Adding Particle Effects to an Animation with Effect Keyframes

Why use effect keyframes

Effect keyframes let an animation do more than move bones — they fire events at specific moments. The most common use is particles: a puff of dust when a foot lands, sparks when a weapon swings, or a trail behind a hand. Because the trigger lives in the animation timeline, the effect stays perfectly in sync with the motion.

Setting up a particle keyframe

In your animation file, add an effect keyframe at the time you want the particle to appear. Point it at the particle you want to spawn and, if the format supports it, give it a bone or position to emit from. The library exposes custom bones and their world positions specifically so particles can be attached to a moving joint rather than a fixed spot.

When the animation plays and the playhead reaches that keyframe, the library spawns the particle at the referenced bone's current location. If your particle appears at the wrong place, verify the bone name matches the one in your model and that the bone actually exists in the exported skeleton. If it never appears, confirm the particle identifier is valid and that the effect keyframe type is one the library recognizes.