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New Particle Studio
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Author:  $NulL [ 08-03-2008 04:20 PM ]
Post subject:  New Particle Studio

    Post updated on 2nd June 2011

ImageImageImage

Ok not quite done.

It appears not sleeping has turned me into a blatant liar, I've added a couple of new features. Firstly for building waterfalls, you can now make the top of the waterfall emit from the emitter quad by setting the zBase slider in Dynamics 1 to -1. This will shift the whole shader down by 100%, so the top of the waterfall is located at the emitter and not some point high above the emitter. This was originally causing problems as people had to bury the emitter deep within their brush work, to get their waterfalls in the correct location.

Secondly I've added arbitrary rotation controls for the whole system in the systems tab, so you can spin your systems into any orientation you like.

You should still be able to load in previous individual particle systems using the load button, but the multi-system settings file has changed format too much for you to be able to import older multi-system files. Sorry.

Downloads and source updated, have fun.

Download 2.0.b3
Examples
Source



Features:
  • Can make many different particle systems, such as:
    • Smoke & steam
    • Explosions & fireworks
    • Fountains & Waterfalls
    • And more.
  • Realtime 3D preview
    • Ability to load external textures.
    • Pan and zoom camera around the particle effect.
    • Toggleable showing of info_player_start for relative scale.
  • Dynamics Controls
    • Number of particles
    • Particle size
    • Height
    • Radius
    • Angle constraints around Z axis.
    • Waveform controls for Z axis and XY plane.
    • Phase grouping, aka 'spurtyness'
  • Blending controls:
    • Supports all quake 3's blend modes.
    • Full rgben control.
    • Full alphagen control.
  • Texture Dynamics:
    • Stretching
    • Rotation
  • 2.0 Additions:
    • Multi-Particle support
    • Exporting of ASE format prefab
    • Control of render sort order
    • Ability to move particle emitters around the scene


Export Guide

Once you have setup your particle system, see detailed guide below, click the export button in the lower right. If you have set a base path, then it will export to your scripts/ folder. Otherwise it will export to the folder ps2.exe is in. You will have to rename it from .txt to .shader, this is intentional so it doesnt overwrite anyones shader files.

When you load your shaders in radiant, you'll notice one shader named by the name you picked, the rest begin with 'zz' and end in a number. You should ignore the shaders begining with zz. Add your shader to one side of a brush, with the rest of its sides textured in common/nodraw.

Additionally the program can create an ASE model of the scene that you can import strait into radiant that has all sizes and positions of the emitters already set. You will given the option to export a model when you select the export button.

Make sure you add the name of the shader file to the shaderlist.txt before you compile.

Detailed Editing Guide

There are 5 tabs along the bottom: File, Dynamics 1, Dynamics 2, Blending, TcMod & Export.

Note: Right click on a slider to type in an exact value.

FILE TAB

Base Path:
Set this to your baseq3 folder, ie D:\games\quake3\baseq3. If you use the find button, select any file in your basepath.

Shader Name:
This will be the name of the shader when its exported. It must contain a path name and a shader name separated by a '/', ie 'test/name'. NOTE: If your using a foreign keyboard and cannot find '/' use space instead.

Texture Name:
The name of your texture relative to baseq3/, ie 'textures/common/caulk'.

Experimental Firework Mode:
See Section at bottom of this guide.




DYNAMICS 1 TAB

Image

# Particles:
The Number of particles in your system.

Z Waveform:
The wave form that controls motion on the z axis(up/down). Sine is good for fountains, sawtooth is good for smoke effects.

Height:
The height particles will rise to, in game units.

Natural:
When creating fountain effects it sets the height to match the frequency, so that the particles accelerate approximately at 9.81ms-2.

Var:
The variation of height in game units.

Base Var:
Variation along the Z axis of the particle's emitter.

Frequency:
The number of cycles per second.

Natural:
As above.

Phase Grouping:
Controls the 'spurtyness' of the effect. 1 is continuous flow, below 1 creates spurts, above 1 creates inverted spurts. A value like 0.1 - 0.2 is quite nice.

Master Phase:
The master phase of the whole system, most of the time you wont need to use this.

Size:
Particle size, this is just for use in the studio. The actual size in game will be the size you create your brush in radiant.




DYNAMICS 2 TAB

Image

Radius:
The distance a particle will move away from the emitter in the x/y plane.

Var:
The variation in radius, in game units.

Base Var:
Random variation along the x/y plane of the particle's emitter.

XY Waveform:
The wave function of motion in the x/y plane.

XY Phase:
Additional phase added to the xy waveform.

Start & End Angles:
Angle constraints for x/y motion.

Grouping:
Pulls the particles towards the centre angle. Doesn't work as well as I hoped.




BLENDING TAB

Image

SRC *:
Source blend option.

DST *:
Destination blend option.

