Particle Editor Feedback
by Michael Hall · in Torque 3D Professional · 08/21/2009 (8:02 pm) · 2 replies
I took some time to sit down and rework some particle effects that were previously in use. Spent some fiddling, just messing about and seeing how everything worked, then decided to redo some existing effects from scratch. This was actually my first time using the new Particle Editor. There are some issues, definitely some usability problems that can cause frustation and much anger ;) but hopefully with a little more polish this tool could be brought up to the same level of awesome! as all of the rest.
So I guess this is just a general ramble, a little bit of insight, tips, and criticism about the Particle Editor. Hopefully other people can add their own observations.
EMITTERS:
* Sometimes the periodVarianceMS field gets set to 0 upon saving/loading despite having a valid value.
* The PE fields "Amount" & "Amount Random seems counter-intuitive to me in relation to the actual emitter properties "ejectionPeriodMS" & "periodVarianceMS" -- think about it: does it really make sense to call it "Amount" when in fact you decrease the "Amount" to increase how often the emitter emits particles?
* periodVarianceMS (Amount Random) often gets reset to a default value upon loading into the Particle Editor despite having a valid or previously saved value.
* Orient Particle had no affect when checked. In fact "orientParticle = true", "orientOnVelocity", and "overrideOnAdvance" have to be applied manually in a text editor if you wish to use non-default bools. This works separately from and does something totally different than the aligned particle fields directly below it (which works). Perhaps there should be some distinction/separation to indicate this.
* The in-editor names for thetaMin & thetaMax (Angle Min & Angle Max) don't really seem apt to me, but then I can't really think of anything else that would make sense or be "intuitive" to an "artist".
* phiReferenceVel & phiVariance: You need both in order to use this so-called "Depth" setting properly but the editor only has one, the phiVariance it seems. Here too I don't think "Depth" is truly appropriate to what it does.
PARTICLES:
* lifetimeVarianceMS (Life Random) sometimes resets itself to 1 less than lifetimeMS (Life) despite the value that already exists in the file when loaded into the editor interface.
* inheritedVelFactor seems to me a much better description than "Initial Speed" -- which is technically misleading. Notice the words "inherited" & "factor" in the actual property name.
* gravityCoefficient (Gravity) sometimes resets to 0 upon loading into the editor interface
* spinRandomMin & spinRandomMax (Spin Min & Spin Max) cannot both be set to 0 in the Editor. A minor quibble since the spin speed "multiplyer" can be set to 0. Guess it has to do with the "new" muliplication calculation rather than the old addition calculation.
* spinRandomMin & spinRandomMax either one sometimes resets to 0 upon loading into the editor interface despite have valid or previously saved values.
* OverTime fields don't appear to get saved in any logical (numerical) order -- not that it matters so long as the array is correct -- but there were a few occasions in which time[0] was not added when saved. And there should be some way of turning off any excess fields that you're not using. For example if you're only using two units of time/size/color there's no need for the other two to be saved with extraneous values. These excess parameters could cause confusion and definitely clutter up space.
GENERAL:
* Must use ENTER after inputting values in text boxes!!
* Trickiness involved in order to use a unique name is downright annoying!
* Slider controls seem too sensitive for fields with larger ranges -- can be frustrating sometimes.
* Inconsistent behavior from one session to another... the in-editor view does not always agree with the actual state of the effect. Very annoying to save an effect based on how it looks, reload and see something different.
* Must change the keyword "new" to "datablock" when copying newly created Particles and Emitters to the file/location in which you want to use them.
I didn't look but I think some of the above mentioned "problems" may be a result of someone trying to make value comparisons against strings. I could be wrong, but do consider it odd that using the Particle Editor to tweak existing particles works near flawlessly, yet creating them from scratch has many problems and annoyances (usability failure) due to the Editor deciding to reset certain fields the next time you load. Observation only after noticing that the emitter and particle field values are saved as strings.
Lack of wind in Torque 3d is a downer, and you really notice it missing with particles and precipitation....
Every weapon/projectile/explosion effect in the FPS Genre Kit was created from scratch by hand manually in a text editor and reloading Torque over the course of one weekend. It only took 10 minutes to completely tweak the emitters/paticles of one explosion effect to something completely different using pre-existing datablocks -- so that was certainly quicker than the tweak->reload->exit workflow of before. It took most of today to completely make over the Rocket Explosion using emitters/particles newly created in the Particle Editor. Does it save time? Depends on which way you look at it. To save time in the future I know now to go ahead and setup some template effects, that can be copied and renamed, and then just tweak those instead of starting from a beginning in the Editor.
