just out of curriosity, how many of you think poly (polygon) explosions are better than particle explosions (like in half life)? I personally like polygon explosions, but particle explosions do look pretty good (james bond goldeneye for nintendo 64 is a good example). - Moe -

Particle, of course

Any game I make is inherently cool.

particle explosions are good, but i find that if there are 10 or more going on at once, it will bog down my system to about 3fps (and i have a cel466 with 8mb vid card)

bad thing about poly explosions is that some reqire a lot of polys, better to to both particle and poly

that is true. how is it possible to do both?

- moe -

If you think about it some more before asking you probably will come up with the answer.

In case you cannot: Treat the explosion as two, one with particles and one with polygons.

That is an interesting way of thinking about it. I never really thought of that before (stupid me). I have an idea for a poly based explosion that would be fairly realistic, but low on polys. I can imagine it is possible to display the textures on the polys as an animation, of flames. yunno. it would be kind of a hybred cross between poly and particle. you could get the realism of a particle but the 3d-ness of a poly based explosion.

it would probably be shaped like a kids jungle gym, like a geodesic dome in a way (like that big silver globe thingy at disneyworld. it would be like that but way less tetrahedrons). it would start off small and as the explosion progresses, it would enlarge and the textures would change. it would even be possible to add a bit of fog in the center of the explosion. you could make the explosion textures kind of clear and change the color of the fog inside as the explosion ages, so that at the end, it turns out to smoke and fades away.

hows that for an explosion?

- Moe -

if ya ask me, poly and particle are the same thing in 3d. particles require polys to draw. and a poly explosion is just particles. do u mean poly vs sprite?

yes, that is what i meant

- Moe -