Particles

Place an info_particle_system, set the particle name you want to use, set it to start playing as soon as the map spawns. More info here https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Info_particle_system

Cookie^ said:

I read in a guide that you should type -tools when TF2 starts and do something from there. Is this not necessary?

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you do this to find the name of the particle effect you want. If I recall correctly you should do it like this:
First use GCFScrape to extract all particle files at tf/particles.
Now start the game in -tools mode and select the particle editor mode at the top. At the topleft somewhere you can select to open a particle file. you open the ones you have extracted and look through them. Every particle file includes multiple particle systems, you can play a preview of all of them. Copy the name of the particle effect you want to use and paste it at the Particle System Name of your info_particle_system entity.

It probably helps looking a bit through this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70GhO6z5aKM to get the idea how to open the particle files and names in -tools mode.

Don't forget to delete your extracted particles (or move them to a custom folder like tf/cake) to prevent your particle systems being out of date in case Valve updates them.

There is no need to look them up using the game:
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/List_of_TF2_Particles

Tumbolisu said:

There is no need to look them up using the game:
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/List_of_TF2_Particles

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This are by far not all of them and you don't have a quick preview. I recommmend the -tool method still.

the particle editor is lots of fun too, try that

Very important note if you wanna mess around with the particle editor: You need to launch it with -nop4 -tools otherwise you may get crashes.