peterigz
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Yes but currently I have a big problem that the language I developed tfx in is no longer supported and I’m having a lot of trouble getting it to compile. But I am trying to find more time for it, and hopefully Blitzmax will continue here: https://blitzmax.org/ and I can get things working again. I’m also considering an opensource editor and selling premium effects packs, but it’s a question a time as I work freelance to pay the bills 🙂 I am slowly reducing clients though so that I can concentrate on this project.
Hi, have you tried setting the Ellipse to 180 and then setting the Effect Angle Graph to 180 for the front? That may work ok for you.
Yes you should be able to set the seed before each effect is created *I think*, haven’t tested that in practice!
Unfortunately I don’t think you can do this in editor other then the animation properties where you export sprite sheets.
Great, looking forward to seeing them! You might find some inspiration in the lightshow library: https://www.rigzsoft.co.uk/portfolio/light-shows-a-fun-bunch-of-abstract-effects-with-a-range-of-colourful-light-effects-like-laser-lights-and-flares/
I like you video, good work! 🙂
Probably the only work around might be to create a sub effect in a particle that moves which emits a trail behind it but it might be quite hard to control.
For a Galaxy you could try an ellipse effect where you could control the width, height and angle of the effect to tilt it on it’s side. You could use a small flare shape to create all the stars and maybe combine a few of them together?
Hi, unfortunately Timelinefx doesn’t have this feature, the main focus for Timelinefx is computer games and either using the effects directly in the game or creating sprite sheets.
Ok great, glad you like it!
With those liquid textures they use the seamless tiling option so that you can use them for animated textures that tile seamlessly. With the seamless option turned on, any parts of the animation that fall outside of the frame will be wrapped to the other side so auto-fit isn’t really useful when you want to create those types of animations. If you aren’t trying to create textures like that, then maybe make sure that the seamless option is unticked and it might work better for you.
Hi, sorry for the delay! I’m not sure what you mean by distort the effect? Can you give an example of what you mean? I just tried on a few effects and it seems to be ok so maybe it’s a specific type of effect where it’s happening.
Unfortunately I can’t even compile the windows version at the moment due to Blitzmax/wxWidgets not supported much anymore, so I currently working towards re-doing the editor in monkey2. Gonna be a few months away but something I do want to get done. The monkey2 editor will be opensource and I’ll be selling premium effects packs instead so you could compile on whichever you need.
Glad you sorted it 🙂
Regarding rendering off screen, it should do this automatically, as long as you set the screen size in the particle manager (SetScreenSize). Any particles outside of this should not be rendered.
It depends on the type of effect that you want. If it’s a smoke trail then you should be able to use SetPosition (with relavtive off) to change where the particles spawn from which would be necessary to move with a ship that might be emitting the smoke for example. Or if it was a glow effect that you want to move with the ship then you can put relative on.
Unfortunately the Area effect type doesn’t have the option to only spawn at the edges. I guess one work around might be to create a line effect and then use effect angle and line length to position them around the edge that you want to create the rectangle that way.
Hi, sorry for the delay, I finally managed to get Blitzmax working again! I loaded the effect in the sample program that comes with the documentation and it seems to play ok. Is there anything in your code that might be causing the effect to play with less particles? Are you using “MyParticleManager.SetGlobalAmountScale(1)” anywhere perhaps with a lower number? If is the code I am using to test: (sorry about lack of formatting, the code box wasn’t working properly for some reason!
SuperStrict
Framework brl.max2d
Import rigz.timelinefx
Import rigz.tweener
Import brl.glmax2dSetGraphicsDriver GLMax2DDriver()
‘Load the effects library
Local MyEffectsLib:tlEffectsLibrary = LoadEffects(“effects/main_lib2.eff”, False)
‘Create an effect and assign it an effect from the library
Local MyEffect:tlEffect = MyEffectsLib.GetEffect(“slow_smoke”)
‘Create the particle manager to manage the particles
Local MyParticleManager:tlParticleManager = CreateParticleManager()Graphics (800, 600, 0)
‘These commands are important to set the origin of the particle manager. For this example we’re setting the origin so that
‘effects will be placed at screen coordinates. If you leave out the setorigin command then an effect created at 0,0 would
‘be placed at the center of the screen.
myparticlemanager.SetScreenSize(GraphicsWidth(), GraphicsHeight())
myparticlemanager.SetOrigin(GraphicsWidth() / 2, GraphicsHeight() / 2)
‘You can use the following command to control the number of particles spawned globally by the particle manager.
‘This is handy for slower PCs where you want to reduce the number of particles that are drawn overal. A setting of 0.5 would halve the
‘number spawned for example. 1 is the default value.
‘MyParticleManager.SetGlobalAmountScale(1)MyParticleManager.SetUpdateMode(tlUPDATE_MODE_INTERPOLATED)
‘This will make one frame equal 33 millisecs long – or 30 updates per second.
SetUpdateFrequency(30)‘Create a tweener using the tweener mod. Make sure its frequency matches that above
Local Tweener:tTweener = New tTweener.Create(30)‘Our main loop
While Not KeyDown(KEY_ESCAPE) Or AppTerminate()Cls
If MouseHit(1)
‘to create an effect you need to use the copyeffect command, and copy the MyEffect you created earlier.
‘You shouldn’t use MyEffect as it is the template
‘for which is used to create effects you draw on screen.
Local tempeffect:tlEffect = CopyEffect(myeffect, MyParticleManager)
‘Set the temp effect to the mouse coords
tempeffect.SetX(MouseX())
tempeffect.SetY(MouseY())
‘give it a random zoom level which will affect the overal size of the effect
tempeffect.SetZ(Rnd(0.5, 1.5))
‘add the effect to the particle manager. Important, otherwise the particle manager would have nothing to update
MyParticleManager.addeffect(tempeffect)
End If‘here is the timing code, update the tweener to get the number of ticks for this loop
Tweener.Update()For Local Ticks:Int = 1 To Tweener.FrameTicks
‘Update the execution time for the tweener
Tweener.UpdateExecutionTime()
‘Update the particle manager
MyParticleManager.Update()
Next‘and finally draw the particles.
MyParticleManager.DrawParticles(Tweener.Tween)SetRotation 0
SetScale 1, 1
SetAlpha 1
DrawText MyParticleManager.GetParticlesInUse(), 10, 10Flip 0
Wend
