Payload Sparks

[PumpkinCake]

In TF2, if you leave the payload unattended for a time, it starts to roll back, causing white sparks at the back of the cart. I wanted to find that particle and use it somewhere else, so I went into Record mode, pushed the cart for a moment, and waited for it to start to roll back. I got the sparks, but they're not a particle. They're an "Effect", meaning it's on an Effect track of the take and doesn't have any of the usual particle attributes.
Right clicking the display → Draw Tool Objects → Effects is the way to toggle them being drawn without muting them.

The sparks manifest as two rapid-fire pairs of clips (one for each rail) lasting 0.0030 of a second at about 10 times per second. They're each named TE_Sparks_ChannelsClip

Google doesn't offer anything for any of this except for a single video on TE_Sparks, which seems like it could be a Half Life asset. I think I'm a little out of my depth trying to work with Effects.

I'm almost certain they don't exist in the Particles folder of TF2. Does anyone know any other particles and settings I could use to roughly approximate them?


Here's a screenshot[imgur.com], if it helps in any way.


EDIT: If anyone is curious, in the end, I used a heavily modified version of the sparkler fireworks from Left 4 Dead 2, under fireworks_fx.pcf. Specifically:
fireworks_sparkshower_01b
I had to shrink the sprites like crazy and edit their velocity, lifetime, locking the movement to the control point, all that jazz. It worked in the end, though. I also used richochet_sparks from impact_fx.pcf from TF2 for some auxillary sparks.

[Capt Fuzzy]

That has got to be either a particle or a sprite...
If it's a particle, then it should be in the tf\particles folder somewhere, though it could be named almost anything besides 'sparks'.
Valve has a bad habit of giving their particles rather 'generic' names that usually have nothing to do with what they actually use the particles for...
If it's a sprite, then it is a map entity and as such, is 'baked' into the map, which means that you cannot use it on it's own, it's part of the map.

[PumpkinCake]

Well, they're certainly not acting like particles. Seeing as I had to go into Record mode to get them at all, they may very well be bound to the map.

I couldn't find anything like them in Half Life 2's particles folder either, though I mostly skimmed that. If nothing else, I might end up taking a metal impact particle and revving up whatever value spawns sparks. Edit: It turns out to be ricochet_sparks, but they're too thin for this.

[Zappy]

If you try to create animationsets for "existing elements", try creating animationsets for all particles, then see which particle(s) are around the cart, and look at their name or such. Optionally right-click one, choose "Show in Element Viewer" > "Particle", and see if you can find out what the particle system file used is, as well as the name of the system from that particle file. Hopefully doing this stuff should help you find it.

You might also be able to tweak the particle to, instead of spawning one particle per instance, it could spawn one every 0.1 seconds. That would probably be better than having hundreds of the particle copy-pasted around.

[PumpkinCake]

I tried doing that. That's my usual method for finding recorded particles, but after creating animation sets for all existing elements, the sparks weren't among them. There were no control points by that area, and after deleting everything in the Animation Set Editor, the sparks and sounds were the only things that remained.

[Booze Sr.]

That actually looks amazing wow, I want to see what you've done.

[Doge]

it works through env_spark + minecart_tracktrain, you can use and place it only in hammer editor