ParticleSystem Refactor updates!

Documentation

Every class in the refactored particle system is now, or will be, documented using proper Doxygen documentation format such that you can generate the .chtml using Doxygen! Check it out!

I believe that if I'm gonna do this refactor and hopefully get it into stock T3D, I might as well go all the way and do it properly, so I'll keep updating the code with proper Doxygen comments. If there is parts of the ParticleSystem that you think needs documentation, just tell me and I will make sure to document it properly.

MeshEmitters

If you already own IPS, you'll be pleased to know that I've managed to cut the size of the MeshEmitter class in the refactor from 789 lines to 551, drastically reducing code complexity and also improving performance. (Compared to original IPS MeshEmitter documents it's a much larger reduction, but I like to pretend that I never wrote the original IPS code.. It's horrible :P)

If you don't own IPS you'll be pleased to know that the refactor now features MeshEmitters!
MeshEmitters are a common feature in game engines and it helps to show how to create drastically different ParticleEmitters through almost no changes in the code. Also implementing an interface for getting a ShapeInstance for the ParticleSystem to work with will help drastically with other similar features.

The IPS Pro

Chances are you haven't noticed it but I've actually pulled IPS from the WLE store.

Now this doesn't mean that I'm not supporting the product anymore, nor that it's completely off the table, but this ParticleSystem refactor actually contains a lot of the most essential improvements to the particle system.

With these changes in, IPS offers a lot less than it did previously and that brought me some complications.

First of all, I've been wanting to open source the architectural changes for a while now, and it's something I've brought up a lot of times but for some reason there was never the interest in getting the architectural changes into T3D.

Lately I've been seeing a bit more interest, but then another problem hit me: Can I really open source such big parts of the IPS without injustifying the customers?

I've come to the conclusion that, yes I can because the main selling points for a lot of the customers would have been the seperate features and not the architectural changes. I've often tried and highlight them, but the customers were almost exclusively interested in the features.

Also there are so many features in IPS that 1. it's getting harder to maintain, 2. it's severely overreaching the initial scope of the project and the pricepoint doesn't really match the amount of work put into this, nor the size of the product.

So I've decided to cut it into smaller sizes! I'll be changing my business model to be selling "feature packs" rather than the architectural changes, so I'll be selling "MeshEmitter" packs and "Environmental Emitters" and stuff like that (haven't decided on anything yet). I'll be back with more updates when I know more specific details!

Also, if any IPS customers have an issue with this move, please contact me at ljorgensen [at] winterleafentertainment.com