particle editor

Hi,

by searching around particle effects in the internet I found an interesting editor and was wondering, if we could implement such an editor in construct.

First question is: Is it allowed to post a link to that engine or is it forbidden? Also uploaded only the particle editor from it. There is an open source version of it too.

Screen:

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/26932498/particle_editor.jpg" border="0" />

editor:

dl.dropbox.com/u/26932498/Particle%20Editor.rar

Thanks

I don't actually see anything there that isn't already in the default particle editor.

Perhaps you could be a little more specific with what you are meaning?

I think he means the current options, but with realtime preview

also:

scirra.com/forum/particlestudio-realtime-particle-testing-tool_topic39475_page2.html

Yes, I mean in realtime.

A few things like tangential options are nice and you can make forms like this:

<img src="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/26932498/O.jpg" border="0" />

I'm not sure how to do that in construct.

But thanks for the link lucid.

This is how I would do it:

http://www.mediafire.com/file/y0eax2da89j45jn/tparticles.cap

Nice nice^^

Is it hard to implement radial/tangencial functions to the particle options?

Because I attached it to the mouse by replacing the coordinates with mouse x + y and it doesn't look very smooth.

Don't think I wouldn't cherish your help, it's great.

If you play a bit with the particle editor, you see what I meant hopefully.

edit: right now I test around with a few values. I come back if I get something good^^.

Well, the shape is realized by moving the particle object over time. When using the mouse coordinates, you are displaying parts of the shape at locations where they weren't meant to be. You would need to catch this, and only move to the mouse coordinates when the shape is completely drawn (which would be about half a second or so in this example). However, I don't think it will be implemented to the object itself, although it seems to be possible.

Well...I guess you're right.

Too bad^^

At least, I managed with tan('var') * xx to set the gravitation angle to a nice curve xD.

If someone, who is technically adept to implement such things, will decide to help me with that, just pm me.

(difficult sentence for me) <img src="smileys/smiley36.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Why not simply using sprites as particles for such shapes? You wouldn't need to develop your own particle object and still get the same results.

That was exact my thought, and then I remember, someone said, sprites as particles would be cpu consuming? Or is it only, when I make them solid?

edit: ok, nevermind. I already experiment a little with math expressions <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle" /> Thanks for the hint^^

I nearly finished my "circle" <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Just one question now: How to change the "rate"

I managed the circle by spawning a sprite(allways) with sin/cos and stuff.

But there are too few particles on the screen.

I tried: allways condition, on every milli second(even tried on 0.01 ms, but didn't worked ><) Also tried to duplicate just the "allways" event with all expressions in it.

But then, he draws the sprites almost at the same place, looks weird :S.

How can I tell him to spawn more sprites ad once?

Timescale just make things faster, raise the "fade out time" isn't really nice to make "more" particles.

I nearly finished my "circle" <img src="smileys/smiley4.gif" border="0" align="middle" />

Just one question now: How to change the "rate"

I managed the circle by spawning a sprite(allways) with sin/cos and stuff.

But there are too few particles on the screen.

I tried: allways condition, on every milli second(even tried on 0.01 ms, but didn't worked ><) Also tried to duplicate just the "allways" event with all expressions in it.

But then, he draws the sprites almost at the same place, looks weird :S.

How can I tell him to spawn more sprites ad once?

Timescale just make things faster, raise the "fade out time" isn't really nice to make "more" particles.

That's good news!

Make sure, you work with timedelta to have the "circle" behave the same no matter the framerate.

Now to the question:

You will never be able to spawn anything faster than at the duration of one tick. So something like "every 1 millisecond" doesn't make sense (e.g. running at 60fps the fastest timeslice is 16.67 ms).

Set a rate as a variable, e.g. myrate = 300

It means you want to spawn 300 sprites per second, so you need to know what fraction of a second a tick is.

1/TimeDelta tells you the fps at that moment of time, e.g. myfps = 1/TimeDelta

You now know that you need to spawn myrate/myfps times on every tick

+ for "" from 1 to round(myrate/myfps)

-> Spawn your particle

Time to post my .cap.

Left number is how big is the circle.

Right one makes the hole inside bigger.

There is still a "bug". If I set the rate to 600,

The particles doesn't "fillout" the circle evenly.

Sometimes, one part of the circle isn't even filled with particles.

Is it my random method? Or what is it...

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/26932498/particle_spriter.cap

Right now, the rate is 350. With 600 you can see what I mean^^.

Another small thing..If I set the fade to 1000/1000 like the particle object has, it's getting really laggy with even 400 rate. Is it because of my formula?^^ Maybe it could be less complicated/cpu consuming.

thanks for your help. <img src="smileys/smiley1.gif" border="0" align="middle">

Ahhh! It's the clamp thing ><.

I spawn the particles with "random" + sin/cos.

Is there any other way to spawn the particles in a circle?

Because..

Without clamp, I don't know, how to tell the Sprites to keep away from the center^^

And random picks numbers that are(sometimes) below the number "clamp" allows. That's why they get stuck at the same place and it doesn't look good. I find out what's wrong, but still wondering how to fix this.

edit: Got an idea, I'm sure Tulamide knows how to make a selfmade "random"-function. I need one where I can make random(60,120) so I get only numbers from x to y. Can I do that with expressions and events?

Ahhh! It's the clamp thing ><.

I spawn the particles with "random" + sin/cos.

Is there any other way to spawn the particles in a circle?

Because..

Without clamp, I don't know, how to tell the Sprites to keep away from the center^^

And random picks numbers that are(sometimes) below the number "clamp" allows. That's why they get stuck at the same place and it doesn't look good. I find out what's wrong, but still wondering how to fix this.

edit: Got an idea, I'm sure Tulamide knows how to make a selfmade "random"-function. I need one where I can make random(60,120) so I get only numbers from x to y. Can I do that with expressions and events?

First of all: It was a little late last night. The method I provided for spawning at a rate does only work, if the spawn rate is at least 50% higher than the framerate. For v-synced 60 fps the spawn rate needs to be at least 90, etc. I'm sorry about that, but if you will never spawn below that threshold you can safely use such a method.

Yesterday I also started working on sprite particles to help you on this. It is not finished, but all the basics work:

customparticles.cap

It shows in particular how to work with two radii to spawn the particles on a circular band.

To get a ranged random, just add the offset and randomize the distance between the first and second value. To get a random number between and including 60 and 120: 60 + random(61)

I will now dl your cap and have a look at it. But it may take a day.

EDIT: I don't know why, but I get a 404 on your link. This happens quite often with dropbox, but only to me as it seems. :(