[RELEASED] CCParticleSystemAdvanced + Particle Producer

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[RELEASED] CCParticleSystemAdvanced + Particle Producer

(60 posts) (23 voices)

Started 3 months ago by varedis
Latest reply from Dragyn

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varedis
Moderator

Hi,

My upcoming game needs a lot of different particle effects, CCParticle and Particle Designer are quite limited in there design and options, so I have decided to branch off a more advanced particle system, this will have more options and adjusters so you can make a much better range of particle systems.

One of the main limitations I found with the current particle system that limited what I was able to create, was the fact you could only control the particle size or color at the start and end of the particles life, CCParticleSystemAdvanced will change that and instead provide you with a size/color over lifetime of the particle, thus your particle can change size/color at any stage of the particles life.

A quick video showing this functionality:

Get the Video Plugins

As you can see the particle changes colour at 3 different stages and size at 3 different places (These two curves are completely independent, I just happened to use 3 stages for each) . This change alone greatly enhances the range of particles and effects you are able to create but I plan on adding more features and options to make a fully functional advanced particle system.

Does anyone have any feature requests while I am at it?

Posted 3 months ago #
fideliusx
Member

I think one of the other feature that CCParticleSystem doesn't have yet, is the option to make a special radial particle system where the emitted particles have their initial rotation set according to the angle they were generated. Imagine a burst with line-shaped particle. This type of particle texture will benefit from this feature.

I know it's not difficult to subclass and modify the standard class to make something like this, but I think it would be great to have all the missing features in one single class.

Just my 2c :)

Posted 3 months ago #
tbone28
Member

Very nice!

Posted 3 months ago #
varedis
Moderator

More updates:

Size over lifetime is fully implemented taking it values from the plist.
Color over lifetime is fully implemented taking it values from the plist.
Max Particles no longer has a bearing on how many particles are spawned, it is now the maximum amount of particles that can be on screen at once.
[New Value] Emission Rate - This is how many particles are spawned per second

Next to be implemented is different emitter types.

Posted 3 months ago #
Eternity
Member

If you like you can consider the issues in this thread:
http://www.cocos2d-iphone.org/forum/topic/63951

It's quite a long thread, but I guess this cut out explains what it's about:

Consider a girl with a torch. If the girl runs emitted particles shall be left behind the torch. If the girl rotates the torch emitted flames shall be left behind the torch in a circle until they die. And if the layer moves, emitted flames shall be left at the SAME position relative to the LAYER (NB not relative to the screen).

When I play with the example the following happens:

FREE:
Emitted particles does not stay in the same position RELATIVE to the LAYER when the layer is moved. They stay in the same place relative to the screen.

RELATIVE:
Emitted particles seem to follow the girl. The emitter shall follow the girl, but not the emitted particles. They shall stay where they were emitted, relative to the layer.

GROUPED:
Same as relative.

Posted 3 months ago #
Eternity
Member

Maybe also improve the variance? Some kind of gaussian clock instead of just even distribution?

Posted 3 months ago #
varedis
Moderator

Emitter Shapes fully implemented now:

Get the Video Plugins

Included types are:
Point Emitter,
Circle Emitter with adjustable radius,
Box Emitter with adjustable width and height.

The video above shows off the Circle emitter and the Box emitter. The point emitter would be the same as shown in the first video.

Posted 3 months ago #
varedis
Moderator

I am currently working on a pre release companion app to design these particles with the new advanced features, if anyone would like to test out the new features then please mention it here and I will send you out a pre release.

@fideliusx - You mean something like the image below?

@Eternity - Do you have an example or anything, I don't know if I fully understand what you mean.

Posted 3 months ago #
Dragyn
Moderator

@varedis: Looks good! The changing over lifespan would seem very useful if you had a fire particle that could change to smoke as it got farther away. Having a "builder app" is probably the most important to me, since I despise hand-coding particles!

I have to ask, though, is this 2.x only?

I think @Eternity's example is really saying that we need the option to have emitted particles to NOT be repositioned/moved if the emitter itself is moved, and that the positioning should be based on the parent object (i.e. layer) rather than the screen positioning. So, if you have a scrolling map, and smoke is emitted from the player at the left edge of the map, it should scroll off-screen when the player runs to the right. (I could be wrong, but that's how I'm interpreting it)

Posted 3 months ago #
Birkemose
Administrator

My words on particles.

I love the particle system of cocos2d, but when you want many systems, it quickly becomes a bit tedious to work with, especially with the current tools, as the naming system and ordering of entries in the plists, really is a pain.
So regarding the setup, I would like to see a simpler approach, better default fallback, and maybe more dedicated systems. Riq was probably a bit aware of this, with all the different templates.

As for functionality, my main issues have been with more functionality when the particles enters and leaves the word. This is mainly blending, ie the ability to both blend in and blend out, but also colouring. It looks like @varedis will be covering this.

As for placement, I have never used a particle systems where the particles were not free moving, so I have a hard time understanding what particles bound to the emitter is good for.
Edit: Okay, I can find use for those, but rocket exhausts, explosions, dust, etc etc, is all free moving systems, so focus on those.

Finally, for performance, you would have to bind particle systems into batches with the same blending mode, additive or colour. I am not sure if this is really feasible in a "generic" system, but if you want thousands of particles in play, this becomes pretty important.

