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Ah ! The emitter picture.. now I remember ^^

JOURNAL DATE: 23.01.2010

CHANGES / UPDATES

• Trail Emitter finished

OVERVIEWS

Trail Emitter

Finally. I did it. All Software Particle Engine Emitters are finished.
Next big thing then are the Software Shader Particle Emitters (more on that see below).
The last one of these Emitters is the Trail Emitter.
This time it was much more trickier to obtain a good result.
The SDK Trail Emitters render Trails and Streams basically on two ways:

Either an indipendent Master Particle is spawned creating a trail, OR a trail is attached to the Emitter itself.

Then the user can set up to 4 Different Rendering Modes:

TRender_Beam -> The Trail consists of Crossed Planes (16x,32x,64x Pixels wide) that orient to given Camera Positions (Player, Pawn, tagged actor etc.)
TRender_LongSpark -> a long, thin Line is rendered as Trail (1x Pixel in width)
TRender_Mesh -> The Trail consists of a Custom Mesh
TRender_Sprite -> The last type draws multiple Sprites as a Trail (of course the new Sprites)

Of course does the TrailEmitter support relative Scaling and Fading of the Trail.
Like for the Beam Emitters you can set multiple EndPoints the Trail will move at.
This way it's possible to dynamically draw smoothed trail-curves and so on (based on the fact it is caused by the destination, NOT the movement).


Preview:

After completing ALL standard Software Particle Emitters I now revamp and update the Software Shader Emitters.
Features:

• Dynamically changeable Color
• Texture U/V Scaling
• Texture U/V Panning
• Textuer U/V Tiling
• Texture Combiners
• Dynamic Text as Particles
• Render To Texture on Particles

At first there'll be most certainly a Sprite- and Corona Emitter Version only.
The core technique is already working, but it needs a huge big clean up...

MEDIA

[youtube]6nLTaVm-Rm0[/youtube]



So now the Software Particle Engine goes 90 % ! Last 10 % are debugging and adding Software Shader Emitters.

And where could those trail thingies be used? I mean, plz a practical example.
They look cool but I would not know where they could fit.

Smoke Trails for a Rocket ?
Trail Beam for Translocator Disc ?
Moving Beams ?
Magick ?



Never heared of Trail Emitters !?
Keep in mind that this is an example.

Sorry, but from the video, if those are the kind of trails I think you're talking about, then I can't see how can they be "trails", or at least that video doesn't show them correctly.

Everything I see is a mesh extending itself or several ones spawning and then all of them disappear all of a sudden, and that's not a proper trail as far as I know what a "trail" is.

Don't get me wrong, but if you want to make a trail video, that wasn't a good example of it.
Make a video of circular trails and a missile or something, that way people will get the right idea.

@Creavion: Remember the vehicles sample I gave to you? That little smoke long trail from the tank when you fire its cannon (although I am planning to make it differently lol), that's what Shadow is talking about, although his is more dense as it seems.

Creavion wrote:And where could those trail thingies be used? I mean, plz a practical example.
They look cool but I would not know where they could fit.

Creavion ever heared of jumppads? the emiter is perfect for a jumppad (to show the direction of wich the jumppad goes)
but other then jumppads,there is no thing i could use them for (maybe for a Meteor in a space map).

What's so annoying with those trail emitters..
ferali you're right, but I have to show updates !
I will replace the video with a better example after finishing the other new emitters

Shadow, dont feel forced to post 5000 updates per week. We can CLEARLY see you are working very hard on your SDK (again^^).

Creavion wrote:Shadow, dont feel forced to post 5000 updates per week. We can CLEARLY see you are working very hard on your SDK (again^^).

POST

Yes, you're clearlly in development again. An update each 2 weeks or so are more than enough rofl. Just care more about quality than rush, I don't mean in the SDK as I'm sure that's in account, but I mean in the videos. Latelly I have seeing your tendency to make rushed screenshots and/or videos. I was about to say something about the beam emitters as well, but then I deleted my post thinking "hell, it is just a little example, it won't harm the rest of the updates", but again nor the video or screens showed the true capabilities and quality of what you might have produced. So don't rush it. Remember that if you want to keep people interested in your SDK you must higher the quality of the shots/videos/updates to the same level as the SDK itself.

I already saw some excellent potential mods go down due to bad shots and videos, and nothing more, that's why I personally care about it as well.

Just show us your good job so far but with the quality you want to show, that's all, plus, if that means an update each week or each month, but it's good, people will keep the interest in it, so don't rush it.

Ok that's a good adivce, thank you.
Next update will be shown when the Software Shader Emitters are fully working and I have good examples for them.

JOURNAL DATE: 25.01.2010

CHANGES / UPDATES

• Procedural Sprite Emitter finished
• Procedural Corona Emitter finished

OVERVIEWS

Proc Sprite/Corona Emitter

Another step forward. Now we have Sprite Emitters with magical settings. Sprites now can be stretched, tiled and panned on U/V channels independently. There's also a dynamic Color (see Picture) and Combiner Support.

Gonna test this technique on how well it works with the other Emitter Types, at least Dynamic Color would be worth testing it.


MEDIA



All particles shown here have the SAME source texture. The color can be freely set from out of UnrealED (RGB Color Support of course) or in realtime using custom scripts.


Video follows tomorrow !

Shadow wrote:Ok that's a good adivce, thank you.
Next update will be shown when the Software Shader Emitters are fully working and I have good examples for them.

One day later: Next update.

But nice anyway^^

Is this still in UScript only phase, or it already has a c++ touch into it?

Because the only way I see of blending color in a texture using UScript is with canvas, PM me if I'm wrong, I like to learn (the dynamic change of color would be extremelly usefull for my nukes, in case you ever saw them rofl).

Creavion wrote:

Shadow wrote:Ok that's a good adivce, thank you.
Next update will be shown when the Software Shader Emitters are fully working and I have good examples for them.

One day later: Next update.

But nice anyway^^

I just want to be efficient (spoke the borg drone.. )

Feralidragon wrote:Is this still in UScript only phase, or it already has a c++ touch into it?

Because the only way I see of blending color in a texture using UScript is with canvas, PM me if I'm wrong, I like to learn (the dynamic change of color would be extremelly usefull for my nukes, in case you ever saw them rofl).

No, still UScript (which is what I mean when I say "Software"-) and yes you're right again, it's Canvas indeed, but extended with own complex functions. Another possibility to blend and change colors of a texture are scripted textures (which is to unflexible for in this case).

Shadow wrote:

Feralidragon wrote:Is this still in UScript only phase, or it already has a c++ touch into it?

Because the only way I see of blending color in a texture using UScript is with canvas, PM me if I'm wrong, I like to learn (the dynamic change of color would be extremelly usefull for my nukes, in case you ever saw them rofl).

No, still UScript (which is what I mean when I say "Software"-) and yes you're right again, it's Canvas indeed, but extended with own complex functions. Another possibility to blend and change colors of a texture are scripted textures (which is to unflexible for in this case).

Another it through animated textures (16 textures with different slightly colors), but again, unflexible and unpratical.