VfxSystemDefinitionData

Inheritance 1 ancestor · 3 siblings

• IResource
  • ContextualActionData1
  • StaticMaterialDef
  • TextureResource
  • VfxSystemDefinitionDatacurrent

Class Documentation

Edit documentation

The definition of one particle system: three lists of emitters plus settings for the system as a whole (culling, audio, HUD placement, a point light and a set of behaviour flags). One definition is shared by every instance spawned from it.

Emitter lists

List	What its emitters are
complexEmitterDefinitionData	Full particle simulation. Reads almost every emitter property.
simpleEmitterDefinitionData	A lightweight path that reads a small subset of the emitter properties plus the emitter's LegacySimple block.
ShimmerEmitterDefinitionData	Emitters that take emission, lifetime, physics, rendering and geometry from a component graph.

The lists also differ in which spawn gates apply, see VfxEmitterDefinitionData.

Life of an instance

1. Prepare, once per definition. The emitters are turned into prepared descriptors and their textures and meshes are loaded. assetRemappingTable is applied here, and the texture group 0x9836cd87 is active for these loads.
2. Spawn. Each emitter goes through its gates and the survivors are instantiated. The point light is created, the material overrides are handed to the attached object and selfIllumination is pushed.
3. Update. The instance takes position, velocity, orientation and scale from its attachment, tests its cull box, and simulates.
4. Simulation runs in fixed steps: 30 per second on High and Very High EffectsQuality, 20 on Medium, 15 on Low and Very Low. Within a step the component emitters update first, then the complex emitters, then the simple ones, then the point light. flags bits 0x8 and 0x40 change the stepping.
5. End. The system is finished when every emitter of every list reports finished, or when it is stopped. A soft stop lets each emitter finish by its linger rules, a hard stop ends the system at once.

Visibility

The cull box comes from visibilityRadius. A hidden system that may not simulate off screen (flags bit 0x1 clear) is not paused. Its emitters are reset when it hides: particles are cleared and child effects released. If it stays hidden until its duration has elapsed, it is finished for good. The duration is the longest duration among its instantiated emitters. Teamfight Tactics turns off-screen simulation off for every system.

HUD layer

A system with drawingLayer 1 is drawn through its own orthographic projection instead of the scene camera. See drawingLayer, hudLayerDimension, HudLayerAspect and hudAnchorPositionFromWorldProjection.

Legacy troybin

The client still carries a loader for .troy files. It runs when an effect is requested by a name ending in .troy and no definition object was found, and it fills this same object from the file. Properties without a troybin key keep their defaults. Whether any shipped content still reaches this loader is not established.

Notes

• An instance created by the legacy loader skips the mEyeCandy and mIsPoseAfterimage checks.

Properties

0x9836cd87

U8 = 5

14.15

Documentation Edit documentation

Id of the texture group that is active while this system's textures and meshes load. A texture remembers its group, and when the quality setting behind a group changes, that group's loaded textures are reloaded.

Id	Driven by
1	CharacterQuality
2, 5	EffectsQuality
3, 4	EnvironmentQuality
0, 6, 7	no setting

The property's name is not yet known.

Notes

• What a group does to its textures at each quality level, and how the two groups of one setting differ, is not established.

ClockToUse

U8 = 0

Documentation Edit documentation

An enum: 0 auto, 1 game, 2 system. No code that reads the value was found, so what each setting changes is not established.

DistanceBasedTransparencyParams

Pointer<VfxDistanceBasedTransparencyParams> = null

14.10

Documentation Edit documentation

Optional distance-keyed alpha ramp for the whole system, see VfxDistanceBasedTransparencyParams. Authored mostly on large ground-plane ability indicators.

Notes

• No code that reads the ramp was found, so whether the client applies it, and which distance it would measure, is not established.

DynamicParameterData

Pointer<VfxDynamicParametersData> = null

14.18

Documentation Edit documentation

Optional event-keyed override table, see VfxDynamicParametersData. When one of its events fires, named emitters of this instance have single parameters (scale, UV scale, emission rate, particle lifetime, birth velocity) replaced by a computed value, at once or eased in over a duration.

Notes

• What fires an event is not established.

