I also have particle system code, here if you want.


Gamedev for learning.
libGDN for putting it all together.
An opensource, cross platform, cross API game development library.

Well, you are a very colaborative community. Thank you, people!!

Oh, and I do understand french, so I''ll check AP''s web.

quote: Original post by Machaira
Here''s one link I found:
Building an Advanced Particle System

Particle systems aren''t a beginner subject. You might want to consider something easier until you get more experience.

[edited by - Machaira on February 14, 2003 9:35:12 AM]

Wrong. Particle engines are actually quite easy to implement, ESPECIALLY in 2D. Though in a game, that''s an other matter. Personally, I had absolutely no problem getting mine to work on my first try.

Simply create an array for, say, 200 particles. Hell, use QBasic or VB; you''re just trying to learn the theory, not code something in your game yet.

The arrays should include...
-An X and Y position array.
-An X and Y velocity array.
-A color array, the ''life'' of your particle.

Ok... let''s say we want to make a fountain. For the sake of simplicity, I''ll assume you have a 640x480 window do draw in. So initialize X to ~320, and Y to 640 for every particle. Then give the X velocity array a value from, say, -8 to 8, and Y from 0 to -4.

Every frame, you want to update your particles: erease the old one, update the position, and draw the new one. This can be as simple as drawing at the ''current'' position (X and Y arrays, remember?) a black pixel or whatever the BG color is, then doing something like this...

X[CurrentParticle] += XVelocity[CurrentParticle];
Y[CurrentParticle] += YVelocity[CurrentParticle];
XVelocity[CurrentParticle] *= .98;
YVelocity[CurrentParticle] *= .98 + .1;

What this does is move the particle, then reduce its speed a little. Additionally, we make it fall so it doesn''t just stop after reaching its max height and stick there. You should then reduce the color by 1 (and generate a new particle if it reaches 0) and plot at the new position with Color[CurrentParticle] intensity.

This is actually an extremely simplified particle engine and could be expanded on a LOT. Transparent pixels, trails, so forth... If you want, I could give you some example source in QBasic, VB, C++ with directx OR the win32 API.

Hope this helps. Just experiment. This is just an extremely basic outline and wouldn''t work too well in a 3D environment, but for 2D it''s a piece of cake to fit in your game.