Trail effect for non-moving object

Question

Hello. I'm making a vertical SHMUP type of game (similar to Skyforce). Player is not moving, level does.
Because of that I can't use trail renderer to create a trail effect for my spaceship's engines.
This is how I want it to look in game: http://i.imgur.com/szUKxTM.png
Particle system looks wierd: http://i.imgur.com/E8nyvoz.png
Trail renderer won't work when you're not moving...
Any ideas how to make trail look like line and also follow spaceship's movement?
I've heard that LineRenderer can simulate a TrailRenderer. Is this true? How? If not, what can I do?

Answer 1

Allright. I got a solution from a member of another community.
He suggested to:

Use a line renderer to simulate a trail renderer. Points on the line renderer move downwards over time, and new ones are added at the ship.

It looks like this: https://gyazo.com/7f4bf7a45c4797729919ff7c39b33547
This is how it looks in my project: http://i.imgur.com/cpYsN0b.gifv

Here's the code they gave to me:

 public float lifetime = 5f; //lifetime of a point on the trail
 
 public float minimumVertexDistance = 0.1f; //minimum distance moved before a new point is solidified.
 
 public Vector3 velocity; //direction the points are moving
 
 LineRenderer line;
 //position data
 List<Vector3> points;
 Queue<float> spawnTimes = new Queue<float>(); //list of spawn times, to simulate lifetime. Back of the queue is vertex 1, front of the queue is the end of the trail.
 //Length of this queue is one less than the number of positions in the linerenderer, since the linerenderer always has a non-solidified vertex at the object's position.
 
 // Use this for initialization
 void Awake () {
     line = GetComponent<LineRenderer>();
     line.useWorldSpace = true;
     points = new List<Vector3>() { transform.position }; //indices 1 - end are solidified points, index 0 is always transform.position
     line.SetPositions(points.ToArray());
 }
 
 void AddPoint(Vector3 position) {
     points.Insert(1, position);
     spawnTimes.Enqueue(Time.time);
 }
 
 void RemovePoint() {
     spawnTimes.Dequeue();
     points.RemoveAt(points.Count - 1); //remove corresponding oldest point at the end
 }
 
 // Update is called once per frame
 void Update () {
 
     //cull based on lifetime
     while(spawnTimes.Count > 0 && spawnTimes.Peek() + lifetime < Time.time) {
         RemovePoint();
     }
 
     //move positions
     Vector3 diff = -velocity * Time.deltaTime;
     for(int i = 1; i < points.Count; i++) {
         points[i] += diff;
     }
 
     //add new point
     if (points.Count < 2 || Vector3.Distance(transform.position, points[1]) > minimumVertexDistance) {
         //if we have no solidified points, or we've moved enough for a new point
         AddPoint(transform.position);
     }
 
     //update index 0;
     points[0] = transform.position;
 
     //save result
     line.positionCount = points.Count;
     line.SetPositions(points.ToArray());
 }
 }

Answer 2

Answer by Orr10c · Nov 10, 2017 at 08:02 AM

Thank you, you helped me. :)

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Trail effect for non-moving object

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