PARTICLE FX for games?

fabiomsilva · Jun 2010

hi guys i was wondering on how you create fx for games, particle fx based or volumetrics and fluids.
i have these idea that there is an emitter that emmits planes that are always facing camera and that each plane is projecting an animated movie(small one soit doesnt spend too much resources). is it the way ? or am i completly wrong?
and if its in fact small animated sprites..how do you produce them for real time? resolutions and transparency? i have seen sprites in older games that are a sheet with all the frames in it, but i got no clue on how to do those.

anyone can share some light on this? thanks

ps: also, how do you create particle systems for realtime games? is there any engines speciailized on that?

Valerien · Jun 2010

Yup, you're gonna use particle systems, using different particle types (bilboards most of the time), just as you would do with a 3d software. You'll have some limitations though, but about the texture size etc., it depends on the engine you're using, the kind of scene you wanna make and for which plateform. You should take a look at cascade, the particle system provided with the udk, and moreover to the particle systems created by the artists from epic etc.

Mark Dygert · Jun 2010

It heavily depends on the engine but you have the basic ideas. The best thing I can say is to pick an engine and do some hunting around in it and online. The general ideas are pretty much the same but how they are actually implemented and how you interact with them is pretty different.

3dsmax has a pretty robust particle system included. I love me some particle flow and it functions pretty close to UDK but does a whole hell of a lot more.

If you're looking for Volumetrics and Fluids you're kind of stuck, there aren't any true realtime options for that kind of stuff.
If you're looking for off line rendering I highly suggest FumeFX for clouds and fire.

fabiomsilva · Jun 2010

thanks guys. what im really looking for is how to do VFX for games. i know how to make them for pre-rendered stuff, but for in-game stuff it was kind of a mistery.

i guess i can render some volumetrics from fume or aB and turn them into cards and try to play around with particles to make it look like clouds.

by the way, what is the general resolution accepted for each card of a particle? and for how many frames? is like 256x256 for like 60 frames ok, or can i go a little above that like 512?

Mark Dygert · Jun 2010

Most of the game particle systems I've worked with go up to 256 but not really beyond that. Most try to stay in the 32-64px range, or they use procedural materials, but it depends on the particle type.

As for the particle frame count, it really depends on the effect. I've worked with some systems that actually run at 15 fps but through some kind of voodoo magic they play at normal speed but with a lot less frames.

It's hard to speak in general terms about very specific engine related things.

PARTICLE FX for games?

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