Particle Effect Abuse

[Sunshine]

So particle effects are awesome and all, and allow wonderful creativeness, but theirs a few bad apples abusing it intentionally to lag rooms/suck up light, whatever they can manage to ruin vrchat experience for anyone around them, just wondering if this is going to be addressed, maybe limit / block certain effects, its a shame such a small annoying group are intent on ruinning vrchat experience for all, and giving vrchat devs a headack in the process, and for the ones participating in this annoyance, you're not impressing anyone with your lack of skills to 'create' something constructive and beautiful

[Fluffy Bunny of Despair]

Escrito originalmente por Natty Cat:

Escrito originalmente por Big Boss:

You must be fun to be around. Blocking knuckles, spammers etc, sure.

But blocking someone the minute you see the tiniest particle? Jesus christ.

I guess you don't know what running VR on a minimum spec rig is like?
I've been frozen or even crashed out so many times by particle arseholes that this is the only solution.

No. I have no clue what it is like to run VR on a bad system.
But also do i not see a reason just because some can't afford a better system to completly remove particles and the creativity that comes along with it.
There are really awesome Avatars out there people spent weeks if not Month working on.
Sure it sucks that so many abuse that system. But yeah, i don't mind going over and blocking them. Once blocked i have my peace ^^

[( =‵▽′)ノ' ︻ 一··· ( T﹏T)]

The special effects are all scripted, and the authorities can disable the script for the relevant commands.

[Spynal Toad]

there's also a new thing where whatver they generate clogs up your entire field of vision (which i've personally dubbed a "FoV Attack", which effectively renders a player "blind" to the point of being unable to see even their menus. so the only escape from it is to exit the game entirely.

[Sunshine]

I seen one like that as well Spynal, this moron goes around from room to room and turns the room pitch black and menus are no longer visible, pain in the butt having to take off the vr and exiting the game

[Bamboot]

Escrito originalmente por Hydra | trade.tf:

What? If there was a limit to how many particles could be spawned in at a time then it doesn't matter what your particle lifetime is.

By the way "IF there was a limit"... should be "there is a limit", it's in Unity, there is no "if".

Hmm...it still seems like we are talking around the same idea. But the point is, particle lifetime and max particles are both directly related to total number of particles on screen if the particle lifetime is long enough to result in the max number of particles being needed to run the animation. It does matter, as can be easily tested in Unity.

To see what I mean clearly in Unity:
Make a default setting particle emitter in unity. Don't change any value, keep it default. Run the animation and see a fairly heavy stream of white dots. Now, set the max particles to 20 but don't change anything else... watch as the total rendered particles being animated drop to 20 and the animation changes from a constant stream of particles to a spurt, then dead space, then a spurt, etc.

Clearly, that did nothing despite the now obvious reduction in visible particles, right? Raise it to 40, and watch as the animation plays for twice as long before going dry and produces twice as many particles (which are being rendered). This is becuase default decay setting is long, and the default animation time is fairly long . So if default particles are set to 1000, it produces a constant stream of particles, unless it is changed to a lower value. It might not use all 1000 but it is set to use up to 1000 at once, depending on decay. But, clearly when set to something low like 20, it does use all available particles and runs out until those start to decay. Thus, if you change nothing else at all other than the total particle number, you can see, clearly, that it reduces the number of rendered particles over lifetime of the animation. So much so, that there is a gap in the animation where no particles are emitted.

So, with a high max paticle number, and long decay, you can easily end up with more particles on screen at once. The effect will keep pushing out particles till it hits the max number at once, then it will stop producing particles until one decays. Once the particles start to decay, they produce more, up to the max. This is reflected in the gap in animation in the above example and how the particles "burst".

So, total particle setting does matter, as far as I can tell. It just doesn't matter much if the decay is >really low< as in your example, since the particles disappear before the max can all be spawned. Both settings, max and decay, matter, and are not independent of each other. They both determine the total number of rendered particles.

So, to say neither max number or particle lifetime matter, or suggest to set the particles to a million....I think is incorrect, and based on a very narrow situation of having very low particle lifetime. Since I work with low emissions and 20 or less particles to begin with, but longer decay and animation time (think snow or floating particles), I notice this a lot when tweaking the settings. It matters because as particles don't decay, more are added and rendered up to the total number established by user causing more rendered particles at once....

Edit - to be clear, as far as I can tell setting your max particles to 20, means you will only ever have 20 particles rendered at any time, until one decays. So, yeah, I think it is a powerful (maybe most) user end tweak for making efficient and less lag inducing particle effect, not irrelvant at all.

Again, I'm no expert, but I can't logically figure out another reason, meaning, or effect of the total particles variable in Unity other than setting the total available for the particle animation based on my own exploration in Unity and what I have read online. If I am way off base and it works differently, I'd love to know about it, since I am trying to learn, myself. But, as far as I can tell, the above is accurate.

Also:
https://www.raywenderlich.com/113049/introduction-unity-particle-systems

Seems to agree.

Keep your settings reasonable, make efficient particles systems, and have fun!

-DW

[Hydra]

TL;DR. I skimmed through and from what I think I saw, you don't know how Unity's particle system works. Setting a limit or changing the default of possible particles does not help, as the person still had the power to just make make the particles spawn in at super high speeds. Again, having a limit to how many particles can be active at a certain time is the best solution. Changing the default particles does not do anything because the default "spawnrate" is very low so you only render like 10 particles a second. Not laggy at all.

