Particle System

A Particle System component simulates fluid entities such as liquids, clouds and flames by generating and animating large numbers of small 2D images in the sceneA Scene contains the environments and menus of your game. Think of each unique Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, you place your environments, obstacles, and decorations, essentially designing and building your game in pieces. More info
See in Glossary. For a full introduction to particle systems and their uses, see further documentation on Particle Systems.

Properties

The Particle System component has many properties, and for convenience, the InspectorA Unity window that displays information about the currently selected GameObject, Asset or Project Settings, alowing you to inspect and edit the values. More info
See in Glossary organises them into collapsible sections called “modules”. These modules are documented in separate pages. See documentation on Particle System Modules to learn about each one.

To expand and collapse modules, click the bar that shows their name. Use the checkbox on the left to enable or disable the functionality of the properties in that module. For example, if you don’t want to vary the sizes of particles over their lifetime, uncheck the Size over Lifetime module.

Aside from the module bars, the Inspector contains a few other controls. The Open Editor button shows the options in a separate editor window that also allows you to edit multiple systems at once. The Resimulate checkbox determines whether or not property changes should be applied immediately to particles already generated by the system (the alternative is that existing particles are left as they are and only the new particles have the changed properties). The Selection button shows the outlines and wireframes of the MeshThe main graphics primitive of Unity. Meshes make up a large part of your 3D worlds. Unity supports triangulated or Quadrangulated polygon meshes. Nurbs, Nurms, Subdiv surfaces must be converted to polygons. More info
See in Glossary objects used to show the particles in the Scene, based on the selection mode in the GizmosA graphic overlay associated with a GameObject in a Scene, and displayed in the Scene View. Built-in scene tools such as the move tool are Gizmos, and you can create custom Gizmos using textures or scripting. Some Gizmos are only drawn when the GameObject is selected, while other Gizmos are drawn by the Editor regardless of which GameObjects are selected. More info
See in Glossary dropdown. Bounds display the bounding volumeA closed shape representing the edges and faces of a collider or trigger. More info
See in Glossary around the selected Particle Systems. These are used to determine whether a particle System is currently on screen.