is there another way of making particles fade besides the glcolor4f(r,g,b,a) way? im currently attempting to make a more advanced particle system based loosly on nehe''s tutorial great btw so im just checking if theres an alternative as to how he made the particles fade and another question is there any way of getting the system not to slow down mega heaps when the screen is filled/almost filled with 1 or more particles?

to speed it up, you could use display lists assuming most of your particles are the same.

HHSDrum@yahoo.com www.polarisoft.n3.net

1/ altering the alpha vaue is the best/quickest way.
2/ get a card with a higher fill rate. (display lists wont help)

http://members.xoom.com/myBollux

How about decreasing the size

okies so using color4f is the best way
thnax
umm ive tried making them smaller but then they tend to look wierd
especially if i need a fire like system
but even still if 1 or more particles fill up weven just 1/5 or my screen the whole program slows down
what i would like to know why doesnt this happen for example with a few big simple boxes on the screen?
even with a simple one color texture and using GLquads instead of triangle strips smae thing happens

umm and i dont see wwhy fillrate would be a problem since i can display up to 20000 particles at the same time with it still running at over 40fps(orig figures wer wrong )
ony my p3 700 tnt2u
then again i dont know much bout fillrates or other stuff which can slow down my comp



Edited by - Do0d on January 10, 2001 8:36:39 AM

There are more things to compute when doing alpha-blended polygons... ( => slower )

not only that (blending is quite a n expensive opperation) but usually when u do a particle system u have depth writes off.
depth writes off - no depth values are being written thus if u draw a particle (someit else) behind one thats already there the whole of the particle will get drawn. if depth writes were on in the first place only the parts of the particle with the closest depth values will get drawn the others will fail the depth test. clear (i hope )

http://members.xoom.com/myBollux

hehe okies
but with depth testing on i get some strange results
i just would like to know why for example the tutorial on blending which has that box doesnt slow down whatsoever when close up but when i bring a particle close up it slows down mega heaps