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Particle performance....maybe convert to sprite sheet.

by john m ingato · in iTorque 2D · 12/17/2009 (3:43 am) · 6 replies

Hi. I'm having an issue with the frame rate when I use particles. the particle effects I'm using are not very much, but I read elsewhere that iTBG doesn't handle particles very well. That being the case I was curious if anybody had any techniques to converting a particle effect to a sprite sheet. I could capture as a video it as it plays on the pc and convert it to a image sequence, but I'll lose all the transparency. I was brainstorming and thought what if I put a bright green sprite behind the effect and then capture it. Couldn't I then do like they do a green screen somehow. Problem is I don't know much about green screens. Has anybody ever successfully accomplished this?

-John
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Torque 3D Owner Marc Dreamora Schaerer
Gayasoft
#1
12/17/2009 (5:25 am)
You could write a small script that does it or alternatively use something like TimelineFX and its editor to generate the fx right from the start

Torque Owner john m ingato
#2
12/17/2009 (11:56 am)
I'm assuming with timeline fx I would have to recreate the effect right? I suck at creating particle effects. Right now I'm using the ones I purchased with the 2d effect pack. What do mean by create a script exactly? You mean with torquscript? Can you save a screenshot with script and keep transparancy and everything?

Torque Owner john m ingato
#3
12/17/2009 (5:07 pm)
I just found on the forums that ctrl-P will take a screenshot and save it to a file. I tried it and unfortunately it saves it with the black background and no transparency. Is there any way to get it to save with transparency, even if I have to modify source code?

thanks

Torque 3D Owner Marc Dreamora Schaerer
Gayasoft
#4
12/17/2009 (6:17 pm)
backbuffers normally have no transparency, so the answer is no

but you could change it within your image application, a simple batch processing step should do the trick

Torque Owner john m ingato
#5
12/17/2009 (10:22 pm)
I went ahead and got TimelineFX. It actually comes with 1000's of prebuilt effects so I was easily able to recreate my effect. It's not exactly the same, but it might even be better!

Thanks for the tip

Torque Owner john m ingato
#6
12/18/2009 (2:02 am)
So I finished the effect and exported it. Put it into a sprite sheet using unCaos(great tool) and it looks great, but unfortunately it doesn't loop properly. I'm having a hard time trying to adjust it to get it to look good looping. The only success I had by bringing it into premeire and slicing it in half, putting the second half in front and applying a cross fade. But unfortunately I can't seem to find a way to export it out and keep the transparency.