RGB1 & RGB2:
For sawtooth, square and inverse sawtooth waves, these set the initial and final vertex rgb values. For sine and triangle waves, these set the base and amplitude of the wave function respectively.

Wave:
Waveform option.

Phase:
Phase for the rgbgen waveform.

Alphagen controls are the same.




TcMod TAB

Scale1 & 2:
For sawtooth, square and inverse sawtooth waves, these set the initial and final tcMod stretch values. For sine and triangle waves, these set the base and amplitude of the wave function respectively.

Wave:
Waveform option. Sawtooth or disabled are probably the only options you will need.

Phase:
Phase for the TcMod stretch waveform.

Rotate Speed:
The speed at which the texture rotates. degrees/second

Var:
The variance in rotation speed.




SYSTEMS TAB

Active:
The active buttons activate, select and disable particle systems. To enable a system click on a grey button; this system will now become your active edit. To disable a system, select the system then click the active button again.

Name
The name of the particle systems.

Sort
The q3 render sort order of the system. The default setting of 0 doesn't set a sort order in the shader.

XYZ
The X/Y/Z sliders move the particle emitter around the scene. The sliders go between ± 512, but you can specify a larger value by right clicking the slider.



Experimental Firework Mode
This mode allows the creation of realistic explosions. To create an explosion effect, set both Z Waveform and X/Y Waveform to Sawtooth. Set the height to 0, but the height variance to the same as the radius (256 to match default radius). Set the phase grouping to a very low number, so the particles all emit at the same time. You will notice that if firework mode is off, the particles explode in a cylindrical shape, rather than a sphere.

NulL



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello yet again!

I've been rather slack with keeping you updated, and the program updated for that matter. Since last time I've added some of the suggestions that have been made. The export button brings up a save dialog so you can name the shader file anything you want. The save buttons now ask before overwriting an existing file. I've implemented a multi-system load and save, you can minimize the window or pause the program by hitting F5, if you want your cpu back :) The timer also resets when you click on it, which is useful if you want to do multi-system explosions and similar. There is an 800x600 and 1024x768 version, a real programmer would have just let you scale the window, but no ones ever been foolish enough to confuse me with a real programmer :)

Have fun

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hi

I've added everything I think is needed, so I'm going it call this final. Ive added the ability to save/load settings. Also every slider's value can be manually typed in by right clicking on it to open an edit dialog. I didn't get round to picking a new name, with apologies.

Download 1.0
Mirror
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi

Beta 2 is ready, I've added a few of the things people have outlined below; not all yet though.

Download beta 0.2

ADDED:
  • Browse buttons for base path & texture path.
  • Background Colour Picker
  • Ability to show relative player size (red info_player_start box)
  • TcMod Tab
  • -- TcMod Stretch Controls
  • -- TcMod Rotate Controls

UPDATED:
  • Export Code no longer dependent on pak0.pk3, so it should work correctly for mods.
  • Height and radius variance code changed.
  • Drop-down lists no longer fall off the screen.

STILL TODO:
  • Loading and Saving settings.
  • Allow users to type in slider values.
  • I'm going to reduce the floating point slider precision.
  • I'll consider an alternative name.



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Hi

This is beta 1 of my quake3 engine particle studio. I still have some functionality to add, such as a tcMod tab for stretching and rotating textures.

Download beta 0.1

Things still todo:

  • Add Functionality to control tcMod stretch.
  • Add Functionality to control tcMod rotate.
  • I'm going to rewrite the variance code for height and radius.
  • I may add the option of allowing a background image to be loaded.

Author:  squirell man [ 08-03-2008 05:00 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

How lovely!

$null pwns!

Author:  obsidian [ 08-03-2008 07:14 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

Awesome. I'll try it out and have some feedback as soon as I have any. :up:

Author:  a13n [ 08-03-2008 08:19 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

incredible!

Author:  Grenader [ 08-04-2008 03:43 AM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

This looks amazing ;>

Runs perfect in wine too :D

Now to see if they actually look that awesome in-game... :O

Author:  Hipshot [ 08-04-2008 04:32 AM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

This was really cool. The output code seems a lot more smooth than of the old particle studio.

One thing, I maybe it could be possible to have some kind of in game world relation of sizes, I mean, like being able to show the red cube (player_start) or similar next to the particle or something...

And to be able to use textures in the editor so that you can see directly almost how it will look without starting the game =)

Author:  $NulL [ 08-04-2008 05:05 AM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

Hipshot wrote:
One thing, I maybe it could be possible to have some kind of in game world relation of sizes, I mean, like being able to show the red cube (player_start) or similar next to the particle or something...


Yeah, Ive been thinking about this too. Will add to next version.


Hipshot wrote:
And to be able to use textures in the editor so that you can see directly almost how it will look without starting the game =)


You can, but it wont load images inside pk3 files. If you've set the base path and texture path, it should load your image automatically.

