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2D particle systems

Intro

Particle systems are used to simulate complex physical effects, such as sparks, fire, magic particles, smoke, mist, etc.

The idea is that a "particle" is emitted at a fixed interval and with a fixed lifetime. During its lifetime, every particle will have the same base behavior. What makes each particle different from the rest and provides a more organic look is the "randomness" associated with each parameter. In essence, creating a particle system means setting base physics parameters and then adding randomness to them.

Particle nodes

Godot provides two different nodes for 2D particles, GPUParticles2D and CPUParticles2D. GPUParticles2D is more advanced and uses the GPU to process particle effects. CPUParticles2D is a CPU-driven option with near-feature parity with GPUParticles2D, but lower performance when using large amounts of particles. On the other hand, CPUParticles2D may perform better on low-end systems or in GPU-bottlenecked situations.

While GPUParticles2D is configured via a ParticleProcessMaterial (and optionally with a custom shader), the matching options are provided via node properties in CPUParticles2D (with the exception of the trail settings).

You can convert a GPUParticles2D node into a CPUParticles2D node by clicking on the node in the inspector, and selecting Particles > Convert to CPUParticles2D in the toolbar at the top of the 3D editor viewport.

The rest of this tutorial is going to use the GPUParticles2D node. First, add a GPUParticles2D node to your scene. After creating that node you will notice that only a white dot was created, and that there is a warning icon next to your GPUParticles2D node in the scene dock. This is because the node needs a ParticleProcessMaterial to function.

ParticleProcessMaterial

To add a process material to your particles node, go to Process Material in your inspector panel. Click on the box next to Material, and from the dropdown menu select New ParticleProcessMaterial.

Your GPUParticles2D node should now be emitting white points downward.

Texture

A particle system uses a single texture (in the future this might be extended to animated textures via spritesheet). The texture is set via the relevant texture property:

Time parameters

Lifetime

The time in seconds that every particle will stay alive. When lifetime ends, a new particle is created to replace it.

Lifetime: 0.5

Lifetime: 4.0

One Shot

When enabled, a GPUParticles2D node will emit all of its particles once and then never again.

Preprocess

Particle systems begin with zero particles emitted, then start emitting. This can be an inconvenience when loading a scene and systems like a torch, mist, etc. begin emitting the moment you enter. Preprocess is used to let the system process a given number of seconds before it is actually drawn the first time.

Speed Scale

The speed scale has a default value of 1 and is used to adjust the speed of a particle system. Lowering the value will make the particles