OGRE Particle Editor in CVS, new demo

SpannerMan · Post by **SpannerMan** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 1:38 am

POST EDIT:

The Particle Editor is now an ogre addon, and can be built on Linux

The latest Particle Editor build for windows can be downloaded from here!

Take a look at the HTML files in the docs directory for a small manual and tutorial on how to use the editor.

Browse the docs online.

Please post here if you encounter any problems running the demo.

Enjoy

SpannerMan · Post by **SpannerMan** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 1:42 am

Here are some notes I posted a little while ago regarding changes between the Alpha and this new Beta demo:

Since the Alpha demo, we have re-written most of the code. We are now building it using CEGUI cvs version HEAD and OGRE cvs version 1_0. The new 'renderer' attribute is not supported by our editor, so basically you can only use it to build templates based on the BillboardParticleRenderer (currently, that's pretty much the only usable type in OGRE anyway).

Apart from a hefty code review, here's a list of the major things that have been implemented since Alpha:

- Keyboard shortcuts and better camera control.

We have added more keyboard shortcuts for certain commonly used tasks.
Most of this is camera related, so for example the ALT and arrow keys will 'orbit'
or 'slide' the camera depending on the camera mode (Orbit or Target).
Hitting F1 will put you in free flight mode which means you can fly
around your creation much like you can in the OGRE demos with the keys and mouse. The free
flight mode has other benefits too, the most noticeable one is that it
hides all GUI windows and ceases to inject input into CEGUI, meaning that the frame
rates you see when in this mode should be very similar to what you would
expect in an app that does not require any GUI rendering.

- Improved basic, emitter and affector parameter manipulation

Add, remove and edit multiple emitters and affectors easily. Ability to
dynamically change a particle systems particle quota is now possible. You
can randomise and restore values, and can also now clone any emitter
instead of adding one with default values.

- Proper particle file management

Delete, save or add a template into any existing particle script, or
create a new one.

The new OGRE resource system has made things much easier for us, so now we can correctly identify all the materials and particle scripts that the user wants to be made available in the editor simply by dropping them in the correct directory.

- Multiple particle system support

Load more than one particle system at once in order to create those more
complex effects. You can unload or reload any system at any time.
Buttons to Unload All or Load Exclusive help make things a bit smoother.
It is no longer necessary to have a particle system loaded when the application starts, but you can now specify a default template to load at startup via a config file. Please note that creating a particle effect that consists of multiple particle systems is limited because you can not specify independent positions of particle systems. The emphasis of this editor is on fine tuning a template, not on combining, positioning and timing multiple templates simultaneously.

- Dynamic parameter generation and range value limits

We build the GUI controls dynamically, so if a new parameter is added or
is altered the editor will change to reflect this (in theory, anyway).
Users can manually specify the minimum and maximum value range of all parameters via a parameters config file.

- New 'helper' windows

A dedicated Colour and Direction panel makes editing these related parameters quicker and easier.

Post by **nfz** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 2:33 am

Excellent work guys.

Post by **sinbad** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 2:22 pm

Cool, I'll definitely be checking this out when I get home.

joi · Post by **joi** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 2:47 pm

Sweet, this look awesome!

It helped me a lot, thanks a bunch!

Sputnick · Post by **Sputnick** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 6:52 pm

Congratulation for this achievement.

- Sput

spookyboo · Post by **spookyboo** » Fri Mar 11, 2005 11:04 pm

Great. I'll use it!!

innovati · Post by **innovati** » Sat Mar 12, 2005 8:58 pm

Getting it now - if it is any better than the first it will be mind-blowingly awesome!

You should post some screenies (or maybe somebody with a little more time). I would, but my PC is worth less than 200$ new right now...maybe somebody with a little more juice under the case could do it!

mac · Post by **mac** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 12:12 am

Thanks for the kind words. The manual and the tutorial are now available online - so you can view some screenshots and make up your mind if it is worth to start the 5MB download.

Particle Editor Manual

Enjoy, mac

Goosey · Post by **Goosey** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 1:16 am

Wow this is leaps and bounds ahead of the original release. Excellent work! I would love to see the source for this just to figure out how you did so many neat tricks with CEGUI alone.

osolizig · Post by **osolizig** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 5:25 pm

Exellent! I is really useful, I made some really good particle effects! Keep up the good work

SpannerMan · Post by **SpannerMan** » Sun Mar 13, 2005 6:00 pm

Thanks for the positive feedback guys, its good to hear people are finding it useful

@Goosey - The source code for all this will be out sometime soon (sorry, were not going to commit to a deadline cos its bad luck

). It will most probably be ported to Linux by then though - big thanks to _mental_ for doing this and also for helping us improve the code as a whole too.

zumpi · Post by **zumpi** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 11:43 am

Hello,
first of all very nice program very usefull if it is working right

i've got a problem...

