Easy Particle Rain in Godot 4

A video in which I show you a way to create a rain effect using the 3D Particle Node in Godot 4. I also will go over some variations and some things that you might want to think about when creating rain in your games.
Special thanks to:
‪@BackingTrackMusic‬ for the background music.
Jarod Guest and Sergej Majboroda on Poly Haven for the sky panorama
We're trying something new this week and I have uploaded the demo scenes to a github repository. Let me know if it works or not: github.com/mmbwatt/Particle_R...
If you’re able to, and want to help support more content from me you can buy me a coffee here: ko-fi.com/wattinteractive
00:00 - Start
01:35 - Scene Set-up
02:00 - Tutorial Start
02:24 - Particle Process Material
04:33 - Draw Pass/Material
09:34 - Demo Scene with different particle rain
12:08 - Things to consider for implementation

[@mireazma]

For a more realistic rain it needs to be:
1. Far more dense.
2. Far more transparent.
3. Far smaller.
4. The color has to be much more desaturated, and greener, not that cartoonish pale blue.
5. You can ultimately add a barely visible transparent gray background between the camera and all droplets.
Combine layers of droplets like differently sized billboards with multiple droplets on each, for performance.

[@wattinteractive]

Thanks for the tips! Mind if I pin your comment?

[@mireazma]

@@wattinteractive Thank you. I'm flattered.

[@j.d.waterhouse4197]

You're correct, but Do note he said 'EASY' particle rain.

[@DEADEYESTUDIO]

I’m gonna need to keep this in mind, I never could make rain look right in my own stuff

[@iWhisperASMR]

Real rain cannot be seen, it's actually more just a distortion effect almost entirely,
but hollywood movie is color a bit to help.

[@ralfz5341]

Very informative video! Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

[@wattinteractive]

Glad it was helpful!

[@YezzyHD]

great video and great effect thanks

[@SamiO-si4mc]

Great tutorial! Thanks! Visual wind effect would be great too!

[@wattinteractive]

Thanks for watching! I've added it to my list of topics!

[@chrisfritz7545]

Thanks Dude! Appreciate ya!

[@wattinteractive]

You're welcome! I hope it was helpful 😄

[@99JasonKim]

nice T-shirt

[@t2pol904]

You the man 🙌

[@bengtrust]

When I click into Process Material and then on ParticleProcessMaterial, I dont have half of the settings you have. For example there is no Emission Shape, Color etc. Do you know why this is?

[@samkoesnadi]

Is it maybe the Godot version? He is using version 4...

[@yotionmumbarge9382]

I couldn't find it either. It's under Process Material > Spawn > Position
Hope you figure it out.

[@sifou0550]

@@yotionmumbarge9382 Oh wow thanks for that

[@sosasees]

for a realistic weather system, i could make it so the rain can be one of multiple intensities, chosen by a cursor that always moves forward at the same speed on a 1D perlin/simplex noise.
in the lower intensities, the rain could be barely any visible/hearable at all and also not change the visibility and color of the environment, while in the higher intensities it looks more like the realistic example from this video.
but this is just an idea. if i am going to use it is a different story because this kind of weather system does not make all games better:
i would use this in an exploration game to make the world more alive, but i would not use this in a story game where the weather changes based on the story i want to tell.

[@wattinteractive]

I think that's a good way to approach adding a weather system; considering what you want to get from adding something is an important part of the process.

[@CrowGamesDev]

The rain leaving puddles i think has something to do with the collision height if its set to low you don't see the puddles

[@wattinteractive]

Thanks! That's certainly cleared up one of the issues I was having in terms of rendering them. 👍 The other issue I was having is the shape of the puddles, and I think that's related to the initial collision angle, which results in slight movement of the particles once they've hit the ground leaving a slight trail that's in the shape of a puddle.

[@dueddel]

Somewhat unrelated to the video's content, but… I love your shirt! 😅♥

[@wattinteractive]

Thanks! 😄

[@dueddel]

@@wattinteractive Cowabunga!

[@aitboss85]

I think for a large map, many falling and colliding particles will drop down the performance. I was thinking of a simple cheap trick of making an animated flat layer displaying falling rain over the camera just like in 3d games. What do you think?

[@3db-]

Amazing shirt

[@wattinteractive]

Thanks! 😄

[@j.d.waterhouse4197]

I've been looking for this sort of video for G4 for weeks. Do you have one for how you put the background clouds into the sky on the world environment node?

[@wattinteractive]

I don't yet, but the current video I've been trying to make has been giving me trouble, so I might pivot to this and try to get one out soon. In a quick text format, in the WorldEnvironment -> Environment = New Environment -> Background/Mode = Sky -> Sky = New Sky -> Sky Material = Panorama Sky . Then I used a Creative Commons HDR Sky texture as the Panorama.

[@TheBigQQ69420]

Maybe the puddle forming is from a combination of the opacity of the texture along with the particle lifetime, as it collides and doesn't despawn? just a 2 cent thought off the top of my head.

[@thefufuu3157]

thats a great power ranger tshirt Kappa ;)

[@wattinteractive]

I saw it as a teenage mutant ninja turtles shirt, but I guess power rangers is cool too 😄

[@zrw-xc9hy]

How to link UI buttons with raindrop display? I really want to learn. Please tell me

[@ImEvolver]

Regarding splashes while the drops hit the ground, I don't know why it's visible in one scene, but while implementing the same with another physics engine programmatically, I had the new particle groups created at the collision points, with very short lifespan. Not sure though, if it's an elegant solution.

[@wattinteractive]

Oh interesting. That's certainly something I might look into for further improvements to the particle rain. Thanks for sharing! 😄

[@ImEvolver]

@@wattinteractive I also found a gpuparticles3d's property called sub_emitter which can be used to get such effects.

[@zrw-xc9hy]

Can your project 4.0 godot run

[@zrw-xc9hy]

I tried running your project but the raindrops don't follow me

[@scottbates6412]

for the love of GOD hook me up with a non stylized waterfall lmfao XD

[@wattinteractive]

Haha okay! It's been added to the list of topics to cover! 👍