I'm toying with another idea for GitHub, basically the existing 'particle' generator (accessed using the Lua ParticlesAddEmitter function call), which is in reality a sort of dynamic decal system, is hard wired to use only the 'effectbank\particles\64smoke2.dds' decal sheet thingy.

Now this is actually quite a good looking smoke puff in game and I've used it to good effect in several demos but looking at the code I can see that the engine also loads 'flame.dds' but that it isn't selectable from the Lua command, so of course I changed the Lua command to make it so and that works well too!

In fact the engine has 6 constants set up to access different decals:
#define RAVEY_PARTICLES_IMAGETYPE_SMOKE 0
#define RAVEY_PARTICLES_IMAGETYPE_LIGHTSMOKE 1
#define RAVEY_PARTICLES_IMAGETYPE_FLAME 2
#define RAVEY_PARTICLES_IMAGETYPE_DEBRIS 3
#define RAVEY_PARTICLES_IMAGETYPE_EXPLOSION 4
#define RAVEY_PARTICLES_IMAGETYPE_SPLASH 5

Only '1' and '2' are actually loaded into the engine, my effectbank\particles folder also has a flowerpuff.dds file but I'm not sure where that came from (it works well too if I change the engine to load it!).

So I actually have two questions really, the first is; are the other 4 dds files available from somewhare, FPSC maybe?

The second is; instead of hard loading decal sheets that may not actually be used in a game would a better way be to have a Lua command that loads a specified decal sheet similar to the way images/sprites are handled? That way, in theory at least, any decal sheet compatible with the system could be loaded under script control, or the default 'smoke' and 'fire' ones could be replaced with different versions. (those are used for the Jetpack and RPG rounds I believe so should still be loaded by default but if they are not being used in a game could be replaced at runtime by something else)

I've tried out some of the other decal sheets (the ones in the effectbank\explosion folder for example) and they seem to work fine although some look a lot better than others in use.

I'm also trying to figure out what all the parameters to the ParticlesAddEmitter function actually do so I can make a simpler interface to it for people to use, if anyone has figured that out and has example of uses please get in touch, might save me some head scratching!

As far as I know Ravey is more to do with My World then GameGuru these days

Yeah I think he's deep in MyWorld and enjoying it. This interview with him is pretty great:

Thanks for posting the video. I am a great admirer of Ravey's work. I always wondered what he looked like.

Speaking of videos:



So that is the 'tweaked' existing particles system with the flowerpuff.dds file loaded.

Hopefully that may trigger a bit more interest.

And with the 'flame' file. (and slightly different settings)

Great work man!

We have needed some decent particle stuff since like forever (as my kids would say) the decal system is OK but clearly dated, which to me is fine, but using them with PBR might look a little weird......


Reliquia.....

Will we be able to define our own particles above what is listed, or will we still need to replace what is in the folder for particle choices.
Will we be able to have different ones for each level map used?

Looks like they can be attached to the player and objects still. very nice.

Yes, really nice work. FPS Creator\Files\gamecore\decals I have Flame16 Anyway, keep up the good work.

"Will we be able to define our own particles above what is listed, or will we still need to replace what is in the folder for particle choices."

I'm starting off with leaving the base 6 definitions as they are and tagging on a further 20 available to the user. As we currently only have 3 sprite sheet things to play with that should be plenty. If someone knows how to make new ones then It can always be extended later.

"Will we be able to have different ones for each level map used?"

Yes, memory allowing you could load up all 26 slots for one map and then load up another 26 for the next map, in theory that is.

"Looks like they can be attached to the player and objects still. very nice."

Currently there are limited ways to use these, I've plans to make Lua functions to simplify the use but yes as currently coded you can attach them to an entity or have them relative to the player (if someone make some snowflake ones for example that would be a neat way of having realistic snow close to the player).

The current code is hard wired to the 64 frame sheets I mentioned in the earlier posts, it would be possible to have those parameters passed in from a script so we could use different sheets with more or less frames.

I've yet to come across anyone else using the existing commands though!

Was bored

Me too.

LOL awesome seen too much snow recently though

Move to Portsmouth, I've lived here for over 20 years now and can count the 'snowed in' occasions on the fingers of one foot.

This is real nice - awesome in fact!

Reliquia....

That looks nice. Thanks for the reply.

Thought I'd increase the max number of 'particles' allowed to see what would happen:

Now this is better. Not sure what the memory usage is for this but performance is ok at least.

lol that nuclear snow? so how about if i make a different snow decal and combine the two for a more blizzardy effect?