With the *.png s which are brought with the program everything works fine but when i am trying to load a self made *.png it crashes...

ogre.log says:

-----------------------------------
Details:
-----------------------------------
Error #: 4
Function: Image::load
Description: Unable to load image file '' - invalid extension..
File: \cvs\ogrenew_head\OgreMain\src\OgreImage.cpp
Line: 332
Stack unwinding: Image::load(..) <- <<beginning of stack>>

so i tried jpg gif and other formats but nothing works...
i sended the *.png to a friend and it worked well...

and i tried the png on another computer and i have got the same problem...

someone out there that could help me?

here is the link to the files: http://www.team-pantheon.de/~zumpi/Lagerfeuer.zip

SpannerMan · Post by **SpannerMan** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 12:23 pm

zumpi wrote:Hello,
first of all very nice program...

Thanks

zumpi wrote:...very usefull if it is working right

It works right if you define your materials right

This is your material file:

Code: Select all

material feuer
{
	technique
	{
		pass
		{
			lighting off
			depth_write off
			scene_blend add

			texture_unit
			{
				flamme.jpg
			
			}
		}
	}
}

material feuer2
{
	technique
	{
		pass
		{
			lighting off
			depth_write off
			scene_blend add

			texture_unit
			{
				flamme2.png
			}
		}
	}
}

The first thing is you have missed out the 'texture' keyword, so you need something like this:

Code: Select all

...
texture_unit
{
     texture flamme.jpg
}
...

The other thing I saw is that you dont have a flamme2.png in the zip...its flamme.png

Hope that helps

zumpi · Post by **zumpi** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 12:44 pm

uhhh yes ok

flamme2 is in my texture folder

was just a second try...

ok thx for help... now, for me, it is a very nice AND usefull tool too

DarkSeraph · Post by **DarkSeraph** » Fri May 06, 2005 9:09 pm

Reviving and old topic -

Any new updates on this? Not that it's needed, but since this is just a Beta, I wanna see what it looks like when done! VERY cool program, I haven't seen easier or as useful for Ogre yet.

SpannerMan · Post by **SpannerMan** » Sat May 07, 2005 1:16 am

Thanks DarkSeraph, the editor is pretty much done now. Its just getting some final touches for its Linux port, and the code will be available via the ogreaddons hopefully next week. Not really much has changed since that last demo, but we will most probably be preparing a new binary download anyway (windows) because there a few enhancements in OGRE and CEGUI that the editor can take advantage of.

mac · Post by **mac** » Thu May 12, 2005 7:18 pm

Hi guys,

The Particle Editor source is now available as an ogreaddon in CVS! The code includes the Linux port completed by _mental_.

We have also updated the windows binary for you in case you are not interested in the code but just want the latest version, built against the latest OGRE and CEGUI.

Please read the readme and check out the included docs for more information on the editor.

Cheers,
SpannerMan && mac

Post by **jacmoe** » Thu May 12, 2005 7:28 pm

You are my heroes!

Kudos, kudos, kudos!!!

DarkSeraph · Post by **DarkSeraph** » Thu May 12, 2005 7:46 pm

jacmoe wrote:You are my heros!
Kudos, kudos, kudos!!!

^^word. You guys own

Snowcone · Post by **Snowcone** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 10:22 pm

Hi!

First of all I'd like to say nice work with the particle editor. I've been scripting effects for various projects and I'm impressed with the editor you've come up with. There is one thing though... It would be really useful to have particle effects that can contain meshes. - (negative) feature for the scale affector would be a nice addon too.

EDIT:

There are also some bugs(?) I've found and I've appreciate if you would take time to fix them.
- The rotator affector sometimes flips the texture for 180 degrees when used. I noticed this whilst creating a flame particle.
- You cannot use multiple materials in one particle effect. I know it's possible to load templates separately beside each other but it would be much nicer if you'd have all related templates together when a particle script is loaded.
- If scene_blend add is used in material scripts the texture cannot fade.

jmonw · Post by **jmonw** » Fri Aug 19, 2005 11:12 pm

I really like the space effect. I got a pretty cool result when I entered free-fly mode, and flew right towards the center of the emitter. It was like going into hyperspace or something. Very cool. Congrats, and thanks!

mac · Post by **mac** » Mon Aug 22, 2005 7:39 pm

Thank you for the kind words guys.

@Snowcone: We wrote the editor - not the particle FX system. Some of the things you are requesting are quite easy to achieve by changing / extending the particle FX plugin.

Cheers, mac

SAT · Post by **SAT** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 2:14 am

What's the URL to the newest version of the Particle Editor?

Post by **jacmoe** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 5:09 pm

It is in the ogreaddons cvs.

http://www.ogre3d.org/index.php?option= ... &Itemid=70

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OGRE Particle Editor in CVS, new demo

OGRE Particle Editor in CVS, new demo

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