How do you simply scale an effect you've loaded without fuss?

#1 Haven't we answered this before? ;)

"setSize()" changes the emission area (assuming you've set the emitters to emit to an area).

You can change ALL these properties in the editor. You should not have to dynamically change effects in code most of the time apart from specialised ones. Most game particle engines don't allow you to exercise this level of control anyway.

- Melv.

#2 EDIT: these are some of the editor properties Melv mentioned... he really has everything you could practically want in there lol

Sizex_base and sizey_base will scale the emitter size... sizex_life and sizey_life will scale the particle size

#3 Melv has an excuse - he's got a million other high priority things to do.

T2D is open source, and you are free to make the changes you desire. So what's your excuse? ;)

#4 What about the sizeX and SizeY _scale for the effect ... that seemingly scales the whole effect

#5 Your opinions are greatly appreciated, I know by Melv and Josh... and me on top of that... I still think there might be a way to acheive what you want, and if not it would be a great improvement...

Keep in mind usually when people say do it yourself it usually is meant, if you want it now then do it yourself... people from TGE tend to be a little harsh about that, with good reason... they've been fighting off lots of people over the past couple years that want something for nothing... so don't take it personal, it just seems no matter how much you do there is more that people want.

I think that right now its good to keep in mind the scale that Melv and Josh have to look at T2D... they need to prioritize everything... what you suggest may be a great suggestion, but where does it fall in line with fixes and improvements... editors are some at the top... animation system improvements, documentation etc etc...

so don't feel threatened if your question is commented on a bit, I personally like where you going, you did seem to get a weird tone with things though, a bit derogatory, then again this is an online forum lol, tones are mistaken all the time :)

#6 There's nothing wrong with suggesting changes to T2D. In fact, I encourage it. But it becomes a different issue when people start arguing with the program authors after the author states several times that it ain't gonna happen right now.

So, to summarize -

Suggestions = good!
Badgering = bad :(
DIY = best!!!

Torque on!

#7 Just thought I'd chime in and say that we do appreciate suggestions very much and some things are trivial to add but others require a little time to think about before they can correctly be placed into the SDK. I'm sure you all understand the dozen or so things that have to be considered for some suggestions before it hits the SDK.

Anyway, don't want to preach to the choir here. I just came along to say that, even if I don't explcitily state it, I do jot-down all suggestions (unless they are crazy) and I have done so for this one.

In-fact, I did so the last time you asked for it Rob, hey hey! ;)

All good stuff, thanks. :)

- Melv.

#8 Particle effects rock! Having to create a different effect for each size seems a bit awkward. A few minutes in the GIMP with my tablet, a tutorial and some experimentation later I've got animated fireball clouds with some character. I think the particle editor could be quite a lot better (everyone knows that), but I'm extremely impressed with how functional it is -- and it isn't that hard to use.

@ Melv: Just curious, is T2D-provided scaling of an effect planned for near future, distant future or in a galaxy far, far away?

Thanks for T2D!!

#9 I'll take a crack at this...

Setsize() will effect the area of emission, but you may also want to scale the individual particles as well, to get the true effect of scaling. This is done by setting the data key for sizex_scale.

%effect.selectGraph( "sizex_scale" );
%effect.setDataKeyValue(0, %scale );

If you're using locked aspect for your particles, that'll change both x and y scale. If not, you'll need to adjust y as well.

If you change the area and scale, that'll give a good illusion of resizing. In reality, there are a number of properties that might need to be scaled for a particular effect, but this is something that really needs to be addressed for each effect. I doubt if there's one magical system for scaling a generic effect, because it's hard to imagine what someone might do with an effect system. But it might be interesting if there was a scale factor that could be applied uniformly to all spatially-related particle properties. Offhand, I'd say these properties would be:

for effect:

sizex_scale
sizey_scale
speed_scale
emissionforce

and maybe fixedforce. Not sure what that does ;)

for emitter:

emissionforce_base

for those emitters that use their own emission.

In script, you could easily write a general function that modifies all of these properties for an effect as part of a scaling operation. Not exactly "without fuss", but once it's written, it's easy to reuse. I'm getting ready to work on just such a function, so we'll see how that works out. I've done some amount of scaling of effects (in script) and I've been satisfied with the results.

Oh, and while I'm on this subject, does setSize() effect linear emission as well as area emission? Seems like it should.