Author:  obsidian [ 08-04-2008 08:45 AM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

Still testing, so more feedback on the way. I'm still trying to understand what everything does and what it relates to back in the shader. Awesome work though. Here are a few of my initial thoughts:

I don't think it needs a background texture loader, just a colour picker will do.

Type in dialogs for some of the slider values (so you can type in specific figures), it's hard to get that slider right where you want it.

Import menu to open existing particle shader files.

Browse button on the file tab so you can just navigate to the directories and texture files.

Ability to specify and store a default base path so you don't have to type it in every single time... or maybe just use the last used base path when starting up the program.

Blending > Alpha Wave function drop down menu falls below the window's edge, so you can't see the last two options in the drop down menu.

The generated shader's qer_editorImage and map values seem to always be textures/common/caulk.tga


It also doesn't seem to load my texture (32-bit TGA). I'm working in a mod directory.
BASE PATH: D:/gamedev/quake3/blastburn
SHADER NAME: textures/obsidian_particles/smoke
TEXTURE NAME: textures/obsidian_particles/smoke

Author:  Hipshot [ 08-04-2008 08:56 AM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

The UI doesn't seem to work with my keyboard, that's not good, I can't set a path for anything since it won't find : and \ I tried c/p didn't work either. It could be good if the app could adapt to every layout like other apps do (using a Swedish kb here - yes I tried typing as I would in english, I found : where I have ö but not the \ which usually is besides / right?)

Author:  Hipshot [ 08-04-2008 08:57 AM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

To be honest I don't really need it, I can just replace the paths in the shader later, but if other peeps really want it.

Author:  $NulL [ 08-04-2008 10:57 AM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

obsidian wrote:
I don't think it needs a background texture loader, just a colour picker will do.


I can add 3 sliders for red, green and blue easy enough.

obsidian wrote:
Type in dialogs for some of the slider values (so you can type in specific figures), it's hard to get that slider right where you want it.


Yeah, this will almost certainly be added at some point. You can nudge sliders now with the arrow buttons, for fine tuning.

obsidian wrote:
Import menu to open existing particle shader files.


Reading back from an actual shader file would probably be a disaster, but i can write/read a file that holds all the current settings.

obsidian wrote:
Browse button on the file tab so you can just navigate to the directories and texture files.


I will defiantly do this, it should solve hipshot's problems also.

obsidian wrote:
Ability to specify and store a default base path so you don't have to type it in every single time... or maybe just use the last used base path when starting up the program.


Yeah, saving the last used basepath can be done.

obsidian wrote:
Blending > Alpha Wave function drop down menu falls below the window's edge, so you can't see the last two options in the drop down menu.


I'll see what I can do. Again you can use the arrows for now ;)

obsidian wrote:
The generated shader's qer_editorImage and map values seem to always be textures/common/caulk.tga


Thats odd, I though I had it setup to only use caulk if the texture path field was empty. Ill look into it.

obsidian wrote:
It also doesn't seem to load my texture (32-bit TGA). I'm working in a mod directory.
BASE PATH: D:/gamedev/quake3/blastburn
SHADER NAME: textures/obsidian_particles/smoke
TEXTURE NAME: textures/obsidian_particles/smoke


Ahh, i have it setup to only recognize paths containing pak0.pk3, this is probably a mistake.


Thanks for the rundown, I'll get working on fixes.

Author:  ^misantropia^ [ 08-04-2008 11:32 AM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

Out of curiosity, what is it written in?

Author:  $NulL [ 08-04-2008 12:18 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

C++ / OpenGL

Author:  obsidian [ 08-04-2008 01:03 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

BTW, you should probably call it something else other than Particle Studio, which adds to the confusion of Particle Studio by Digimation, and the original Q3A Particle Studio.

Particle Lab?
Petrifying Pixel Particle Preview Popper Program?

Author:  Hipshot [ 08-04-2008 01:05 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

Particle Arena =)

Author:  a13n [ 08-04-2008 08:09 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

Just a few thoughts.
1. Particle Generator
2. Particle Manipulator
3. Particle Configurator

Author:  rgoer [ 08-05-2008 10:41 AM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

"$NulLParticle"

also, cool tool :up:

Author:  seremtan [ 08-09-2008 06:16 AM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

cool! btw Q3 isn't the only game crying out for a WYSIWYG 'emitter' maker. UT2/3?

Author:  $NulL [ 08-10-2008 08:59 AM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

Hi

Beta 2 is ready, I've added a few of the things outlined above; not all yet though.

Download

ADDED:
  • Browse buttons for base path & texture path.
  • Background Colour Picker
  • Ability to show relative player size (red info_player_start box)
  • TcMod Tab
  • -- TcMod Stretch Controls
  • -- TcMod Rotate Controls

UPDATED:
  • Export Code no longer dependent on pak0.pk3, so it should work correctly for mods.
  • Height and radius variance code changed.
  • Drop-down lists no longer fall off the screen.

