Effects Class Reference: by BlackSway

Last Updated 2 April, 2002

Firstly I should point out that there are a very large number of effects listed in Unreal and Unreal Tournament, and to list them all here as I have in other referencese would make this document unmanagable. Therefore I shall only be listing those that I think are of interest to level editors. If you disagree with any of my selections or would like any others you think are of particular interest covered then feel free to let me know.

\-Blacksway-\

You will find that a lot of Effects, if simply placed in a map do not appear in game. There are 2 reasons for this. The first you cannot do anything about, often in the code there is a line which says Destroy(). If that is there (often called after the last animation has been run) then it will always disappear. However if you cannot find such a line then check the value of Advanced->LifeSpan and try setting it to 0. I will list some of the effects which can be useful in this manner below, e.g. MercFlare.

UT: Unreal Tournament only

BoulderSpawner | Bubble | ExplodingWall | BreakingGlass | ExplosionChain | MercFlare | MortarSpawner | SmokeGenerator | ShortSmokeGen | SmokeHose | Sparks | UT_ShortSmokeGen

This spews forth catapult boulders each time it is triggers. The boulders have the direction of the BoulderSpawner and have the speed from the BoulderSpeed property. Values of 5 - 30 would probably be a good place to start.

No other properties are used.

BoulderSpeed

The velocity of the released boulder

The exploding wall is the effect that you place next to a wall which you want to blow up.

The usual way of using this effect is to have it triggered when the mover is damaged. For this you need to set the DamageTriggered to true and DamageThreshold to something greater than 0 for the mover in question.

If you want the ExplodingWall itself to be damaged then set the Health and the ActivatedBy array values ("all" for any damage). Check below for a list of damage types.

Check out the tutorial map for an example of this class.

ExplosionSize

Effects the velocity of the particles produced.

ExplosionDimensions

Effects the volume of the space in which particles are created.

WallParticleSize

The size of the wall chunks that are created.

WoodParticleSize

The size of the wood chunks that are created.

GlassParticleSize

The size of the glass chunks that are created.

NumWallChunks

The number of wall chunks to create.

NumWoodChunks

The number of wood chunks to create.

NumGlassChunks

The number of glass chunks to create.

WallTexture

The texture to be applied to the wall chunks.

WoodTexture

The texture to be applied to the wood chunks.

GlassTexture

The texture to be applied to the glass chunks.

Health

If it is to be activated by shooting then set this to the amount of damage it must sustain before exploding.

ActivatedBy[5]

An array of 5 strings signifying the damage types that will damage the exploding wall. See Notes below for a list of which weapons do what type of damage.

BreakingSound

The sound to play when the wall breaks.

bTranslucentGlass

Should the glass fragments be translucent, i.e. see through.

bUnlitGlass

Should the glass fragments be unlit. Generally I would set this to true as the glass shows up better. However if it was meant to be really thin glass then false might be more realistic.

Notes

The values for different weapons that you can use in the ActivatedBy array:

ImpactHammer = "impact"

Chainsaw = "slashed" or "Decapitated"

Enforcer = "shot"

Plasma Rifle - 1st Fire = "zapped"

Plasma Rifle - Alt Fire = "Pulsed"

Minigun = "shot"

Razor = "decapitated" or "shredded"

Razer - Alt Fire = "RipperAltDeath"

ShockRifle = "jolted"

Biogel = "Corroded"

SniperRifle = "shot"

Redeemer = "RedeemerDeath"

FlakCannon - 1st Fire = "shredded"

FlakCannon - Alt Fire = "FlakDeath"

Rocket = "RocketDeath"

Grenade = "GrenadeDeath"

Cannon Shot = "burned"

This creates a wonderful explosion effect and sound.

Can either be triggered or hit with damage (don't forget to change Effects->bOnlyTriggerable to false and collision details appropriately.

Check outhe tutorial map for an example of this class.

MomentumTransfer

If you are caught in the blast are you blown backwards? Well leave this at its default and you will be. However if you want some kind of nuclear wind effect then you could reduce it.

Damage

The amount of damage done by the explosion. Sends out a HurtRadius with a damage type of 'detonated' (which will detonate other ExplosionChains btw). The radius of the hurt is dependant on the value of Damage.

Size

A multiplier for the size of the explosion sprite (but not the actual damage). The true size is random but based on Damage and multiplied by Size.

