. Thank you very much.

P.S. Can anyone else reproduce this? Is it "just me"? Do others plan on supporting DX9 or are you requiring DX11?

 

@CarpeFunSoftware yes 1.251 was supposed to fix it but I think I've misunderstood how the SHADER_TARGET macro works, I will check when I get to my computer, but basically I think that all the shaders need #pragma target 3.0 and an identical subshader with #pragma target 2.0 with the TURBULENCE_SIMPLEX keyword removed should sort it, I hope at least.

You probably know this already but most dx9 cards are 9.0c which is shader model 3, and Unity is supposed to be dropping support for 2.0 in 5.4

 

If UT drops support on 2.0, I guess you (and I) don't have to worry about it.
Of course,there's an "IF" in there...

I guess the confusing thing for me with Unity is testing DX9 on my DX11 card. Maybe when they officially drop 2.0 support, it will clear up. Right now, testing under DX9 throws errors due to how the shaders get complied by unity I assume. With luck, that prama will fix it up.

(This is mostly performance testing)

 

@CarpeFunSoftware I still use dx9 quite a bit at work since our clients have older computers and we still have to work primarily in dx9

 

I'm good if I can just require DX 9.0c SM 3.0 or later...
His pragmas will fix the compile problem I'm sure.

IDK about all platforms and their abilities, so can't speak to that.

 

Why are clouds not working on my android device when all the other demos are, this is not good as i only needed this asset for the clouds, all the other demos work fine on my device but clouds do not show, any help please

 

@melonhead is the scene loading but the clouds aren't showing or is the scene not loading at all?

The clouds scene currently uses a lot of memory as each cloud has an instance of the particle mesh, this will be addressed in an upcoming version by using "Reference" particle types, where particle meshes can be shared across multiple fields.

 

i have removed all but one cloud to test my device, the scene loads and plays but there are no clouds, as i said its strange as all other demos, rain, snow etc work fine, i have built just the cloud demo with one cloud and tried in my own game but clouds wont show on device.

 

@popupAsylum can you please test your clouds on an android device and tell me how to get them working?

could it be a shader problem not working on android

 

@melonhead I know what the issue is and I'm working on a fix, as a quick fix you should be able to open the Transparent lit shader and comment out the 2 lines refering to turbulence

 

thanks i will give it a try and report back tomorrow as it is a bit late here now

regards

 

edit - the shouting has gone so this post of mine is redundant.

 

@melonhead sorry I didn't realize you were on an old version, I've sent you a private message with link to the next version ahead of the one on the asset store