Spawning particles in the shape of a mesh within an emitter?

Technical & Engine Help Unreal Engine Help
#1

Hey there again, wanted to ask if something is possible.

I’m in UE4 and currently have a Particle System with a Mesh Emitter in it, spawning a horseshoe shaped mesh.
What I’m trying to achieve, is then having another emitter (within the same Particle System) to spawn particles following the shape of the emitter.

I had the idea of importing the mesh from Maya, then adding in a series of bones/sockets along the shape of the horseshoe, then finding a way of getting the particles to spawn from those sockets.

I thought about just placing the mesh in the scene, rather than as a mesh emitter, but the material function is set up to work as animated over time to pan so rather than rewriting the material, I wondered if there was a way to do this within a particle system?

Thank you!!

#2

Are you using the new Niagara particle system?
With that it’s possible to give the particles speed based on their position on the mesh, and the surface normals of the mesh in that specific position. It’s possible to retrieve normals and tangents, and using a cross product of those you can also find the binormals. I’m not sure if it’s possible to make the particles follow the mesh over lifetime though, but I suppose it is, as you can use the graph editor to create your own particle behaviour.

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