The new Particle Editor is definitely the least "nifty" and unpolished tool in Torque 3D -- I almost prefer the old out-dated TGE Particle Editor, or in my case Crimson Editor and a -mission command line shortcut :D
So I guess this is just a general ramble, a little bit of insight, tips, and criticism about the Particle Editor. Hopefully other people can add their own observations.
EMITTERS:
* Sometimes the periodVarianceMS field gets set to 0 upon saving/loading despite having a valid value.
* The PE fields "Amount" & "Amount Random seems counter-intuitive to me in relation to the actual emitter properties "ejectionPeriodMS" & "periodVarianceMS" -- think about it: does it really make sense to call it "Amount" when in fact you decrease the "Amount" to increase how often the emitter emits particles?
* periodVarianceMS (Amount Random) often gets reset to a default value upon loading into the Particle Editor despite having a valid or previously saved value.
* Orient Particle had no affect when checked. In fact "orientParticle = true", "orientOnVelocity", and "overrideOnAdvance" have to be applied manually in a text editor if you wish to use non-default bools. This works separately from and does something totally different than the aligned particle fields directly below it (which works). Perhaps there should be some distinction/separation to indicate this.
* The in-editor names for thetaMin & thetaMax (Angle Min & Angle Max) don't really seem apt to me, but then I can't really think of anything else that would make sense or be "intuitive" to an "artist".
* phiReferenceVel & phiVariance: You need both in order to use this so-called "Depth" setting properly but the editor only has one, the phiVariance it seems. Here too I don't think "Depth" is truly appropriate to what it does.
PARTICLES:
* lifetimeVarianceMS (Life Random) sometimes resets itself to 1 less than lifetimeMS (Life) despite the value that already exists in the file when loaded into the editor interface.
* inheritedVelFactor seems to me a much better description than "Initial Speed" -- which is technically misleading. Notice the words "inherited" & "factor" in the actual property name.
* gravityCoefficient (Gravity) sometimes resets to 0 upon loading into the editor interface
* spinRandomMin & spinRandomMax (Spin Min & Spin Max) cannot both be set to 0 in the Editor. A minor quibble since the spin speed "multiplyer" can be set to 0. Guess it has to do with the "new" muliplication calculation rather than the old addition calculation.
* spinRandomMin & spinRandomMax either one sometimes resets to 0 upon loading into the editor interface despite have valid or previously saved values.
* OverTime fields don't appear to get saved in any logical (numerical) order -- not that it matters so long as the array is correct -- but there were a few occasions in which time[0] was not added when saved. And there should be some way of turning off any excess fields that you're not using. For example if you're only using two units of time/size/color there's no need for the other two to be saved with extraneous values. These excess parameters could cause confusion and definitely clutter up space.
GENERAL:
* Must use ENTER after inputting values in text boxes!!
* Trickiness involved in order to use a unique name is downright annoying!
* Slider controls seem too sensitive for fields with larger ranges -- can be frustrating sometimes.
* Inconsistent behavior from one session to another... the in-editor view does not always agree with the actual state of the effect. Very annoying to save an effect based on how it looks, reload and see something different.
* Must change the keyword "new" to "datablock" when copying newly created Particles and Emitters to the file/location in which you want to use them.
I didn't look but I think some of the above mentioned "problems" may be a result of someone trying to make value comparisons against strings. I could be wrong, but do consider it odd that using the Particle Editor to tweak existing particles works near flawlessly, yet creating them from scratch has many problems and annoyances (usability failure) due to the Editor deciding to reset certain fields the next time you load. Observation only after noticing that the emitter and particle field values are saved as strings.
Lack of wind in Torque 3d is a downer, and you really notice it missing with particles and precipitation....
Every weapon/projectile/explosion effect in the FPS Genre Kit was created from scratch by hand manually in a text editor and reloading Torque over the course of one weekend. It only took 10 minutes to completely tweak the emitters/paticles of one explosion effect to something completely different using pre-existing datablocks -- so that was certainly quicker than the tweak->reload->exit workflow of before. It took most of today to completely make over the Rocket Explosion using emitters/particles newly created in the Particle Editor. Does it save time? Depends on which way you look at it. To save time in the future I know now to go ahead and setup some template effects, that can be copied and renamed, and then just tweak those instead of starting from a beginning in the Editor.
The new Particle Editor is definitely the least "nifty" and unpolished tool in Torque 3D -- I almost prefer the old out-dated TGE Particle Editor, or in my case Crimson Editor and a -mission command line shortcut :D
About the author
Been dabbling with game-programming since the age of 10 when I got my first computer, a Commodore. Got serious about game-development after modding Tribes for several years. Doesn't sleep much. Drinks rum. Teaches guitar. Plays cello.
Torque 3D Owner Steven Garcia