This next part of my project made me squeal in joy and smile uncontrollably, so I hope it'll do the same for you. :)
The forest now has these little lovelies!
They're hidden in a secret area though, so you'll just have to listen carefully to find them...
I haven't set up a proper particle effect before, and for this one I took UE4's existing dust particle and altered it. Also a huge thank you to my friend Anthony for helping me get my head around it - I couldn't have done it without you!
Although I used an existing particle as a base, it still took some time getting the effect just right. I started off by making my own texture to use as a material for the particles:
It's worth noting that originally the particle had one huge face in the centre, though it was split into 4 different particle slots so only showed a portion of it! With a face in each corner the issue was solved and so the faces ended up being displayed properly. :)
After the texture was happy, it was then time to add an emissive to it so that the faces glow. Here's what the material set up looks like:
Then came the task of testing strengths of both the brightness and the amount of particles that appear on screen at once. Here are a few screenshots of different intensities:
Oh my.
Now this is visibly better for their faces, but now we have too many of them. Hmm...
There we go! :D Much better.
They tie in with the music that Daniel made for me. There's a magical sounding track that I want to use to lead players to a specific part of the forest - it's here that they'll find these little ones. It's not a huge thing but hopefully it will create a few smiles. :)
Then just to finish up on, here are a few more screenshots: