How to Use Particle Emitter in Jujutsu Shenanigans (JJS)

If you opened the Particle Emitter inside the Jujutsu Shenanigans Skill Builder and immediately thought, what am I supposed to do with all of this?, I completely understand.

At first glance, the menu is a wall of settings: Emit Count, Rate, Lifetime, Squash, Drag, Light Influence, Z Offset, Spread Angle, Orientation, Flipbook, Emitter Shape… and that’s before you start experimenting with actual VFX.

The good news is that you don’t need to memorize every setting before making something cool.

Once you understand the basic relationship between how many particles appear, how quickly they appear, how long they survive, and how they move, the rest becomes much easier. A lot of Particle Emitter work in JJS is honestly just experimentation—change one value, test the skill, see what happened, and adjust from there.

So, let’s go through every important Particle Emitter setting and translate it into something that actually makes sense.

The Particle Emitter is a Skill Builder component used to create visual effects for custom skills.

Think about things like:

• Energy surrounding an attack

• Smoke or sparks

• Aura effects

• Explosions

• Trails

• Bursts of particles

• Animated VFX

• Effects attached to projectiles

Instead of being limited to one fixed visual, the Particle Emitter gives you control over how the effect looks and behaves.

You can adjust its size, amount, speed, lifetime, direction, color, transparency, rotation and much more.

That’s why it initially looks complicated. You’re not adjusting one effect—you’re controlling several properties of that effect separately.

Let’s get one of the simpler options out of the way first.

Projectile Tag links the Particle Emitter to a projectile.

You’ll mainly care about this when your custom skill includes a projectile and you want the particle effect associated with that projectile rather than simply appearing independently.

If you’re not creating a projectile-based skill, this probably isn’t the first setting you need to worry about.

Last Hit behaves similarly to the Last Hit option found elsewhere in Skill Builder.

If you’ve already been creating custom skills and understand how Last Hit works on other components, there’s nothing particularly different you need to learn specifically for the Particle Emitter.

The more interesting settings begin with Part Size.

Don’t confuse Part Size with the size of each visible particle.

Part Size controls the size of the emitter itself.

A larger Part Size gives you a larger area from which your particles can originate, while reducing it creates a more concentrated emitter.

For example, imagine you’re creating an aura around a character.

A small emitter might produce particles from a tight area around the body.

A much larger emitter could spread the effect across a significantly wider area.

There’s no universal “best” Part Size. It depends entirely on what you’re trying to create.

Emit Count determines how many particles are produced when the effect initially emits.

The easiest way I found to think about it is a wave of enemies.

Imagine a wave starts and:

Emit Count = 5

Five particles appear.

Increase the Emit Count and you’ll get a denser initial burst.

Lower it and fewer particles appear.

So:

Higher Emit Count = More particles emitted at once

Lower Emit Count = Fewer particles emitted at once

This is especially useful when you’re creating something like an impact or explosion where you want a noticeable burst the moment the VFX starts.

But there’s an important difference between Emit Count and Rate.

This is one of the settings I’d make sure you understand early because they’re easy to mix up.

Emit Count controls how many particles are emitted in the initial burst.

Rate controls how frequently particles continue to be emitted.

Using the enemy-wave example again:

Emit Count is how many enemies spawn.

Rate is how quickly they’re spawning.

That’s a much easier way to remember it.

Rate determines the rate at which particles are emitted.

Increase Rate and particles are produced more rapidly.

Decrease Rate and the effect becomes slower and less dense over time.

If you’re making a continuous aura, smoke effect, fire-like VFX, or something that’s supposed to remain visually active, Rate can make a massive difference.

Don’t automatically crank it to the highest possible number, though.

More particles don’t necessarily make an effect look better. Sometimes a lower Rate makes the animation much cleaner.

This one’s thankfully straightforward.

Duration controls how long the Particle Emitter remains active.

Want a quick flash?

Use a short duration.

Want an effect that hangs around for a while?

Increase it.

Duration becomes especially useful when you’re syncing VFX with a custom move. If your attack animation lasts several seconds but your particles disappear immediately, the effect can look disconnected from the actual skill.

Color looks a little intimidating because you’re not necessarily dealing with one simple color selection.

The Particle Emitter can use multiple color values, allowing an effect to change color throughout its sequence.

For example, you could create a particle that starts:

Pink

and transitions toward:

Black

Rather than every particle staying one flat color for its entire existence.

This is one of those settings where I’d recommend testing values directly instead of trying to understand the entire system just by staring at the menu.

Change one value, spawn the effect, and watch what happens.

Then change the next.

After a few tests, the sequence system starts making considerably more sense.

The Size property controls the visual size of your particles.

More importantly, you can use different values across the particle’s lifetime rather than forcing it to remain the same size.

That’s how you can create an effect that:

Starts small → grows larger

or:

Starts large → shrinks away

This is different from Part Size.

Remember:

Part Size = size of the emitter area

Size = size of the visible particles

Mixing those two up can make your VFX behave very differently from what you expected.

Transparency works using similar sequence logic to Size and Color.

Instead of changing how large the particle becomes, you’re controlling how visible or transparent it is over time.

This is extremely useful for fading effects.

Rather than having a particle suddenly disappear at the end of its lifetime, you can make it gradually become transparent.

For many VFX, that looks much more natural.

Think:

Visible → gradually fades → disappears

rather than:

Visible → instantly gone

Squash lets you squash or stretch your particle effect.

It can use both positive and negative values.

Negative values are entered by placing a minus sign before the number.

For example:

-10

Changing Squash can dramatically alter the shape of an effect, so it’s useful when the default particle proportions aren’t giving you the look you want.

Like Color, Size and Transparency, Squash can work with changing values rather than necessarily staying fixed throughout the effect.

This is another setting that’s much easier to learn visually. Make a dramatic change, test it, and you’ll immediately understand what that value is doing.

Lifetime is where things become more interesting.

Instead of every particle necessarily surviving for exactly the same amount of time, you can define a minimum and maximum lifetime.

For example:

Minimum Lifetime: 1

Maximum Lifetime: 3

Every newly emitted particle can then receive a lifetime somewhere within that range.

One might survive for one second.

Another could survive for two.

Another might remain for three.

This randomness can stop an effect from looking overly uniform.

So remember:

First number = Minimum lifetime

Second number = Maximum lifetime

If you want all your particles to behave very similarly, keep the range narrow.

If you want more variation, widen it.

Speed determines how fast the particles move.

It follows similar minimum/maximum logic to Lifetime, allowing variation between emitted particles.

A low Speed creates slower-moving particles.

A higher Speed sends them moving much more quickly.

Think about what your VFX represents before changing this.

Smoke, floating energy, and dust might look better moving slowly.

An impact burst, sparks, or explosive attack could benefit from much faster particles.

Rotation determines the particle’s rotational angle.

This changes the orientation at which particles appear.

It becomes much more noticeable when you’re working with textures where direction actually matters.

With a completely round particle, you might barely notice rotation.

With something like a slash, streak, shard, or directional texture, it’ll be much more obvious.

Rotation Speed determines how quickly the particle rotates after being emitted.

This is separate from its starting Rotation.

You can also use negative values.

For example:

Positive Rotation Speed → rotates one direction

Negative Rotation Speed → rotates the opposite direction

This is a simple trick that can make two otherwise similar effects feel quite different.

Acceleration can be a little confusing until you see it happening.

Think of it as adding an additional velocity-like force to your particles after they’re emitted.

You’re dealing with directional values across axes.

For example, an acceleration setup such as:

0, -25, 0

can influence the particle vertically.

A particle could initially shoot upward because of its starting movement and then have acceleration pull its motion in another direction.

This is useful for creating effects that don’t simply travel in a perfectly straight line forever.

