Terrible Particles

DoMan

The Particles Behavior is really messed up. First, the size problem, i cant put pictures into the size field and have them at their natural size, they are always shoved up into some stupid block at some weird currency size. Like - is 35 big, or small?! Is 100 full size, what is 100 relative too?!!!!!???? AND every time i put particles it just blasts out all the particles in one second, then does nothing ever again.. that really really sucks. i want a nice uniform spread, one with even and continuous distribution! Is their a check box that we can tick for "even distribution"? or one for "continuos distribution?"

Either i am doing something wrong, or your particles behavior is very un-intuitive.

old_kipper

I agree that the settings could be more intuitive. Somethings you are having problems with can be fixed, but I have not found a way to get fast, even, slow streams as there seems to be a random behind the spawn timing. Even if you have 2 spawners set to run at the same time and set to the same settings they do not sync.

The emitter does only send out square blocks but this can be got around by placing you image within an alpha channel in a square image. The size is then directly related to pixel size so you can get images at their correct size.

To send out a stream of particles is just a question of playing with the settings, and I am not use why you are getting just a single blast and then nothing. try-

number of particles 2

particle start up time 1

particle life 2

and then play with the settings.

If you really need to create something very even I would possibly look at recycling actors with rules for direction etc.

Hope that helps.

kipper

quantumsheep

DoMan said:
First, the size problem, i cant put pictures into the size field and have them at their natural size, they are always shoved up into some stupid block at some weird currency size. Like - is 35 big, or small?! Is 100 full size, what is 100 relative too?!!!!!????

In .Matrixx (which is based on the same template your DotMon game is) I have particles for every 'ball' actor.

As you know from that template, the size of the ball varies.

What I did with the particles (because in this case they're balls AND they're always changing) was to set the size to the self.width of the actor.

Perfect every time.

Hope that helps!

QS

POM

DoMan said:
The Particles Behavior is really messed up. First, the size problem, i cant put pictures into the size field and have them at their natural size, they are always shoved up into some stupid block at some weird currency size. Like - is 35 big, or small?! Is 100 full size, what is 100 relative too?!!!!!???? AND every time i put particles it just blasts out all the particles in one second, then does nothing ever again.. that really really sucks. i want a nice uniform spread, one with even and continuous distribution! Is their a check box that we can tick for "even distribution"? or one for "continuos distribution?"

Either i am doing something wrong, or your particles behavior is very un-intuitive.

Agree ! particles lacks of lots of features , the first major one is spawning particles behind actor!
instead of making all kinds of workarounds .

The second one is like you said about nice uniform spread .

If one wants to make a "trail" of particles behind his actor , he can go crazy recycling actors all over the place , instead of using a single particles behavior .

The third major flaw is "affected by gravity" ! i want my particles to have gravity without the need to put gravity in the scene , and then put "accelerate up" behavior is every single actor i have to cancel that gravity! i want "gravity" only for my particles! why is it so hard to make?!

I have more complains about particles , but those are my top 3 . its been way too long ,
about 18 months without any updates for this behavior .
Oh sorry , they added "blending mode" , yeah thanks for that .

Roy.

POM

http://i1112.photobucket.com/albums/k493/roysadaka/particles.png

A particles dream

Roy.

DoMan

Yes, having an actor as particles is a workaround, but i have tried that and it made my game run so slow it ended up looking like a powerpoint presentation. After coming back to particles, it sped up my game IMMENSELY. So definitely, i think GS could use better controls for particles. Thanks for the help though, always good to have a helping hand on hand.

DoMan

About that problem of only a burst of particles then nothing...
How does "particles startup time" work? I think this is that thing that defines how long it pushes out particles. I put it onto "1" and for only 1 second it pushed particles out. I put it to "10" and it pushed out particles for 10 seconds. What does this field do? And if i'm right, how do I make it infinitely push out particles?

DrGlickert

I believe particle start-up time is how long it takes for the particles to begin. Use 0 for the startup time (this will make the particles start instantly).

Particles will infinitely push out particles, at least until something changes it (scene over, level over, player dies, particle actor is destroyed, etc).

JohnPapiomitis

the paricles can use some work, but there far from terrible. Ive done some amazing thigs with them. Just play around with each setting till you understadnd what happens

and heres a burst of particles then nothing demo for you

http://www.mediafire.com/?xk68drveibkm99v

sunshiningschool

For my game I have 200 particles set to float all around my menu as soon as the camera is on the menu. I have start up time set to 0, and I've tried changing it to 0.1 and 0.01 but no matter what I try when the game starts, 1 very concentrated particle appears at first (it looks different from the rest, I think it might spawn all 200 in that one spot), then after its lifetime it spawns the 200 correctly.

Can anyone tell me how to fix that? It makes it look dumb since the particles take a second to fully kick in.

quantumsheep

@sunshiningschool

A workaround would be to do a fade into your scene (essentially have an actor over your entire screen, blank, coloured black, then interpolate its alpha to 0 over 1 second).

This might cover up that one particle for long enough for the others to come through ok.

I agree though, it could do with a little work.

QS

Eastbound

Not sure if this has been said but:

I'm pretty sure the particle's size is referring to a square of that size. So spawning particles of your actor's width and height should give particles the same size as your actor. Likewise, if you want snow particles, and your snow art is 8x8, setting its size as 8 would be the correct size.

We just need the option to spawn particles BEHIND the actor.

TheHoogler

Changing where you emit the particles should mimic spawning behind the actor. Maybe I'm missing where this wouldn't work, but I've never had issues with particles making rocket blasts and bubbles (just changed emit location).

Eastbound

TheHoogler said:
Changing where you emit the particles should mimic spawning behind the actor. Maybe I'm missing where this wouldn't work, but I've never had issues with particles making rocket blasts and bubbles (just changed emit location).

What if you want to spray particles in every direction? What if you want your player to have a trail of smoke? If you go backwards your ship will be lost in smoke particles. Say you have a fire actor and you want a good looking smoke effect, it would be much better looking with smoke appearing from behind the flame, not strangely appearing above it.

As it is now, you need 2 actors if you want it from behind, and with GS that extra moving actor can mean a big hit on the performance.

I've encountered way too many times where spawning particles behind would be useful.

TheHoogler

Now I'm on your page.