Posted 3 months ago #
Eternity
Member

@Dragyn:

"we need the option to have emitted particles to NOT be repositioned/moved if the emitter itself is moved, and that the positioning should be based on the parent object (i.e. layer) rather than the screen positioning"

Exactly. More precise, positioning shall be based on the closest layer, in case of layer hierarchies. And I also want to point out that it shall be positioned based on a layer, and not just the closest node. A torch can be a child of an hand, that is child of an arm, that is child of a girl that is child of an layer that is child of another layer.

When do you want something that is not like this? To me, this is the natural mode. Maybe the only one?

Posted 3 months ago #
HiRez
Member

This is really cool, varedis. I would love to be able to fade the particles in and out (with separate in/out times and random variances), and emit a random particle from a list of images instead of just 1 for the system. This is great for getting subtle and more natural variation in the system by picking from an array of a few similar images.

Posted 3 months ago #
Birkemose
Administrator

+1 on what @HiRez says.
That part quickly becomes complicated though.
If you ex wants to make a good fire simulation, you will want to pick different images for those particles which lives longer, versus those who only lives a short time at the fire centre. Ideally you would want particles who lived more than x seconds, to be able to morph into another particle - eventually smoke - but that is probably overdoing it.

Posted 3 months ago #
varedis
Moderator

@HiRez - The image thing is already in place. But only for static images. I am going to be looking at animation frames for particles at some point after the particle creator interface ore release.

Posted 3 months ago #
Eternity
Member

More precise, positioning shall be based on the closest layer

Or pass the base layer, or for that sake base node, as an argument to the particle system at initiation? Then it's fully configurable, but I still think that the most common use case is that emitted particles shall move relative to the closest layer.

Posted 3 months ago #
fideliusx
Member

@varedis
Yeah exactly like that

Posted 3 months ago #
varedis
Moderator

@Dragyn - Sorry I missed your question earlier. This is actually only 1.x at the minute as that is what my game that I am building this for is running. 2.x support will be coming after initial launch.

Posted 3 months ago #
drPedro
Member

@varedis it looks really nice ! I would be happy to test your particle creator if you need beta testers - I'm creating some particles these days. Is it for iOS or Mac ? (just let me say thatI really prefer Mac app for this kind of thing because it is better for the workflow)

Posted 2 months ago #
varedis
Moderator

Preview of the companion app, it is just a case of linking up some extra inputs now to give you the full flexibility to alter the particles.

Also a feature I forgot to announce is shown and that is the ability to create multi layered particle effects which can use different images or totally different effects, although a small bug creeped in to the video when I edit layer 2 it should actually replay the whole particle system again, not just that layer.

Get the Video Plugins

(Best watched in full screen)

Posted 2 months ago #
Olmeister
Member

Finally! Well done!

Posted 2 months ago #
varedis
Moderator

I will be releasing a beta version of the app to a few developers from here tomorrow, if you are interested in getting an early look at the app then I will be happy to give a few more versions away.

Everything is basically implemented now, there are still a few rough edges that I would like to smooth over and I still need to work on the size over time graph and put in some validation for the inputs but I feel I am at a stage to start getting feedback about the system.

Get the Video Plugins

Posted 2 months ago #
grillaface
Member

Hey Varedis - sending you PM too but I'd love to give it a spin. I'm doing a gameJam this weekend and would love to use it.

Let me know, thanks!

Posted 2 months ago #
capezzbr
Member

wow^3 ... looks a very cool feature to add to cocos2d ! :D

Posted 2 months ago #
CocosBeans
Member

Look nice! I would love to test drive this! *send PM*

Posted 2 months ago #
cocojoe
Moderator

I must have missed this the first time around, looks good, great to have some evolution/reboot of the current particle system.

One feature I would like is being able to easily create a universal particle in the sense that it is consistent across iPhone/iPad resolutions, I currently create alternative particles for iPhone & iPad in Particle Designer as it generally requires a bit of fiddling.

Some simple auxiliary functionality for pre-caching of particle plists and their required textures would also be desirable.

@varedis Although I'm rocking 2.1, I would be happy to try out your code/editor and give you some feedback, I've spent quite a bit of time recently working on an OS X Level Editor.

Your current particle is perfect if you're making a cartoon ninja smoke bomb :-)

Posted 2 months ago #
varedis
Moderator

I have spent some time trying to get this working with 2.1 but I am having trouble with some positioning, I need to spend a bit more time going in depth on what has changed for particles in regards to 1.x > 2.x

Posted 2 months ago #
varedis
Moderator

The size over time graph is now fully implemented and working, next on the list is code cleanup, bug fixes, improvements and some examples of particles created using the system.

If you are interested in testing then drop me a private message. (Will only work with cocos2d v1.x at the minute)

Posted 2 months ago #
varedis
Moderator

Here is an example particle system created in CCParticleSystemAdvanced:

Get the Video Plugins

Improvements to the app and system so far:
The CCParticleSystemAdvanced is now compatible with Cocos2d 2.1 RC0 there are a few issues with radial and tangential acceleration that are causing particles to act strangely, this only occurs on 2.1 though.
New Delay Start option for particle layers, you can choose when to start a layer in the particle system for more accurate simulations and greater variety.

Posted 2 months ago #
mster50
Moderator

Varedis, this is really awesome man.

Posted 2 months ago #
varedis
Moderator

The Particle Producer app is awaiting Mac Store approval, so hopefully you will be able to use this as early as next week.

I have put together a short compilation of particle systems examples that I made during testing. It should give you a fairly good idea of what kinds of things can be produced using this new system:

Get the Video Plugins

Posted 2 months ago #

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