Particle Editor demo released

[SpannerMan]

Well, here is the promised particle editor demo (windows demo only unfortunately). It's still only at a very early stage of development, but we have decided to begin getting some public feedback, so please help us out in testing it by downloading it from here:

Alpha Demo

For those of you who won't / can't download, here's another screenshot:

Please be sure to read the included Readme file; you will notice that we still have many features to add.

Anyway, let us know how it goes, and have fun

mac and spannerman

EDIT: Please check out the Beta demo instead here

[sinbad]

Oh man, this forum is demo central these days! It looks lovely; I hope you realise you're keeping me up when I was otherwise about to go to bed...

[edit]Beautiful, looking really slick for an alpha, I have to say...[/edit]

[Robomaniac]

SO Many Demos...

Converting from mono to polytheism

Now monster and u are my gods

[Kencho]

Robomaniac, I never thought there could be such a weak mind around here
Just kidding

SpannerMan & Mac. The demo looks really overwhelming. I'm trying to download, but my poor bandwith has declared war to me... While it finishes downloading, tell you this is fine work

[neocryptek]

awesome!

runs great, ill be playing with this for a while

one thing i did notice is pushing esc exits right away, while the 'X' button on the bottom reminds you to save

-N30

[pjcast]

Looks great! I am downloading now. Another great project using CEGUI i c.

[Kencho]

Ok. I've just finished playing around with the demo. I think it's a great demo. It should be included in the next snapshot of Ogre (apart of the featured proyects )
Great job!!

[jwace81]

I like what you've done with CEGUI, it looks very impressive, and your program runs great for an alpha build.

This will definately get added to my collection of tools

J.W.

[PeterNewman]

Downloadin' loading loading... demo! Demo.....

Woo, sweet. Very nicely designed, easy to use. Are you sure this is only an alpha?

[Cyberdigitus]

very pretty, but please change the ogre fps counter to a cegui one too

Any possibility to implement this as a Chronos module, since you seem to know the particle api well?

[Kezzer]

Looks very nice. I'm still not keen on the CEGUI look though

[nfz]

Excellent Alpha demo, I played with the it for over an hour creating some cool particle effects.

[scriptkid]

Hey this looks nice. I'll play with it today. I think that particles effect are -a bit like gui's- very time consuming to develop on a trial-and-error basis, so it should be a useful tool

[psyclonist]

This is one of these really useful tools! Bring it on!

-psy

[CrazyEddie]

Yes, excellent work guys Not only is it going to be a very useful tool, but it also demonstrates what can be achieved with a certain Gui system

CE.

[Lee04]

Hi

I just want to say what a lovely tool

/Lee04

[SpannerMan]

I must say, I really was not expecting so much positive responses, its very humbling; we thank you all very much for your kind words

The best thing is...there's still more to come! We hope that we meet your expectations when we release the final version.

one thing i did notice is pushing esc exits right away, while the 'X' button on the bottom reminds you to save

We were aware of this one, but forgot to put it in the readme with the list of known bugs / Todo's. Thanks for the heads up!

Any possibility to implement this as a Chronos module, since you seem to know the particle api well?

mac and I originally had discussions over whether to make the Particle Editor a Chronos plugin, or to use cegui. There are pros and cons for both. What swung it in cegui's favour was the straightforward cross-platform support. We knew cegui was going to become a very useful library, especially when combined with OGRE, so we decided what better way to get to grips with it than by using it on a new project.
I am still interested in learning C#, and I am also extremely impressed from what I have seen so far of the Chronos editor. But whether we will carry on to make a Chronos plugin, I'm afraid I can't say for definite right now.

Ok. I've just finished playing around with the demo. I think it's a great demo. It should be included in the next snapshot of Ogre (apart of the featured proyects )

Thanks Kencho, but hehe, its not that good! Still, if it turns out well and eventually gets accepted as a tool in the OGRE addons section, we would be honoured

[Cyberdigitus]

I seems to get very slow cursor response...

[AssiDragon]

I only noted the slow cursor response at low FPS values - though my guess is that's normal (Windows does the same at least )

And this seems to be a VERY decent tool keep it up!

[mac]

I'm also pleased to see such a possitve feedback. Thanks guys!
It seems that Spannerman and I are not the only ones who think that a particle editor is useful.

