Targetware: Particle Effects

Introduction to Particle Effects

Particle effects are used to produce flames, smokes, fuel leaks, tracer fire, muzzle flashes, airplane explosions, bomb explosions, and many other special effects.

Particle effects are generally created by taking a simple graphic, usually a single 2D quadrangle with a texture on it, and drawing that graphic over and over again, with variation in location, size, color, and/or direction. Particle effects can be called directly by the flight and damage models, or from anm files created by artists. Particle effects are controlled via .par format files. No special software is required to edit them, a simple text editor will suffice.

For example, to create a smoke trail behind a burning aircraft, a puffy cloud-like texture might be drawn out in a chain behind the aircraft, drawn very close together, so it appears as there is a continuous stream of smoke coming out of the aircraft. This type of textured effect is known as a Quad Particle. To enhance the effect, we might make the size variable, to break up the regularity of the smoke stream. And we'll definitely want to make it more transparent towards the end of the chain, to simulate the smoke dispersing into the air. And lets make it get larger as it trails out, to simulate the cloud of smoke expanding after leaving it's source.

An alternative method of drawing long trails of smoke, fire, vapor, tracer smoke, and other particles is to use a Beam Particle effect. Beams are textured quadrangles that can be stretched out in long, narrow bands to provide realistic, continuous trail effects with very little FPS hit, because they only need a fraction of the particles required to create a continuous stream with Quad Particles.

Before diving in and creating or modifying particles, please look over the next page, which covers the format used by .par files. You may also wish to review some of the example particles detailed here.