Hi guys!

I'm new in forum. I don't know if this has been posted already, but I've tried to search about and I haven't found anything concerning my doubt. So here it is:

I have a little experience with Source (really, little) but lately I've been using it a lot, learning a lot of things and playing and studying maps of mappers community. Today I felt brave (lol) so I started to do something with particles. I certanly achieve some cool effect, but my real problem is that I don't know how emitt the particles continously so for example, when I compile my map the particle start (on map spawn.. bla bla) but just once. Am I missing something? How can I emitt particles continuously??

Thanks a bunch for your help.

PS: Sorry for my english!

First of all, I hope you're working with Portal, because if you're working with Portal 2 you've somehow managed to make the Particle Editor work. And if you have there's a distinct possibility I'd be willing to sell you my soul.

In any case, use an emit_continuously instead of an emit_instantaneously and use a logic_auto (or any other entity) to send it outputs of Start and Stop.

Hi Mr. Winston, sir!

I'm, in fact, working with Portal 2. And if for Particle Editor you mean Particle Browser then yes, works for me.

About your response: don't know what emit_continuously or emit_instantaneously are (remember I have little experience), I'm using info_particle_system and simply telling logic_auto to execute that info_particle_system to start con map spawn. By the way, can't find emit_continously or instantaneously.. are they entitys? Please, if you don't mind, could you make a very small step guide so I can figure out if am I missing something?

Thanks a lot!

PS: Machinarium kicking asses!

Alright, my apologies; my answer was somewhat inaccurate because I wasn't quite up-to-date on Portal 2's features. I wasn't aware that a particle browser existed in the P2 Authoring Tools and assumed you were referring to the particle editor that exists in Portal and the other Orange Box games. In any case, the short answer is the only way to make a particle that emits once emit continuously is by retriggering it very frequently ingame with a timer.

Let me give a bit more background info (to you and anyone else who's wondering). The particle editor allows you to build up a particle system almost in the same way Hammer lets you build up maps, except you're only choosing entities (they're called components in the editor) and not placing anything. Two components are emit_instantaneously and emit_continuously; the former creates a burst of particles released at one time and the latter causes a steady stream of particles to be created for an indefinite amount of time. However, none of this is included in the particle browser, which no more allows you to make/edit particles than the model browser allows you to make/edit models. And unfortunately, the particle editor (along with the built-in VMT editor and commentary editor) are broken at the moment in Portal 2. Hopefully there will be a fix soon.

And yes, Machinarium is great. And for the record there's no need for you to call me "sir".

Hahaha. Got it! No sir!

Well, it's a bit disappointing, as far as I wanted to make a continuos sparkles particles coming from a broken prop_button. No way, I'll have to wait for that fix.

Thank you for your help, really appreciated. Otherwise I would spent a lot of time trying to figure it out for myself without any results.

See you!

No problem. If you're trying to make a broken button spark, though, you can simply bypass the info_particle system and use an env_spark.

Oh... really... that's make me feel certanly useless...

By the way, my 'new' broken sparkling prop_button thanks you so much!!! haha