Can particles inherit their emitter's velocity?
by Matt Edwards · in Torque Game Builder · 03/09/2005 (6:38 pm) · 3 replies
The title says it all really.
I've got a ship flying around the screen Asteroids-style and I'd like to emit a cloud of smoke from the back when the thruster is fired. I've got a particle effect mounted to the rear of the ship with the emission angles and initial speed on the smoke emitter set up so the smoke sort of billows around the ship, which looks pretty good when it's accelerating from rest. The trouble is that when the ship is moving at a high velocity the individual smoke particles get left way behind.
Basically, I'd like the base emission angle and speed values to still have an effect, but have the resulting velocity added to the velocity at emission time of the effect object so that the smoke still billows around the ship, but drifts away as the ship's velocity changes.
Does anyone know offhand if this is possible? I've considered programmatically changing the emissionangle_base and speed_base graphs on keydown and then periodically updating them as the ship's velocity changes until the player lets off the thruster key, but this seems a bit heavy duty for a simple effect =)
Sorry if this is trivial and I'm just being dense. Vast numbers of nearing-spring-break exams are liquefying my brain.
I've got a ship flying around the screen Asteroids-style and I'd like to emit a cloud of smoke from the back when the thruster is fired. I've got a particle effect mounted to the rear of the ship with the emission angles and initial speed on the smoke emitter set up so the smoke sort of billows around the ship, which looks pretty good when it's accelerating from rest. The trouble is that when the ship is moving at a high velocity the individual smoke particles get left way behind.
Basically, I'd like the base emission angle and speed values to still have an effect, but have the resulting velocity added to the velocity at emission time of the effect object so that the smoke still billows around the ship, but drifts away as the ship's velocity changes.
Does anyone know offhand if this is possible? I've considered programmatically changing the emissionangle_base and speed_base graphs on keydown and then periodically updating them as the ship's velocity changes until the player lets off the thruster key, but this seems a bit heavy duty for a simple effect =)
Sorry if this is trivial and I'm just being dense. Vast numbers of nearing-spring-break exams are liquefying my brain.
#2
03/09/2005 (11:59 pm)
Hm... after giving it a bit more thought, I suppose the smoke cloud could be attached to the emitter position, put in its own, unmounted particle effect, and new instances spawned periodically with velocity equal to that of the player. Still feels a bit like a workaround though.
#3
IE:
You have a jetpack if you just jet up with no initial vertical movement the particles are are large and red. If you jump then jetpack it may be medium with a orange color. If you double jump then jetpack its small particles, blue. It would give you the feeling that this is pushing out more power inorder to obtain that speed.
03/10/2005 (12:34 am)
Id think that would be the best way because you could then take it at a certain velocity have it this color while at another its smaller and this color. You could create a really nice effect/illusion of speed if done correctly.IE:
You have a jetpack if you just jet up with no initial vertical movement the particles are are large and red. If you jump then jetpack it may be medium with a orange color. If you double jump then jetpack its small particles, blue. It would give you the feeling that this is pushing out more power inorder to obtain that speed.
Torque Owner Matt Van Gorkom