Gunship-X -- Effects systems

I don't normally bother blogging but given the slackers in #garagegames still haven't unbanned me after my ISP had conniptions...


I've been doing a bit of work on my game of late -- some gameplay and physics stuff here and there but mainly I've been writing some new effects systems. I basically got sick and tired of Torque's stock particles and effects and yanked them all, then wrote my own.

While doing so, I've decided to avoid datablock-based effect information altogether. It's just silly to be sending all the effect data from server to client each load. Especially when the bulk of the data is only ever used on the client anyway.

Instead of datablocks, I've opted to use XML configuration files. Torque handles these internally as a specialized form of resource object (which allows them to be compressed and streamed from the server to clients that lack them when the client loads in). Effect resources can require CRCing or not -- enabling you to set up the game so that only gameplay-affecting effects match on the client and server and that all other effects can be "skinned" on the client-side.

Now, before anyone gets too bored, here's an obligatory youtube movie showing the new effects system in action. It's a short clip and it's largely programmer art, so don't get too excited.

Looks like the youtube embedding breaks when it encounters an underscore in the id tag. I'll post the url.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzQQ5mU_7YU&fmt=8

... and an older movie which has a tag without an underscore in it.

I'm still fiddling with the tags and system values and so on, and there are a bunch of extra affectors, emitters, and initializers I want to write, but all up it's very nice to use. Here's a little example

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!-- CountermeasureLauncher.Countermeasure.particle -->

<!-- Smoke particle -->
<particle sort = "true" uniform = "true">
    <affector>
        <colour>
            <key value = "254 189 72 51" time = "0.0" />
            <key value = "254 189 72 26" time = "0.3" />
            <key value = "230 230 230 26" time = "0.75" />
            <key value = "255 255 255 0" time = "1.0" />
        </colour>
        <force z = "0.5" />
        <size type = "replace">
            <key height = "1.0" time = "0.0" width = "1.0" />
            <key height = "2.0" time = "0.75" width = "2.0" />
            <key height = "4.0" time = "1.0" width = "4.0" />
        </size>
    </affector>
    <emitter>
        <point rate = "80" rate_variation = "20" />
    </emitter>
    <initializer>
        <lifetime value = "3500" />
        <rotation variation = "180" />
        <normal theta_variation = "45" />
        <velocity inherited = "0.2" value = "1" variation = "0.5" />
        <width value = "1.0"/>
    </initializer>
    <source type = "texture" filename = "~/Textures/Particle/PARTICLE_Default.png">
        <material alpha = "true" />
    </source>
</particle>

<!-- Spark particle -->
<particle sort = "true" uniform = "true">
    <affector>
        <colour>
            <key value = "255 255 128 153" time = "0.0" />
            <key value = "255 255 51 255" time = "0.25" />
            <key value = "255 128 0 0" time = "1.0" />
        </colour>
        <size type = "replace">
            <key height = "0.2" time = "0.0" width = "0.2" />
            <key height = "0.3" time = "0.25" width = "0.3" />
            <key height = "0.5" time = "1.0" width = "0.5" />
        </size>
    </affector>
    <emitter>
        <point rate = "10" />
    </emitter>
    <initializer>
        <lifetime value = "300" variation = "150" />
        <normal theta_variation = "180" />
        <velocity inherited = "0.2" value = "1.0" variation = "1.0" />
        <width unique = "true" value = "1.0" variation = "0" />
    </initializer>
    <source type = "texture" filename = "./CountermeasureLauncher.Spark.png">
        <material alpha = "true" />
    </source>
</particle>

Anyways, more as I think of it...