EffectorDefinition

Pointer<VfxEffectorDefinition> = null

Removed in 16.21 16.16

Documentation Edit documentation

Optional environment effector, see VfxEffectorDefinition. The instance creates a handle for it when it spawns and marks the handle when it stops, but nothing in the client collects those handles, so the property has no effect.

HudLayerAspect

F32 = 1.3333333730697632

Documentation Edit documentation

Width divided by height of the HUD canvas, see hudLayerDimension. Replaced together with it under flags bit 0x200.

PointLight

Pointer<ParticlePointLightInfo> = null

14.13

Documentation Edit documentation

Optional point light that belongs to the system, described by a ParticlePointLightInfo. It is created together with the emitters and updated on every simulation step, after the emitters, from the system's age and at the system's world position. It does not depend on any emitter or particle.

The light is drawn only on a map that has a MapDynamicLighting component.

ShimmerEmitterDefinitionData

List<VfxShimmerEmitterDefinitionData> = []

16.16

Documentation Edit documentation

The system's component emitters, see VfxShimmerEmitterDefinitionData. Emitters in this list carry only a few gates of their own and take emission, lifetime, physics, rendering and geometry from a component graph. An entry whose graph does not supply lifetime, physics, rendering and geometry is dropped while the system is prepared.

Notes

• Only the spectatorPolicy of Filtering is tested for this list, once while the system is prepared.

assetCategory

String = "fx"

Removed in 14.15

Documentation Edit documentation

Removed from current builds. A bin that still carries it has the value dropped.

assetRemappingTable

List<VfxAssetRemap> = []

Documentation Edit documentation

List of asset substitutions. Whenever one of the system's emitters names an asset path (a texture, mesh, skeleton or animation), the list is walked in order. The first entry whose oldAsset matches the path and whose condition holds wins, and its newAsset is loaded instead.

type	Entry applies
0	while team-relative colours are active
1	while the colourblind palette is active
other	always

When one of those states changes, every system definition is prepared again, so new instances pick up the change.

Notes

• Which setting or game state turns team-relative colours on is not established.

audioParameterFlexID

I32 = -1

Documentation Edit documentation

Index of one of the instance's three flex values (0, 1 or 2, see Flex values on VfxEmitterDefinitionData). While the persistent sound plays, the client sends that flex value to it every update as the audio parameter VFX_RTPC, clamped to 0..1. -1 turns the feature off. Any other index, or a flex value nobody supplied, sends 0.

Notes

• audioParameterTimeScaledDuration turns the value into a ramp.

audioParameterTimeScaledDuration

F32 = 0

Documentation Edit documentation

Ramp time, in seconds, for the VFX_RTPC parameter of audioParameterFlexID. At 0 or below the parameter is the flex value. Above 0 it is flex · elapsed / duration, clamped to 0..1. elapsed is counted from a time the sound reports, presumably its start.

buildUpTime

F32 = 0

Documentation Edit documentation

Seconds of simulation added to the system's clock when it becomes visible, so a long-running effect appears already built up. The extra time is simulated on the next update in a limited number of steps, so a long build-up is simulated coarsely.

It is always applied the first time the system becomes visible. It is applied again on later appearances only when the system does not simulate off screen (flags bit 0x1 clear), which is the case where hiding reset its emitters.

complexEmitterDefinitionData

List<VfxEmitterDefinitionData> = []

Documentation Edit documentation

The system's complex emitters: the full particle path. Every spawn gate applies to them (disabled, importance, ChanceToNotExist, colorblindVisibility, Filtering).

Notes

• In a legacy troybin these are the GroupPart<N> slots whose GroupPart<N>Type is not Simple.

drawingLayer

U8 = 0

Documentation Edit documentation

0 is the world layer. 1 puts the system on the HUD layer:

• It is drawn with its own orthographic projection, sized by hudLayerDimension and HudLayerAspect, instead of the scene camera.
• Every emitter in simpleEmitterDefinitionData is dropped.
• transform is not multiplied into the particles. Only its translation is used, for placement.
• Its emitters draw in the HUD render phase and never take fog of war darkening.
• Frustum culling is skipped only when hudAnchorPositionFromWorldProjection is false.

