Pausing both shaders and particles

Help
1

Godot Version

4.3

Question

I’m attempting to pause all gameplay, including shaders and GPUparticles3d that both use TIME, the built in variable.

The problem is that just using get_tree.paused() does not affect shaders. So, I tried using Engine.time_scale = 0.0, but this causes the particles to stutter.

Any suggestions are welcome, and thank you.

2

Actually, when i pause the tree the GPUPaticles slowed down or somewhat … but it doesn’t look right. I would assume this is a bug, therefore a bug report seems to be appropriate.

1 Like
3

You can set a particle system’s speed scale to zero (0) to have it ‘stop’.

For a shader, it depends and ideally, you’d have a uniform to control how/what the shader does; e.g. I have a unit highlight that has a frequency value; setting this to have a value of zero ‘pauses’ the shader.

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4

Use a global uniform so you don’t need to set it for each shader

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5

wish i could add 3 solution check marks.

I tried setting frequency to 0, for the shader, which kind of worked. However, this reset the time in my shader, creating some visual disparity. I ended up creating a new “shader_time” var(in my singleton process) and updating it += delta, when the game is unpaused. When the game pauses, it stops increasing. This worked better for me than trying to update a shader global.

My shader is applied to certain meshes that are instanced. So, I added them to a global group, so my game manager singleton can access them and pass “shader_time” to the ShaderMaterial on nodes in this group.

GameManager singleton code below, (states control pausing)

func _process(delta: float) -> void:
	if get_tree().paused == false:  
		shader_time += delta
	set_shader_time(shader_time)

func set_shader_time(value : float):
	var group_nodes = get_tree().get_nodes_in_group("shader_nodes")
	for node in group_nodes:
		if node is MeshInstance3D:
			var material = node.material_overlay
			if material is ShaderMaterial:
				material.set_shader_parameter("shader_time", value)

2 Likes
6

here’s my pausing code for more context

Basically, I still use get_tree.paused(), which works for particles and gameplay.
I am now using a custom shader_time to halt shader effects.

func pause_game():
	get_tree().paused = true
	pause_menu_instance = pause_menu_scene.instantiate()
	get_tree().root.add_child(pause_menu_instance)
	current_game_state = GameState.PAUSE_MENU