Discovering Unity's special effects

Unity has a great capabilities for special effects in three categories: Particle System, Trail Renderer, and Line Renderer. These are available via the GameObject | Effects top menu.

Adding an Effects component to a GameObject is accomplished by using the Add Component | Effects option in the Inspector panel. As you can see in the following screenshot, the Particle System, Trail Renderer, and Line Renderer options are available via this method. There are also additional options, such as Lens Flare and Halo:

In this section, we will discuss the Particle System and Trail Renderer effects.

Particle System

Particle Systems use a vast number of tiny 2D images or meshes in a scene to simulate effects such as liquids, smoke, flames, pixie dust, fireworks, and clouds. The basic concept is that one simple 2D image or mesh can be used in large quantities to create a robust and dense visual effect. These 2D images or meshes are the particle, and they collectively form...