A good real-world comparison is throwing something into the air.

It initially travels upward, slows, and then begins moving downward.

That’s the sort of motion Acceleration can help you reproduce.

Drag affects a particle’s velocity over time.

Positive Drag causes the particle to progressively slow down.

The higher the Drag, the more aggressively that velocity is reduced.

Negative Drag does the opposite.

Instead of slowing down, the particle can progressively speed up.

That makes Drag useful when you want something to burst outward quickly and then lose momentum.

If your particles look like they’re flying away forever at a constant speed, adding Drag can make the movement feel much more natural.

Light Emission determines how strongly the particle emits or appears to emit light.

Increasing the value gives your particle a brighter, more luminous appearance.

This can be useful for:

Energy attacks

Glowing auras

Magic effects

Bright explosions

Charged abilities

Not every effect needs high Light Emission. Smoke, dirt, shadows and similar particles can look strange if they’re glowing too strongly.

Light Influence determines how much environmental lighting affects the particle.

This sounds similar to Light Emission, but they’re doing different jobs.

Think of it like this:

Light Emission = how luminous the particle itself looks

Light Influence = how much surrounding/world lighting influences its appearance

Experimenting with the relationship between these two values is worthwhile when you’re trying to make particularly bright or dark effects.

Z Offset is extremely useful when you have multiple particle effects overlapping each other.

It controls which effect is visually drawn in front.

For example:

Particle A has:

Z Offset = 0

Particle B has:

Z Offset = 1

When they overlap, the higher-offset particle can appear on top.

If you have several layers:

Z Offset 1

Z Offset 2

Z Offset 3

the effect with the higher Z Offset takes visual priority over the lower ones.

This is basically a layering system.

If you’re building complicated VFX using multiple emitters, Z Offset becomes much more useful than it initially sounds.

Spread Angle determines the angle over which particles can be emitted.

It works across the relevant axes and controls how tightly concentrated or widely scattered the emitted particles are.

A small spread gives you something more directional.

A larger spread allows particles to fan outward across a wider area.

Imagine the difference between:

A focused beam

and

A shotgun-like spread.

That’s roughly the idea you’re working with.

Position determines where particles originate relative to their point of origin.

This allows you to move the emitter without necessarily changing everything else about your effect.

If particles are spawning in the wrong place relative to your character, attack, or projectile, Position is one of the first settings I’d check.

This option determines whether the emitted particles continue moving with the part they’re attached to.

When enabled, the Particle Emitter and its particles can remain associated with the moving source.

When disabled, the emitter itself can move while previously emitted particles are left behind rather than being dragged along with it.

This makes a huge visual difference.

For something like an aura that should stay attached to your character, locking it may make sense.

For something like smoke or a trail where particles should remain behind as you move, you may want different behavior.

Orientation determines which direction your particle visually faces.

There are four important variants.

Facing Camera keeps the particle facing the player’s camera.

As the camera moves, the particle adjusts so its front remains visible.

This is useful for many flat particle textures where you don’t want players seeing an awkward edge.

This behaves similarly to Facing Camera, but maintains its world-up orientation instead of fully following camera rotation on every axis.

It’s useful when you want camera-facing particles without them tilting strangely as the camera moves vertically.

Velocity Parallel aligns the particle with the direction it’s traveling.

If the particle shoots upward, its orientation follows that upward movement.

This is excellent for directional VFX such as:

Streaks

Projectiles

Energy trails

Sparks

Velocity Perpendicular also uses the particle’s movement direction but turns its orientation perpendicular to that velocity.

Which orientation is best depends heavily on your texture.

If a particle looks sideways or completely wrong while moving, try switching between Velocity Parallel and Velocity Perpendicular before rebuilding the whole effect.

Flipbook lets you use an animated particle texture made from multiple frames.

Instead of displaying one static image, JJS can move through those frames to create an animation.

There are several playback behaviors.

The animation plays through all frames and then starts again from the beginning.