Could you make a single one where each 'frame' is a different shape snowflake? That way I can make it pick a random frame for each flake instead of animating (which is rather pointless for snowflakes anyhow).

This any good? ahh yeah just saw you want them sizing ...
Edit: second one multiss = multi shape and size

Bit of miscommunication, the engine rotates, moves, scales and even fades in and out the 'particles' so each frame can be a completely different snow flake. With 64 different shapes I reckon a very realistic effect could be achieved.

I'm still investigating the possibilities of this system, I need to figure out a sensible way of exposing all the inner workings to Lua control so all the currently hard coded behaviour can be controlled by the scripts .. without breaking the existing uses of it!. Quite a hard prospect actually but I'm off to the caravan for a week soon and you know what that usually mean.

lol ok m8 will have a play see what i can come up with
Edit: Phew that took a while to do but think it should work attached .dds 64 totally different snowflakes

Here is how it looks:

(copying this from the other thread, I'll just post in this one from now on)

The current Lua command has 28 parameters! I've added 2 more but I'm thinking there must be a better way, will probably end up adding specific commands with fewer parameters to make things more usable, any parameters not set by the script can just default to sensible values.

I'm thinking of:

LoadParticleImage( <filePath>, [id] ) -- returns id number for image or overwrites specified id
ParticlesGetFreeEmitter() -- existing command, returns id of next not-in-use emitter
ParticlesAddEmitter( id, .... + up to 29 other parameters ) -- existing command
ParticlesSetFrames( id, animationSpeed, frameStart, frameEnd )
ParticlesSetSpeed( id, xMin, yMin, zMin, [ xMax, yMax, zMAx ] )
ParticlesSetOffset( id, xMin, yMin, zMin, [ xMax, yMax, zMAx ] )
ParticlesSetRotation( id, ... etc )
ParticlesSetScale( id, .. etc )
ParticlesSetAlpha( id ... etc )
ParticlesStartEmitter( id, spawnRate )
ParticlesStopEmitter( id )
ParticlesDeleteEmitter( id )

You get the idea.

Here is the script that the above video uses:

Yup that looks pretty sweet nice work m8 much better than we've had so far by far . gonna have to do some snowy trees now lol

As usual very impressive but just one thing unless I'm getting it wrong ..
Particles awesome .... But real snow doesn't look like that except perhaps for a fantasy style game ..
Got any " CALL OF DUTY " Mans snow

I was thinking that particular snow sheet would be good for cartoon style games but if you would like to make a 'grown up' version please feel free to donate to the effort.

The problem I am having at present is that the code *should* be generating a random frame for each particle spawned but instead they are coming in waves, i.e. I'm getting a bunch of one frame spawned and then a bunch of the next frame. Can't for the life of me work out why so will have to resort to the debugger and single step through the code to see what is going on.

Have you tried the sprite sheet I sent you a couple of days ago?

Not yet, still trying to get my head around the code.

Can you stick it in this thread so I can download it on my dev machine.

here ya go, like I said I am not sure I have done it right but I have tried to make it seamless too

Found the bug causing my hair pulling, hoorah, random snowflakes!

RPG include just to reassure myself I haven't broken anything!

looks very realistic

Dave

@GraPhiX: Your file might work as a decal but not so well as a particle emitter image.

The way the particles system is designed to work is that each image file is a collection of different frames in an animation that are applied as the texture to a simple object, positioning, rotation, and scale of the actual object are altered each frame using a set of values generated at random using the range of values supplied to the emitter.

So for example for position offsets if you specify xmin and xmax as -200, 200 then for each particle generated the engine would select a random 'start' x offset for that particle between those values, the offset is either from a specified objects position or from the player position. The same holds for all the other values so each particle will get a random speed vector, random scale etc.

You can also specify a range of 'life' values, i.e. a minimum/maximum 'life' that the particle exists for, at the end of their life each particle is hidden and can then be re-used.

Finally you can specify alpha value so particles can fade in and out and also the rate at which new particles are generated.

Getting good looking results can be extremely complex but now I understand what it is supposed to do (and have fixed the bugs in it) I am in a position to try and create some 'generic' generators (i.e. lists of values) that can be used for different effects when applied to the appropriate images. The 'snow field' generator is quite simple and easy to use as the effect simply follows the player.

Another quite simple one would be a smoke generator for chimneys or even vehicles.

I've increased both the total number of particles that can be generated and the number that a single emitter can generate in a single frame, I'll have to check with Lee whether that is prudent, i.e. it might run fine on my machine but not so sure about 'lesser' spec machines.