I hope you realise you're keeping me up when I was otherwise about to go to bed...

That's a thing you have to cope with when you make such a beautiful engine...

Are you sure this is only an alpha?

It is not too far away from being a useful tool with all the basic features. At least adding and removing of affectors should be in before we can call this a complete tool that makes sense. Also not all features of the particle system are supported in this version:
- Multiple emitters (you can load files with more than one emitters now but only edit the first one)
- Affector ColourImage is not supported. I plan an extra folder, where you put the gradient files. All files from this folder will be available in the Listbox. Any comments about this? Has this a high priority for somebody?

Looks very nice. I'm still not keen on the CEGUI look though

One day we will release the source code and you can change it to windows-look (thanks to Crazy Eddie this should be quite easy).
Maybe we will even implement a skinning support - but that's not high priority.

very pretty, but please change the ogre fps counter to a cegui one too

That's a fair request - it will be done in one of the next versions.

Any possibility to implement this as a Chronos module, since you seem to know the particle api well?

I want to add to Spannermans answer that I had to learn how to use CEGUI anyway (for my main project...). Shure it is an option doing a port to Chronos in the future but my time is very limited, and I will be happy to finish the CEGUI version - so: no promises.

I seems to get very slow cursor response...

I recon it's only when you have low frame rates (as AssiDragon stated). This is caused by many particles (be careful with the emission rate...) and also a little bit through the transparency of the windows. Maybe we should introduce an option to change the alpha value...

Thanks for any feedback,
cheers,
mac

[SpannerMan]

I seems to get very slow cursor response...

I recon it's only when you have low frame rates (as AssiDragon stated). This is caused by many particles (be careful with the emission rate...) and also a little bit through the transparency of the windows. Maybe we should introduce an option to change the alpha value...

Yup, if your particle quota and emission rate (along with other factors) are too high and your frame rate drops, you are going to receive an all round slow down (at least, this has happened to me too). You may then notice that by hiding cegui windows, the frame rates improve again.
Changing the frame window alpha value to be a customisable value is a good idea, we'll do that.

[Antiarc]

mac and I originally had discussions over whether to make the Particle Editor a Chronos plugin, or to use cegui. There are pros and cons for both. What swung it in cegui's favour was the straightforward cross-platform support. We knew cegui was going to become a very useful library, especially when combined with OGRE, so we decided what better way to get to grips with it than by using it on a new project.
I am still interested in learning C#, and I am also extremely impressed from what I have seen so far of the Chronos editor. But whether we will carry on to make a Chronos plugin, I'm afraid I can't say for definite right now.

Well, if you don't, I likely will, possibly by porting a lot of this over. This is something I have a definite interest in.

Besides, C# is easy stuff.

Downloading the demo now. What's I've seen so far is impressive already; I can't wait to see it in action!

[jwace81]

I recon it's only when you have low frame rates (as AssiDragon stated). This is caused by many particles (be careful with the emission rate...) and also a little bit through the transparency of the windows. Maybe we should introduce an option to change the alpha value...

Yup, if your particle quota and emission rate (along with other factors) are too high and your frame rate drops, you are going to receive an all round slow down (at least, this has happened to me too). You may then notice that by hiding cegui windows, the frame rates improve again.
Changing the frame window alpha value to be a customisable value is a good idea, we'll do that.

I would guess that the speedup has more to do with the fact that alll of the controls on the windows are no longer being rendered than anything else. I doubt that changing the alpha will really help with that. Your windows have a lot of controls, which ends up pushing a lot of quads to the renderer for rendering. When you hide the windows (roll up I"m assuming), the controls are no longer visible, so there are less quads to render.

J.W.

[Antiarc]

Awesome demo. This thing is FUN to play with!

My concern, too, is the mouse input. The demo is running at about 15 FPS constant for me, but the mouse is so slow that's it's almsot unresponsive at times. Are you using unbuffered input?

[Sputnick]

Nice job, both of you.

Running between 30fps and 60fps on my PC (both OpenGL & D3D).
Is it CEGUI that make the fps drop or the particules ?

Still some work to do with the slider (max value, intervals, ...).

CE, can you increase the width of the sidebar compared to general width of the slider widget. It is rather hard to pick exactly the sidebar on small sliders.

- Sput