RPGDX > Forums > Design and programming > Particle System Contest

RuneLancer · Mage Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 441

With the upcoming weekend, I figured I'd spring this idea I've been toying with for a little while.

How about a weekend contest for the most visually-pleasing particle system? But not just any kind of particle system, one that's API-independant.

What I mean is this: you can't use things specific to one graphical API, such as texture mapping, imported bitmaps, or alpha blending (unless you code those in yourself.) Essentially what you're allowed to use boils down to reading/writing pixels, but doing whatever you want with them in your algorithm. That's right: per-pixel particle system.

It's easier than it sounds. A basic particle system can be done with little more than an array of positions and velocities and a loop that updates each particle and draws them every frame. Personally, I've made hundreds of particle systems in QBasic during boring college courses, and it takes about 15 minutes to get the basic code up and running. A whole weekend should allow for some pretty impressive tweaking.

So here's what it comes down to.
- The focus is a particle system. It can be anything: fireworks, rain/snow, the classic "fountain" kind of system, anything.
- Your only graphical tools are reading/writing pixels (pset/point, SetPixel/GetPixel, whatever floats your boat.)
- You can do anything beyond the above restriction; this is where your creativity must shine through.
- Posting the source is not required, but a brief explanation of the algorithm would be welcomed.
- The entry can be written in any language. So long as it's a programming language, and not some kind of particle system creation toolkit or whatnot. :P

The prize for winning? A virtual cookie! ;)
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LeoDraco · Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2005 1:49 am Post subject:

While the idea is not bad, per se, its domain does not, exactly, fit within the realm of RPGs. (Which is not to say that one could not use a particle system within an RPG; simply, this place is, generically, for RPGs themselves.) Perhaps this would work better under the "Design and Programming" forum?
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RuneLancer · Mage Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 441

Sounds good to me. Dunno if a moderator can move this, then?
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white_door · Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2005 2:19 am Post subject:

Well that sounds like it could be fun. If you wanted to make it more rpg related, maybe we could make a rpg battle special effect (or effects) using a particle system?

Like a spell effect or whatever...

RuneLancer · Mage Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 441

Lil off-topic, but I've used particle systems a lot in RPG battles. :P They're great for spells and various other things. I also had a side-scroller using particle systems for both the weather (rain, snow, and sandstorms) and blood (little spurt at a semi-random location on the character with a positive-only or negative-only horizontal velocity.)

They work great. :P With alpha-blended textures, you can have things like smoke/fire and explosions.
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biggerUniverse · Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2005 3:34 am Post subject:

white_door · Posted: Fri Nov 04, 2005 3:37 am Post subject:

*cough* or am I? DUH DUH DUUUMM... (I think WoW stole my soul.)

anyway, I'm keen to take part in this contest.

white_door · Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 6:06 am Post subject: I got bored

well I did a simple boss final fantasy-like boss dieing effect..

basically I convert the bitmap into particles.. then activate the particles from the bottom line going up.. as they activate they move down shifting left and right randomly and fading out.

http://whitedoor.rpgdx.net/particle.zip

Bjorn · Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 9:40 pm Post subject: Re: I got bored

RuneLancer · Mage Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 441

I agree, it ran kind of slow. Very nice effect, however. You stole my idea, damnit. :P I was going to have sprite-based particle systems (such as one I used in a shooter where ships exploded in a mess of fading particles.)

I'm actually a little undecided. I think I'll try to do something wtih landscapes, like a snow and/or rainfall accumulation effect... I did mention erosion on a perlin noise-generated landscape in another thread; real-time rain would be pretty cool. Dunno how it would turn out with the graphic API restrictions in place though.

That sounds like something that could be fun...
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white_door · Posted: Sat Nov 05, 2005 10:47 pm Post subject:

well the effect was designed for a major boss like even the final one.. not a rat.. ;) So yeah it is quite slow.. should have a sound effect with it too...

I think the effect generally does what I planned it to. could do more of a swirl perhaps.. make it look like the particles are blowing away...

Adam · Mage Joined: 30 Dec 2002 Posts: 416 Location: Australia

This dosen't qualify at all for the challange, but RuneLancers post reminded me of it. Dis was origanally made for the cloris call comp.

http://hulkamaniac.com/adam/bin/particles.rar
WASD to move around.
Q to quit

Basicly falling snow building up. The engine used 2d polygons and it just builds up points on the polygons. I have another engine like this but using bitmapped terrain and that would have worked much better.

And whitedoor, the wind blowing effect would be mucho grande.
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RuneLancer · Mage Joined: 17 Jun 2005 Posts: 441

Heh, that's pretty nice. May I recommanded a different approach to the snow buildup though? You should created a linked list of points and give each node in the list "tension" that would prevent one point from rising too high without "dragging" the other points near it along with it, otherwise you end up having jagged, pointy "spikes" of snow here and there that look... quite painful to jump into. :P

Very cool though. The snow falls rather slowly so I'm not sure what it'd look like after enough of it has fallen, but the effect is pretty cool. I like how the movement; sine wave? Though the effect isn't very life-like (unless you're in an area with alternating winds blowing from opposing directions) it looks far better than snow falling in a single direction à-la crazy comet of snowy doom coming crashing down to the ground like most snowfall simulations have.

I suppose it could qualify, as you could easily simulate that buildup with a few line-drawing algorithms and by keeping track of everything else in memory. :) 2D isn't as hard to simulate as 3D (which is mainly what I had in mind with the API restriction; anyone with good a 3D API could toss in fog and lighting on alpha-blended textured particles and have the API do all the work for them...)

Edit: OMG, I just found the status screen. That bald man is scaring me :_:
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Adam · Mage Joined: 30 Dec 2002 Posts: 416 Location: Australia

Oh sorry Q to quit.
Everyone loves Dr Phil.
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white_door · Posted: Mon Nov 07, 2005 1:13 am Post subject:

its a very cool idea, I'm sure you could do something simular if you wanted to do water. but yeah like runelancer suggested perhaps something should help smooth the snow out a little.

If you were feeling lazy, maybe instead of drawing the snow as a polygon you could draw a bezier curve or some other kind of curve perhaps. Then just fill down. You could just use the points that you were using to draw the the polygon as the control points for the curve. That way you'd just have to replace the drawing code for the snow and it would automatically smooth stuff out.