Think:

1 → 2 → 3 → 4 → 1 → 2 → 3 → 4

Use this for an effect that should continuously animate.

The animation plays through its frames once and stops after reaching the final frame.

This makes much more sense for temporary VFX such as an explosion or impact animation.

Ping Pong plays forward and then backward.

For example:

1 → 2 → 3 → 4 → 3 → 2 → 1

This can make looping effects feel smoother because there isn’t necessarily an abrupt jump from the final frame straight back to the first.

Random selects frames in a less predictable sequence and can create a more varied effect.

This can be useful when you deliberately don’t want every particle animation looking perfectly synchronized.

Emitter Shape controls the physical shape of the area from which your particles are emitted.

The available shapes include options such as:

Box

Cylinder

Disc

and other supported emitter shapes.

A Box gives you the straightforward rectangular emitter area.

Changing to something like a Cylinder or Disc changes how particles are distributed when they spawn.

This becomes very useful when you’re creating circular effects.

For example, a Disc or Cylinder may make more sense for an aura surrounding a character than trying to force everything out of a Box.

Again, don’t just pick the most complicated option because it sounds better.

Choose the shape that matches the VFX you’re trying to make.

Shape Partial modifies how much of certain emitter shapes is used.

Its exact behavior depends on the selected Emitter Shape.

For a Cylinder, for example, it can affect the top radius.

A value toward:

can remove/reduce the top radius and create something closer to a cone.

A value around:

can produce the complete cylinder shape.

So if you’re changing Shape Partial and seemingly getting completely different results depending on your Emitter Shape, that’s normal.

The setting works together with the selected shape.

This is an important setting if other players are supposed to see your custom VFX.

When Run on Server is enabled, the effect is server-side and can be visible to everyone.

When the effect is client-side, it’s only visible to the player/client producing it.

In simple terms:

If you’ve created an amazing effect but your friends keep telling you they can’t see anything, this is one of the settings worth checking.

There really isn’t one perfect preset because a smoke cloud, aura, explosion, projectile trail and energy charge all need completely different values.

Instead of copying random numbers, start by learning these six settings:

Part Size – Where/how widely particles spawn.

Emit Count – How many initially appear.

Rate – How quickly particles continue appearing.

Duration – How long the emitter runs.

Lifetime – How long each individual particle survives.

Speed – How quickly individual particles move.

Once those six make sense, start adding:

Color → Size → Transparency → Rotation → Acceleration → Drag

Then move into things such as Orientation, Z Offset, Flipbooks and advanced emitter shaping.

Trying to understand every setting simultaneously is honestly the hardest possible way to learn this tool.

Let’s say you’re trying to make an energy burst.

You’d probably want:

A relatively short Duration, because the burst shouldn’t last forever.

A higher Emit Count, because lots of particles need to appear immediately.

A relatively high Speed, because they’re exploding outward.

A short-to-medium Lifetime, so they disappear shortly after the impact.

Some Drag, so they lose momentum instead of endlessly flying away.

A Transparency sequence, so they fade rather than suddenly vanish.

And potentially some Light Emission if you want that glowing cursed-energy appearance.

Now compare that with an aura.

An aura would probably use a longer Duration, controlled Rate, slower particle Speed, and longer Lifetime.

That’s why there isn’t a magical “best Particle Emitter setup.” The correct values depend on the effect.

The biggest tip I can give you is to change one setting at a time.

Seriously.

If you change Speed, Lifetime, Rate, Acceleration, Spread Angle and Drag all at once, then test the effect and it looks terrible, you won’t know which setting caused the problem.

Instead:

Change Speed.

Test.

Change Lifetime.

Test again.

Change Rate.

Test again.

You’ll understand Particle Emitter much faster this way.

Also, start with exaggerated values when you’re trying to learn what something does. If changing a setting from 1 to 1.1 produces a tiny difference, you might not notice it. Make a larger temporary adjustment, see exactly what changed, and then dial the value back.