Particle Systems?

Hello

My intention is to build a particle system specific to my needs.

What are the general prinicipals behind making a particle system.

I`ve heard of single surface and presume the particles are pre rendered to a single surface (sprite etc).
The systems I`m more interested in is a full 3d system where each particle is a seperate `entity` (not literally) and has its own controllers for speed,direction,colour,alpha etc etc.
Q.What is each particle made up from (single poly etc)?
Q.If yes.I would presume each poly/surface would have to face the camera always?

This subject is totally new to me so all information would be usefull

cheers

GP

I'd suggest you check out quads. They're the quickest.

What are quads?

A quad is basically just a square made up from 4 vertices. In a particle system it would always face the camera and that would be your particle.

A single-surface system can do the same stuff a normal particle system can, but it's a LOT more complicated!

A good Particle System is very complex and certainly not something a beginner should be developing. I recommend checking the ToolBox and downloading Lotus (a free single-surface particle system)

Regards,
Chris

Thanx

By the way Chris I`ve just been evaluating your FUI system its looking very good!

GP

Why not use 3d sprites?

Because every sprite is a seperate entity/surface.

Hijack...

If I create a mesh and then use CopyEntity, does it create a seperate surface for the new entity? I am assuming that it does not because the new entity uses the original entitys mesh. Is this correct?

As far as I can tell the EPS particle system uses sprites -I don`t know how its speed compares to other systems though.

I've written 2 particle systems using both methods and I'm not sure the single surface method is actually any better. Has anyone actually done any tests?

I know that I had to rewrite my renderer for my puzzle game twice to reduce surface counts - without doing that, the frame rate plummeted. It definitely matters.

More surfaces will definatly slow things down, but the transformation calculations and moving the vertices about will too.

Same goes for sprites - they're rebuilt from scratch every time UpdateWorld is called, I seem to remember Mark saying.