Windows v6 beta test

[Crow]

Originally Posted by oo_jazz_oo

Just discovered something.

Now, I don't know much about particle emitters and stuff, but I found a problem with the snowfall on UN.

Basically, the script has the particle image changing every .5 seconds, so it changed the image for each new snowflake.
On v5, changing the image of the particle would only change it for new particles...

On v6, it is changing the image for every particle, ones already created, and new ones.

Not sure if this is a glitch, or if it was a glitch in v5.
The script changing the image of said particle is:

PHP Code:

findimg(200).emitter.particle.image = temp.newimg; 


Originally Posted by Stefan

It's an optimization, if you have only one particle template and only simple modifiers then it will try to draw all particles at once instead of drawing it one by one. You could eventually use several particle templates (emitter.particletypes = 2, emitter.particles[1].image = ...).

I don't think that using several particle types is a good solution to the problem your optimization creates. Consider an emitter for controlled text particles, each particle supposed to have a different text. How would you do that? Doesn't work quite as easy anymore with v6, does it?

[fowlplay4]

Originally Posted by Crow

I don't think that using several particle types is a good solution to the problem your optimization creates. Consider an emitter for controlled text particles, each particle supposed to have a different text. How would you do that? Doesn't work quite as easy anymore with v6, does it?

The way I see the particle system (or how I use it), it's for situations where you don't want to devote a loop to display an effect. I.e: Sparkle-trail attached to player.

For what jazz is doing on UN he should only have to declare X~ types of particles and assign each particletype/snowflake a different image. I.e:

PHP Code:

emitter.particletypes = 4;
for (temp.i = 0; temp.i < emitter.particletypes; temp.i++) {
  emitter.particles[temp.i].image = "snowflake_" @ temp.i @ ".png";
} 


No need to constant loop and change the images every .5 second.

Could also just set continueafterdestroy to true, and destroy (hideimg) the particle image then re-create it with new values and none would be the wiser unless there's noticeable performance loss.

[Crow]

Well, currently, I have an emitter with a single particle type which emits text (which is always different) as a particle whenever certain conditions are met. The particle count can jump pretty high, too, so there's lotsa text sometimes. I can't really do that with multiple particle types, since I don't want to create a ton of them. With v5 it works just fine, changing the emitter.particle attributes before emitting the next particle. Using v6, all particles update when changing the attributes

Edit: Code example:

PHP Code:

//#CLIENTSIDE
function onCreated() {
  with (findImg(200)) {
    layer = 6;
    
    with (emitter) {
      nrofparticles = 1;
      emitautomatically = false;
      
      with (particle) {
        style = "br";
        zoom  = 0.9;
        
        font = "Arial";
        textshadow  = true;
        shadowcolor = { 0, 0, 0 };
        
        speed = 0;
        lifetime = 1;
      }
      
      addLocalModifier("range", 0, 1, "y", "add", -48, -48);
      addLocalModifier("range", 0.5, 1, "alpha", "add", -2, -2);
    }
  }
}

// called by something
function onStuff(s) {
  findImg(200).emitter.particle.text = s;
  findImg(200).emitter.emit();
}