DelayTime

The delay from triggering until detonation, don't know why but setting it to 0 stops the damn thing working. Try a really small value like 0.1 and use a dispatcher to control other things correctly.

ShellDamage

Amount of damage done by the explosion.

ShellMomentumTransfer

The momentum transferred by the explosion.

ShellBlastRadius

The radius of the blast damage.

RateOfFire

Number of seconds between shell launches.

ShellSpeed

The velocity of the shells produced.

Deviation

Deviation in standard Unreal angles, which means the default of 4096 is 45 degrees.

bDeviate

Does the angle deviate (all 3 axis are deviated by a random value based on the above angle (between 0 and Deviation).

FireSound

The sound to play when the mortar is fired.

First off, this has to be triggered, I've heard loads of people asking why it doesn't work and they haven't got it triggered right. Its one of those complicated ones that when you Trigger it it starts and when you UnTrigger is it stops. Now you may ask, what the hell Untriggers something, well the answer is lots of the triggers actually untrigger after they have finished. The basic trigger triggers when you move inside the collision radius and untriggers when you move out. So beware.

Everything else is pretty self explanatory (so I'll explain it anyway!)

There are a number of different ways you can use the generator.

1. Smoke when triggered and stop when untriggered: set TotalNumPuffs to 0. If you want it to be triggerable again then set bRepeating to true.

2. Smoke when triggered for a certain number of puffs: set TotalNumPuffs to something other than 0. Again if you want it to be triggerable again then set bRepeating to true.

To get it to smoke continuously then you need to use a trigger which doesn't untrigger, such as a dispatcher and set TotalNumPuffs to 0.

Check out the tutorial map for an example of this class.

SmokeDelay

Delay in seconds between smoke puffs (although it is randomised slightly). Must be larger than 0.

SizeVariance

A variance added to the size of the smoke puffs.

BasePuffSize

The base size of the puffs. e.g. BasePuffSize of 1 and SizeVariance of 2 would give puffs ranging between 1 and 3. (This "Size" is actually the scale of the smoke puff sprite)

TotalNumPuffs

The total number of puffs of smoke to release.

RisingVelocity

The velocity of the rising smoke.

GenerationType

The class of smoke puff the spawn.

bRepeating

Is the triggering repeatable or is the generator destroyed after completeing its first cycle.

Exactly the same as above but cannot be triggered, it starts at play beginning and either does TotalNumPuffs then stops or if TotalNumPuffs is 0 it goes on forever.

There is also a UT_ShortShokeGen, see later..

This is very similar to the smoke generator except for 2 things.

Firstly the smoke puffs are sent out in the direction of a corresponding SmokeHoseDest actor with the same Tag as this actors Event.

Secondly the hose is either initially active, or is triggered/untriggered on/off. Note if it is initially active you can still set it to be untriggered off.

bInitiallyActive

Is the smoke hose initially active, i.e. churning on startup.

SmokeSpeed

The velocity of the smoke puffs

SmokeAccel

The acceleration of the smoke pufss (in terms of X, Y and Z axis).

SmokeDelay

Base delay between smoke puff generation.

SmokeDelayVariance

Variation in delay between smoke puff generations.

SpeedVariance

Varaition on initial speed of smoke puffs

BasePuffSize

Basic puff size.

SizeVariance

How much the size varies.

TotalNumPuffs

Total number of puffs to be spawned before stopping, note setting to 0 does not mean it goes on forever.

This is actually a spark generator, and it produces 'sets' of sparks at random intervals.

Having said all of that I'm not 100% sure what a 'spark' looks like, all I can seem to get is a funny light pattern on the floor!

MinBetweenTime

Miniumum time between spawning sets of sparks

MaxBetweenTime

Maximum time between spawning sets of sparks

MinSpawnedAtOnce

The minimum number of sparks in a set

MaxSpawnedAtOnce

THe maximum number of spawrks in a set

MinSpawnSpeed

The minimum velocity for each spark

MaxSPawnSpeed

The maximum velocity for each spark

MinBurnTime

The minumum time before each spark burns out

MaxBurnTime

The maximum time before each spark burns out

MinBrightness

The minimum intial brightness of the sparks

MaxBrightness

The maximum initial brightness of the sparks

SpawnCenterDir

The direction new sparks fly

AngularDeviation

Angluar deviation (for pitch and yaw) that sparks can range from the directional center above.