Game Development Community

T3D 1.2 Particle Effects coming through Zones and walls

by Paul Yoskowitz · in Torque 3D Professional · 02/27/2012 (3:13 pm) · 9 replies

Build: 1.2 Pro.


Platform: Windows 7 64 bit

Target: Particle effects and zones

Issue:
Nothing stops particle effects. Not Walls, not occlusion volume, not zones. From what Ive read, zoning was supposed to stop partcle effects

Steps to Repeat:
1 - place a building with a door in a mission. place a zone inside the building. Portal doesnt matter.
2 - shoot a grenade inside the building. you will see all the smoke, chunks, etc from the explosion leaving the zone and passing through the walls.

Solution:
None

#1
02/28/2012 (8:34 am)
The walls portion is definitely not a bug, particles in T3D do not have collision so they will not collide with walls. I'm not certain the zones part is a bug either. I'm not 100% on that though, will have to check on it.
#2
02/28/2012 (8:43 am)
Id appreciate it.

and while i can understand that the walls part isn't a bug, NOT having a way of containing the particle effects seems like a massive oversight. From what i have read though, it seemed that possibly the zoning was what was used in earlier versions of the engine.
#3
02/28/2012 (9:20 am)
Always on collision for particles would be hugely expensive performance wise - though there might be a callback for particle collision in the engine.

Any object which penetrates a zone will be rendered. Particles tend to fade out with alpha at the end of their life but still exist until deleted.

Best bet, tweak static particles to shorten lifetime before penetration of surfaces occurs.
#4
02/28/2012 (9:29 am)
"Any object which penetrates a zone will be rendered"

can u explain that better plz.
#5
02/28/2012 (9:33 am)
An object which is positioned through the wall/touching the wall of a zone will render. An object totally inside a zone will not.
#6
02/28/2012 (9:41 am)
but see, thats my issue with this. if an "explosion" starts inside of a zone, then imo, it shouldn't render at all outside of it.

honestly, im rather hoping that maybe thats all this is, a quick tweak of the zones.

will this work for EVERY case? oh, im sure not. but the fact that nothing is stopping (not rendering, however u wish to put it) the particle effects isn't very good either.

maybe there is a callback for particle collision..... that would be a pleasant find. although, i believe thats what the "add-on" by caylo was for.

if anyone happens to have Caylo's particle add-on, id love to get my hands on that code.
#7
03/06/2012 (3:35 am)
I see not bad having a flag telling the particle to not render in another zone then the one it borns in...

Maybe not the perfect solution for all the cases but it would let us achieve the desidered behaviour in some design cases...
#8
03/06/2012 (4:39 am)
id be happy with that for now Giorgio... that way if u have a portal to see into the zone, u can see it, otherwise, it would be like most everything else.

Renee (if u read this)- with all the zone work u did, is there a list or something that we can change that would then include particles to be part of the 'do not render' list?
#9
03/13/2012 (3:17 am)
I think your best bet is to tweak the soft particles settings, soft particles appear to interact with objects so you could - if there is no nearby object - perhaps create an invisible wall or whatever for the particles to react with.
You can see the soft particles effect on this video:
http://www.garagegames.com/community/blogs/view/16587