STILL TODO:
  • Loading and Saving settings.
  • Allow users to type in slider values.
  • I'm going to reduce the floating point slider precision.
  • I'll consider an alternative name.

Author:  $NulL [ 08-17-2008 01:32 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

Hi

I've added everything I think is needed, so I'm going it call this final. Ive added the ability to save/load settings. Also every slider's value can be manually typed in by right clicking on it to open an edit dialog. I didn't get round to picking a new name, with apologies.

Download

Source:
Dev-C++
Visual Studio 2008

Author:  fKd [ 10-20-2008 01:12 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

this is fantastic! i just added some smoke to my level and it looks great. good job

Author:  Grenader [ 09-12-2009 02:31 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

Screenshots gone? Download gone?

Author:  Silicone_Milk [ 09-12-2009 03:01 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

massive bump

Author:  obsidian [ 09-12-2009 04:10 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

Someone didn't pay his bills.

Author:  Hipshot [ 09-12-2009 08:46 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

obsidian wrote:
Someone didn't pay his bills.


levelmakers joke?

Author:  obsidian [ 09-12-2009 08:59 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

Not my intention, but I see what you did there.

Author:  Silicone_Milk [ 09-12-2009 09:04 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

Actually, a QuakeSrc joke.

Author:  neoplan [ 09-14-2009 01:09 AM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

Great work $NulL. Here are some suggestions:

-Button for matching textures / natural should look different to other fields.

-Add a button set all settings back to the default values (like on startup).

-Possibility to skale the size of the window.

-Mouse controle of the preview window or xyz koordintes to drag.

Author:  $NulL [ 02-16-2010 07:07 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

Massive bump x2.
First post updated.
------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello again!

I've been working on a map that takes over 12 hours to compile so I've had some spare time to work on this again. This version adds support for up to 4 simultaneous particle systems, you can move each particle emitter around the scene and export the scene as an ASE model. I've also increased the size of the window to 800x600 and fixed a couple of minor bugs. I haven't tested everything thoroughly so if you find any bugs please let me know. The load and save settings buttons only save the currently active particle system, I'm considering adding a multi-system load/save too.


Download 2.0.b1


Image

Author:  obsidian [ 02-16-2010 08:29 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

Awesome! I was hoping to see an update and here it is.

Do you have any sample files to show how you can use the program to create some basic effects, like fire, rain, chimney smoke, etc?


Bugs:

Checkboxes are hard to see. Hard to tell if they are active or not since the grey, purple and blue colour schemes seem to melt together.

When setting slider values, only the "<" arrow key seems to work.

Setting basepath works only if you have a .pk3 in your directory. Working in a mod directory, I have everything yet uncompressed, so I have to temporarily create a pk3 file to point it to.

Author:  ^Ghost [ 02-16-2010 09:51 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

page cannot be found.

Author:  fKd [ 02-17-2010 01:40 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

link worked for me.. ?

Author:  ^Ghost [ 02-17-2010 03:28 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

now it works.. dont know what was wrong

Author:  $NulL [ 02-17-2010 04:21 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

obsidian wrote:
Awesome! I was hoping to see an update and here it is.

Do you have any sample files to show how you can use the program to create some basic effects, like fire, rain, chimney smoke, etc?


Heres a few examples with a very very rough guide to some of them. (It needs work)
http://homepages.manx.net/urtstats/ps_tut.zip

Quote:
Checkboxes are hard to see. Hard to tell if they are active or not since the grey, purple and blue colour schemes seem to melt together.


The 'Active' systems ones? I guess I can tweak them; they are quite similarly coloured.

Quote:
When setting slider values, only the "<" arrow key seems to work.


Weird, they both works for me. I've tested it on XP and Win7.

Quote:
Setting basepath works only if you have a .pk3 in your directory. Working in a mod directory, I have everything yet uncompressed, so I have to temporarily create a pk3 file to point it to.


You can select any file in your basepath, but pk3 is the default option, I'll change the default to *.*
I never did find a folder select dialog in msvc. :/

Author:  shio [ 02-21-2010 07:43 PM ]
Post subject:  Re: New Particle Studio

my suggestions:


- It shouldnt export as txt by default, it´s a pain in the ass if ure in the middle of testing but have 2 rename the txt again and again....
So maybe add a checkbox "export as txt" but the default export should be *.shader

- The successful export message should autoclose after 0.5 sec

- And the last and import one:

That u can specify a folder to import an image sequence "0000.tga, 0001.tga"
or
1-10 frames = fire-red.tga, 11-26 = fire-green.tga.... + a variance slider to mix all

thx, and n1 prog

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