Values other than 0 and 1 are not established.

flags

U16 = 212

Documentation Edit documentation

Bitfield of system behaviour flags. The client uses the serialized value as it is and never changes the definition's bits at run time.

Bit	Name	Effect
0x0001	SimulateWhileOffScreen	Keep simulating while hidden. Without it a hidden system is reset and can finish while hidden, see Visibility above.
0x0002	PersistThruDeath	Without it, the death of the attached object marks the instance. A marked instance removes its material overrides from that object instead of applying them.
0x0004	PersistThruRevive	The same mark for the attached object respawning.
0x0008	SimulateOncePerFrame	One simulation step per update covering all the pending time, instead of fixed-rate steps.
0x0010	SoundsEndOnEmitterEnd	Stopping the system also stops its persistent sound and voice-over.
0x0020	SoundsPlayWhileOffScreen	Persistent audio keeps playing while the system is hidden, and can start before the system was ever visible.
0x0040	SimulateEveryFrame	When the fixed-rate stepping would run no step in an update, run one step covering the pending time.
0x0080	KeepOrientationAfterSpellCast	No reader of this bit was found.
0x0100	UseCalculusForPhysics	Analytic drag for the complex emitters: a particle is not integrated but eased in closed form toward the fixed offset birthVelocity / birthDrag, see birthDrag.
0x0200	HudLayerSizeFromUiElement	HUD layer: take the canvas size from the pixel size supplied by the hosting UI element instead of hudLayerDimension and HudLayerAspect, when both supplied values are non-zero.
0x0400	AlphaFromAttachment	Every update, read the system's alpha multiplier from its attachment. The multiplier scales the final alpha of every complex emitter particle. A plain object attachment returns 1.
0x0800	AggressiveImportanceCulling	Low-spec cull: on Low and Very Low EffectsQuality, and only while a server-controlled switch is on, complex and component emitters with importance 2 or lower are not instantiated.

Notes

• The names of 0x1 to 0x100 are the client's own. 0x2 and 0x4 are RenderThruDeath and RenderThruRevive in the client's flag enum and PersistThruDeath and PersistThruRevive as legacy troybin keys. The names of 0x200, 0x400 and 0x800 describe what the bit does; the client's names for them are not known.
• The default sets PersistThruRevive, SoundsEndOnEmitterEnd, SimulateEveryFrame and KeepOrientationAfterSpellCast.
• A legacy troybin has keys for 0x1 to 0x8, 0x20, 0x40 and 0x80 only, so it never carries SoundsEndOnEmitterEnd or 0x100 to 0x800. Its defaults are PersistThruRevive and KeepOrientationAfterSpellCast.
• For PersistThruDeath and PersistThruRevive, whether the mark also hides or ends the system is not established.
• For AlphaFromAttachment, what a target attachment bases its value on is not established.

hudAnchorPositionFromWorldProjection

Bool = true

Documentation Edit documentation

Chooses how a HUD-layer system (drawingLayer 1) is placed.

• true: the system's world position is projected to the screen with the scene camera and that screen point is its anchor on the HUD canvas. The system keeps a world position, so it is frustum culled like a world system.
• false: the anchor is the centre of a screen rectangle supplied by the hosting UI element, and the canvas is scaled by that element. The system is never frustum culled.

Notes

• The translation of transform offsets the anchor in both cases.

hudLayerDimension

F32 = 1024

Documentation Edit documentation

Width of the HUD canvas, in particle units, for a system with drawingLayer 1. The canvas height is hudLayerDimension / HudLayerAspect and always spans the full viewport height. The visible width follows the real screen aspect.

Notes

• Replaced by the hosting UI element's pixel width when flags bit 0x200 is set and the element supplied a non-zero size.

mEyeCandy

Bool = false

Documentation Edit documentation

Marks the system as eye candy. The game object that owns the instance joins the EyeCandy visibility group, and the HideEyeCandy game option hides that whole group.

mIsPoseAfterimage

Bool = false

Documentation Edit documentation

Detaches the instance from its attachment right after it is created. The update no longer takes position, velocity, orientation or scale from the attachment, so the system stays where it was spawned instead of following its owner.

