Particle Systems?
Blitz3D Forums/Blitz3D Beginners Area/Particle Systems?
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Hello My intention is to build a particle system specific to my needs. What are the general prinicipals behind making a particle system. I`ve heard of single surface and presume the particles are pre rendered to a single surface (sprite etc). The systems I`m more interested in is a full 3d system where each particle is a seperate `entity` (not literally) and has its own controllers for speed,direction,colour,alpha etc etc. Q.What is each particle made up from (single poly etc)? Q.If yes.I would presume each poly/surface would have to face the camera always? This subject is totally new to me so all information would be usefull cheers GP |
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I'd suggest you check out quads. They're the quickest. |
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What are quads? |
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A quad is basically just a square made up from 4 vertices. In a particle system it would always face the camera and that would be your particle. A single-surface system can do the same stuff a normal particle system can, but it's a LOT more complicated! A good Particle System is very complex and certainly not something a beginner should be developing. I recommend checking the ToolBox and downloading Lotus (a free single-surface particle system) Regards, Chris |
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Thanx By the way Chris I`ve just been evaluating your FUI system its looking very good! GP |
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Why not use 3d sprites? |
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Because every sprite is a seperate entity/surface. |
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Hijack... If I create a mesh and then use CopyEntity, does it create a seperate surface for the new entity? I am assuming that it does not because the new entity uses the original entitys mesh. Is this correct? |
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As far as I can tell the EPS particle system uses sprites -I don`t know how its speed compares to other systems though. |
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I've written 2 particle systems using both methods and I'm not sure the single surface method is actually any better. Has anyone actually done any tests? |
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I know that I had to rewrite my renderer for my puzzle game twice to reduce surface counts - without doing that, the frame rate plummeted. It definitely matters. |
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More surfaces will definatly slow things down, but the transformation calculations and moving the vertices about will too. |
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Same goes for sprites - they're rebuilt from scratch every time UpdateWorld is called, I seem to remember Mark saying. |