Chapter 4. Battling the Elements

This is a basic chapter on how the effects work using Unreal Engine 3's particle editor (cascade). It will quickly walk you through the interface of the editor and explain how a basic smoke particle, water, height, and fog can be set up.

In this chapter, we will cover the following topics:

• The basics

• Add a new particle emitter

• The smoke example

• Adding height fog

• Creating the surface

• Water volumes

• Underwater

Let's Go!

To start with, we are going to look into the basics of cascade particles. The particle system in UDK is drastically different to its original UE2 variant. Particles now have a brand-new and extensive particle editor, and are saved as assets in a package, instead of actors in a level or a U file.

The ability to save a particle as an asset in a package is great, since all levels can now refer to the same particle, and if the particle has to be adjusted, it will only have to be done once.

The new particle system is module-based. You add blocks of stuff, if...