Notes

• The death and respawn checks of flags bits 0x2 and 0x4, scaleDynamicallyWithAttachedBone and the material overrides still apply.
• Whether anything captures the owner's pose for the system is not established.

materialOverrideDefinitions

List<VfxMaterialOverrideDefinitionData> = []

Documentation Edit documentation

Material overrides for the object the system is attached to, not for the system's own particles. When the instance spawns, one override is created per entry: first the entries of this list, then those of each instantiated complex emitter, then of each instantiated simple emitter. Every update, while the system is running and attached, each override is applied to the attached object.

Entries of this list do not depend on any emitter surviving its spawn gates.

Notes

• flags bits 0x2 and 0x4 decide whether the overrides stay on through the object's death and respawn.

objectPath

Hash = "0x0"

16.16

Documentation Edit documentation

Hash of the path of the bin entry that holds this system. The client passes it as the lookup scope when this system resolves another effect by name: the child effects named by its emitters' childParticleSetDefinition, and effects created by reference from this system. How the scope narrows the lookup is not established.

overrideScaleCap

Option<F32> = null

Documentation Edit documentation

Cap on the bound object's size that the system's emitters scale by through their FlexShapeDefinition. A size up to 200 passes unchanged. Between 200 and 500 it is remapped linearly onto the range from 200 to the cap, and a size of 500 or more becomes the cap. Unset means a cap of 250. Zero or a negative value turns the cap off.

Notes

• The legacy troybin key for it is group-scale-cap.

particleName

String = ""

Documentation Edit documentation

The system's short name. When an instance is created, the string is copied into the name of the game object that owns it. It is not a lookup key.

Notes

• The legacy loader sets it to the file name without directory or extension.

particlePath

String = ""

Documentation Edit documentation

The system's content path as authored. No use of the value by the client was found: systems are referenced through resource resolver keys and object links, not through this string.

scaleDynamicallyWithAttachedBone

Bool = false

Documentation Edit documentation

Every update, while the system is attached to a bone of an object that has a skeleton, the bone's current scale replaces the attachment's own scale as a factor of the system scale. The scale is a single number, so it is uniform. Every emitter multiplies its particle sizes by the system scale.

selfIllumination

F32 = -1

Documentation Edit documentation

A self-illumination value for the object the system is attached to, held for as long as the system lives. It is not applied to the system's own particles. A negative value pushes nothing.

If several systems push a value onto the same object, the most recent one is used. When that system is removed the object falls back to the previous one, or to no value when none is left.

Notes

• What the object does with the value when it is drawn is not established.

simpleEmitterDefinitionData

List<VfxEmitterDefinitionData> = []

Documentation Edit documentation

The system's simple emitters, a lightweight path. It differs from the complex list in three ways a definition can run into:

• ChanceToNotExist and colorblindVisibility are not checked, and the low-spec cull of flags bit 0x800 does not touch them.
• Every simple emitter is dropped when drawingLayer is 1.
• Most emitter properties are not read. The emitter page says per property whether the simple path uses it.

soundOnCreateDefault

String = ""

Documentation Edit documentation

Audio event played once for a new instance. It is a default: when the system spawns, an instantiated complex or simple emitter whose Audio block names a create sound replaces it for that instance. If several do, the last one instantiated wins.

The event fires on the first update in which the system is visible, and only if the system is younger than 1 second at that moment. A system first seen later than that never plays it.

soundPersistentDefault

String = ""

Documentation Edit documentation

Audio event that plays for as long as the instance lives. Like soundOnCreateDefault it is a default that an emitter's Audio block can replace.

It starts when the system becomes visible, follows the system's position, stops when the system is hidden and starts again when it reappears. flags bit 0x20 keeps it playing while hidden and lets it start before the system was ever visible. When the system is stopped, the sound is stopped only if flags bit 0x10 is set.

Notes

• What ends the sound of a system that finishes with bit 0x10 clear is not established.

transform

Mtx44

Default value

[[1, 0, 0, 0],
 [0, 1, 0, 0],
 [0, 0, 1, 0],
 [0, 0, 0, 1]]

Documentation Edit documentation

A matrix applied to the whole system.