[Bamboot]

TLDR: Making a limit to how many particles is active at a certain time is exactly what I am describing lol. It works consistently on my end, even though you keep thinking I'm wrong.

In short, open unity, right click. make new particle effect. Set max particles to 2. How many particles are being rendered? 2. That's it.

Change any values you want, like emission speed, decay or whatever, and watch how many particles are being rendered =2. They may be faster or slower or hang around longer or whatever, but if max is 2, there will be 2 at any given time. You can make a really short high emission short decay to get lots of movement, but it will still be 2, just at high emission short decay. I mean at least that's what happens when I use unity. If there are more than 2 particles I dont see them in unity or in game.... so yeah.

Again we are talking 2 sides of the same coin. Yes, someone could set emissions to really high, but with max particles set to 10 and decay set not super short, while animation ran long, you'd only get 10 parts at a time in a quick burst. Test it if you don't believe me... anyhow, I trust my results. What I'm saying is all values lead to max rendered - including emission rate, decay and total number. They are all related to how many get rendered. Otherwise why have a total number to begin with that acutally changes the total number in unity, and in game.... lol.

Try what I described in unity and tell me it doesn't work lol. If am wrong about this, I'd love to know why, because it makese sense, and works to me. If I set max particles to 20 in unity, that's what I get in game. Like I can count to 20 and see the effect working. Yes, users can do it differently, but that doesn't make what I am describing incorrect, as far as I have found. Your arguments seem to rely on specific slider settings without recognizing how they all work together. Test the tldr, how may particles did you see? 2. Change any setting you want, it'll remain at 2 particles.

From client end, setting a low max number of partcles is helpful. Yes I agree that you are also correct, on server side limiting total number would also work, but essentially that's what max particles in Unity does. Until it is done server side, designers can start with low max particle counts, which is what I am trying to suggest people consider.

[Avarek]

Escrito originalmente por YukiAkano:

Escrito originalmente por Natty Cat:

I guess you don't know what running VR on a minimum spec rig is like?
I've been frozen or even crashed out so many times by particle arseholes that this is the only solution.

No. I have no clue what it is like to run VR on a bad system.
But also do i not see a reason just because some can't afford a better system to completly remove particles and the creativity that comes along with it.
There are really awesome Avatars out there people spent weeks if not Month working on.
Sure it sucks that so many abuse that system. But yeah, i don't mind going over and blocking them. Once blocked i have my peace ^^

Don't forget that VRChat is designed especially for VR Users, and that Non-VR users weren't even supposed to access it in the fist place... Quite an ignorant comment, as people who tend to spam lobbies with their Particle effects scare off the main players base, which the game is designed for. It was not designed for people to run around lobbies and spam their particle effects with no regards to VR users.

If particles and non VR Users are limiting the game Experience for VR users, the Group of people this game is designed for, they need to do something. And as the other guy said, you don't know how it is to run VR in General. Even with a good spec, when someone spams his particles it lags so hard that you cannot look around, while the Touch controllers dont even react at all, making it impossible to block said person. You should consider taking in different perspectives than just yours. I don't want to take off my Oculus every time some 12 year old shows off with his unoptimized particles. If this continues and the VR Users are left in the background the game will die out as the purpose is going to be lost.

[Fluffy Bunny of Despair]

Escrito originalmente por Avarek:

Escrito originalmente por YukiAkano:

No. I have no clue what it is like to run VR on a bad system.
But also do i not see a reason just because some can't afford a better system to completly remove particles and the creativity that comes along with it.
There are really awesome Avatars out there people spent weeks if not Month working on.
Sure it sucks that so many abuse that system. But yeah, i don't mind going over and blocking them. Once blocked i have my peace ^^

Don't forget that VRChat is designed especially for VR Users, and that Non-VR users weren't even supposed to access it in the fist place... Quite an ignorant comment, as people who tend to spam lobbies with their Particle effects scare off the main players base, which the game is designed for. It was not designed for people to run around lobbies and spam their particle effects with no regards to VR users.

If particles and non VR Users are limiting the game Experience for VR users, the Group of people this game is designed for, they need to do something. And as the other guy said, you don't know how it is to run VR in General. Even with a good spec, when someone spams his particles it lags so hard that you cannot look around, while the Touch controllers dont even react at all, making it impossible to block said person. You should consider taking in different perspectives than just yours. I don't want to take off my Oculus every time some 12 year old shows off with his unoptimized particles. If this continues and the VR Users are left in the background the game will die out as the purpose is going to be lost.

I don't care about people who abuse the system to spam. I talk about real decently creative avatar creation with an non abusive way to use partices to enhance the animation / scene and not spam them to annoy.

And a lot of them use VR.

No one is claiming "the abuse that people do with the current system is good". Not a single person. Still, in my opinion i'd rather have these few abuser i meet which i can normaly just block and go on with my enjoyment than baning particles all together.

[Bamboot]

Also, here is the manual for Unity particle effects in case anyone is wondering how they work, or how to tweak them.

https://docs.unity3d.com/2018.1/Documentation/Manual/PartSysMainModule.html