Particle Manual

1 Introduction

The particle system defined in the engine encompasses more than just flying sprites.
The particle system is a pipeline through which models, beams and trail effects can be defined and utilized by the game-logic without having to know how to program a single line of code.

In this document we'll go over the conventions and commands you need to look at if you want to create particle effects.

1.1 What is a particle config?

Particle configs short text scripts that define the properties of a particle effect as it appears and interacts in a game world.
For example, it defines which textures and shapes are used and if they emit sound, light or collide with the geometry around them.

Particle configs are located in the particles/ directory, using the '.cfg' file extension.

Contained within a particle config we can define multiple effects of similar nature. Let's look at the particle config: 'particles/volume.cfg' which as of this writing only contains one entry:

r_part dustmote
{
	texture		ball
	type			normal
	count			1
	blend			add
	rgbf 0 0 0
	alpha 0

	rampmode lerp
	ramp 0 0 0 0 0.5
	ramp 0 0 0 0 0.5
	ramp 0 0 0 0 0.5
	ramp 255 255 190 0.5 0.5
	ramp 0 0 0 0 0.5

	die				10 5
	gravity			1
	scalefactor		0
}

This is a more complex material, dealing with pre-programmed color and alpha changes over time to create the effect of dust traveling inside a volume.

1.2 Particle Name & File Conventions

The first line tells the engine that we're defining a new particle effect with the name 'dustmote'.
As this effect is defined in the file 'volume.cfg', the name by which this specific effect will be accessible is 'volume.dustmote'.

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