Effects system?

[pebblegarden]

I'm interested in learning how visual effects are implemented in the game, to learn how I might contribute. At a minimum I could create some pretty sprites, but perhaps I could author more ambitious things like particle explosions with multiple components and animated textures. Is there a wiki on such this? Also, has anyone here heard of Timeline FX? [url]http://www.rigzsoft.co.uk/[/url] It's a very inexpensive vfx authoring system ($50!) which can be plugged directly into games provided you set things up right [url]http://www.rigzsoft.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=17[/url] I can make some tasty stuff with that tool. Here are some examples from their demo files. Could you set things up to handle sprite flipbooks? [url]http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/FlipbookTextures.html[/url] I can make those easily.Edit: Fixed a typo.

[pebblegarden]

I should mention that even if you can't code a way for Pioneer to talk to TimelineFX, I can still author and bake out flipbooks in TLFX. Then it would simply be a matter of allowing for animated sprites by reading a flipbook texture in a prescribed order of sub-images (usually top left to bottom right), as one reads a book in English. Then all that would be required (at a minimum) is a way of controlling blending mode (alpha, additive, perhaps even premultiplied), and playback rate.

[ollobrain]

if u can incorprate a demonstration branch that would be awesome

[pebblegarden]

I poked around and found three effects textures, and tried modifying the ECM texture. It became evident there's no rotation or anything on individual particles/quads, so my test looked less random than I'd like. I'll post a request for some particle functionality, in the appropriate place.

[fluffyfreak]

You can also post what you've found in here, people are watching these threads it's just that we don't know what or how to contribute sometimes :)What sort of things would you like to see an effects system do?