The limits for my build are currently:

max 25 different 'images' ( 64 'frames' per image ). .dds format works but .png may work as well, need to test that.
max 2000 total particles on screen at once
max 200 spawned at one time per individual emitter

I'm off to my caravan for a week or so, when I get back I'll start shoving this stuff plus the moving dynamic lights and a few other bits and pieces in Lee's direction.

Have a great ( Well earned ) Holiday

Yes, amazing work. Love it, so does the family. Shenmue style. And happy holidays also

Had a bit of a think on this, to make snow look realistic and not in its cartoony crystal form its probebly actually pretty simple as it all looks pretty much the same (just varying sizes) so quickly rattled this one up for testing (i did try the script but i presume I'm missing some of your globals so didnt work) :/ anyways file attached

So having played around some more:



Smoke, bubbles and snow.

Confusingly GG has more than one 'particle' generator, not sure why or what the differences are between them but it does seem a wee bit daft. Currently working out whether they can be replaced with a single more generic generator.

I haven't abandoned this btw.

Added a global wind vector command, affects all particle generators equally at the moment, probably needs a per emitter modifier setting as well.

In the video the wind vector is just being periodically randomised, it would look a lot better if it transitioned from the current angle to the new one rather than just changing instantly.



We really do need a better shader though!

omg yes! Its looking great and wonderful to see more than one particle type emitting !

(Plus I'd love to use the global wind vector variable for other things in my game at the same time as I have been using a mock up one currently of my own for other aspects of my game unrelated to particles )

When you add an emitter you can specify an entity to attach it to. You can have multiple emitters attached to the same entity, in this case I have a 'fire' emitter and a 'smoke' emitter attached to the crate.

If the entity moves then the particle emitter(s) move with it.

A generic 'wind' vector could be useful I suppose, but code would be needed in other parts of the engine to apply the vector, to 'physics' objects for example. In the case of physics the vector would need to be turned into an impulse force and applied to each object in the level.

The more I play with it the less I like the existing code, it would probably be far easier to throw it away and start from scratch but that all depends on what Lee has planned.

The difficult part is creating the effect you want to mimic, there are an awful lot of variables to play with!

What I really, really, really want is a decent shader to go along with this! I may have to shut myself away in a padded room with a shader reference manual and figure out how to do it myself. (for the sake of my sanity, what little is left of it, I'd prefer not to have to resort to that though! )

So, combine some better entities, a decal, 3 particle emitters and ...



Not happy with the smoke emitter but the rest is not too bad. Tomorrow I'll add a dynamic light or two and lower the ambient a bit.

Bit better, might add some lighting flicker later and move the lights around with the wind vector. Still need to smooth out the wind changing bit as well.



For info only I've attached the script. ** this script will NOT work on any current GG build **

Does it look better without the decals? (note to self find the decal animation code and add a randomised start frame option!)

Coming on leaps and bounds looking better all the time

Dave

Could someone make a 64 frame dds or png particle image where all the frames are just fuzzy blobs (i.e. solid colour in the centre gradually fading out to completely alpha at the edges) of different colours? Maybe have it arranged as 8 rows of different primary colour with each row going from 'darkest' colour in the first frame of the row to 'lightest' in the 8th frame of the row?

In fact how about one the same except 64 levels of grey, i.e. first frame a white fuzzy ball, 64th frame a black fuzzy ball and the frames in between being a graduated sequence between? (if that makes sense)

My plan is to be able to specify an individual frame to use (in addition to current method which specifies either animated or not animated) within the image so that you could for example have an emitter pumping out white particles and switch to have it pump out yellow particles with a simple command.

For complete flexibility I'll also have it so you can specify a range of frames to either animate through or randomly select from.

Hmmm, if I'm reading the code right it appears that animated decal frames are calculated by the shader, if that is the case it means that the frame number is going to be calculated the same for every decal every frame so if one 4 frame decal is showing frame 1 then ALL 16 frame decals will do so! Ditto if one 64 frame decal is showing frame 5 say then they will ALL be showing frame 5!

How daft is that?

So I come back to needing to edit shaders, grr, I have a book around here somewhere, time to dig it out and lose the rest of my sanity I suppose.

Finally a video with dynamic lights added and a bit more moody vibe:


Pity they don't cast shadows isn't it!

Throw in a few trees/bushes and some grass and boy does the FPS plummet!



Can't understand the shader stuff though, there are variables being passed into the shader but where are they passed in from? I assume the same values are passed to the shader for every entity, if so that makes it really difficult to figure out a way of making each decal animate from a different frame number.

Looking great.

Which shader are you looking at for the decals?