• Complex emitters: it is the last factor of every particle's matrix, after the particle's own rotation, position and orbit. Its translation, rotation and scale all take part.
• Component emitters: its rotation and scale are multiplied into the system matrix they simulate in.
• HUD layer (drawingLayer 1): it is not multiplied into particles. Only its translation is used, as an offset of the anchor.

Notes

• A use by simple emitters is not established.

visibilityRadius

F32 = 250

Documentation Edit documentation

Sets the system's cull box: an axis-aligned cube centred on the system's position with each face visibilityRadius · √½ world units away. The box is rebuilt whenever the position changes and tested against the camera frustum every update. What happens to a system that fails the test is described under Visibility above.

The test is skipped, and the system always counts as visible, when drawingLayer is 1 and hudAnchorPositionFromWorldProjection is false.

Notes

• A system hidden by its attachment stays hidden whatever the box says.

voiceOverOnCreateDefault

String = ""

Documentation Edit documentation

Voice-over event played once for a new instance, under the same rule as soundOnCreateDefault. Emitters cannot replace it.

voiceOverPersistentDefault

String = ""

Documentation Edit documentation

Voice-over counterpart of soundPersistentDefault, with the same start, hide and stop rules. Emitters cannot replace it, and the audio parameter of audioParameterFlexID is not sent to it.

Referenced by 23 classes · 40 properties

• 0x182cf031 0xf5533ae0 Map<U32, VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• 0x5c8aed6 0xa9dfcc13 Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• 0x7e0ad0f9 0x9f2f4bdb Map<I8, VfxSystemDefinitionData> 0xa3e06fe2 Map<I8, VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• 0xebe7428 0xb13ed1b2 Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData> 0xb4b6a94f Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• 0xfc6af367 FlashInVfxSystem Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData> HoverVfxSystem Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData> IdleVfxSystem Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData> NotPickedVfxSystem Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData> PickedVfxSystem Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData> RefreshOverlayVfxSystem Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData> RefreshVfxSystem Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• AugmentSetTraitTrackerViewController 0x17a6dc9c List2<VfxSystemDefinitionData> 0x40aec206 Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• AugmentTierDisplayData 0x83af5436 Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData> FlashInVfxSystem Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData> HoverVfxSystem Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData> IdleVfxSystem Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData> NotPickedVfxSystem Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData> PickedVfxSystem Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData> RefreshOverlayVfxSystem Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData> RefreshVfxSystem Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• CelebrationViewController 0xb9524edd Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• IdentityInstance ItemVfx Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• MapContextualClick ClickParticles Map<String, VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• MapParticle system Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• MapWorldParticle Particle Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• NavGridRegionVfxData VfxSystem Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• PlayerInventoryViewController 0x5823e0ae Map<Hash, VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• SeqActionVfxBase ParticleSystem Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• SeqInputCreateEffectEmitter system Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• SequenceActionOverrideUiVfx SourceVfx Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• StatStoneMasteryEffects MasteryToBackgroundEffect Map<U32, VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• SuperwardGeComponentDef 0xe8f75502 Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData> VfxSystem Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• UiElementParticleSystemData VfxSystem Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData>

Show 3 more

• VfxChildIdentifier effect Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• VfxGeComponentDef system Link<VfxSystemDefinitionData>
• VfxMigrationResources resourceMap Map<Hash, VfxSystemDefinitionData>

0x9836cd87

ClockToUse

DistanceBasedTransparencyParams

DynamicParameterData

EffectorDefinition

HudLayerAspect

PointLight

ShimmerEmitterDefinitionData

assetCategory

assetRemappingTable

audioParameterFlexID

audioParameterTimeScaledDuration

buildUpTime

complexEmitterDefinitionData

drawingLayer

flags

hudAnchorPositionFromWorldProjection

hudLayerDimension

mEyeCandy

mIsPoseAfterimage

materialOverrideDefinitions

objectPath

overrideScaleCap

particleName

particlePath

scaleDynamicallyWithAttachedBone

selfIllumination

simpleEmitterDefinitionData

soundOnCreateDefault

soundPersistentDefault

transform

visibilityRadius

voiceOverOnCreateDefault

voiceOverPersistentDefault