Particle systems are created using the RwParticle button on the Particle Systems option
on the creation menu. Click two points in the viewport to define the size of the emitter and then set
the desired options in the rollouts on the right hand side of the display.
No special exporter options are required to export particle systems. The exporter will detect any
particle systems in the selected hierarchy and export them automatically.
NOTE: a material and a bitmap texture must be assigned to the emitter using the material
editor. This material is required by the RpPrtSys plugin in order to assign a texture to the particles.
When using the particle editor program in the Renderware SDK Tools directory to view a particle system,
make sure that all the exported particle systems are in the same hierarchy.
Particle System Parameters
- Particle Count - The number of particles in the system.
- Flight Time - The time that particles exist for, before they are destroyed. In the MAX plugin
this time is the number of frames to allow for easier integration into a scene. When the particle
system is exported this value is converted into seconds, which are the units used by the
Renderware API.
- Emitter Width - The width of the rectangular patch emitting particles.
- Emitter Height - The height of the rectangular patch emitting particles.
- Emitter Angle - The angle at which particles are emitted.
- Min Speed - The minimum speed of the particles (particles are emitted randomly at a
speed between the maximum and minimum).
- Max Speed - The maximum speed of the particles.
- Damping - A constant used to alter the speed variation with distance from the centre of the
emitter. Particles can be emitted more slowly from the edges of the emitter to simulate things
like water coming from a pipe
- Force - A force which is applied to all of the particles. This can represent gravity (x=0, y=0, z=-9.81),
or it can simulate a wind applied to the particles.
- Start Size - The size of the particles when they are created.
- Growth - The rate at which particles get bigger (greater than one) or smaller (less than one) with time. Growth
is defined as the final size divided by the initial size.
- Aspect Ratio - (Y/Z) Numbers greater than one give long thin particles, numbers less than one give short fat particles.
- Colour Start - The intial colour of the particles, including an alpha value.
- Colour End - The final colour of the particles. The colour is interpolated over the lifetime of the particle from
start colour to end colour.