Mike Lankamp's Particle Editor is a very helpful (if somewhat buggy) tool for EAW modding.
Basic Tutorial
Engine Tutorial
This is an extended tutorial and some advanced tips for those brave souls, who want to make their own particles, and do not want to figure out the following things on their own. Feel free to post your own experiences, tips and questions below.
Blend modes:
- additive mode is for grayscale or RGB picture files without alpha channels; what you see as black in the picture file, will be transparent ingame; further transparency is controlled by RGB channels under the viewport.
- transparent mode is for RGBA (rgb+alpha channel) picture files; transparency is controlled by the alpha channel under the viewport, if you want to see darker colors (or black) set RGB channels to lower numbers.
Color tabs:
- particle editor uses a R/B/G color scale of 0-100. "Real life" RGB color code 0 is 0, 255 is 100 in the editor.
Scale tab for Phoenix Rising:
- 1 alamo unit (on the scale tab) is 1,515 meters
- 1 meter is 0,66 alamo units
- there is an upper limit to particle size, emitter scale size should not exceed 5000 units on the scale tab or else it will not be displayed ingame.
Navigation in the preview window:
- X axis+ points horizontally right, Y axis+ points horizontally up (away from the viewport on ground level), Z axis+ points vertically upwards.
The three axes in the editor: x and y are horizontal, z is vertical compared to the plane displayed (ingame ground). If you check "link particles to instance" in basic, and not check "always face camera" in appearance tab for e.g. shield hit emitters, the models hit surface will become the ground plane.
A particle is consisted of emitters. There are three types of emitters:
-burst (summa sign) - a limited number of appearances
-continous (infinity sign) - infinite number of appearances until the emitter exists
-weather (cloud sign) - infinite number of appearances for the camera
I mainly use bursts for explosions, continuus for smoke trails and engine glows, and weather... well guess it.
The particle editor is capable of making child emitters (meaning an emitter is born of another emitter), but there are some bugs you should consider before making child emitters.
1. this particle editor can manage only one child emitter per particle file, setting two or more child emitters will crash the particle editor, and render your particle inoperable
2. the single child emitter is often mixed up when saving after cut/paste actions, be sure to double check (close particle editor and reopen it) the emitter sequence after saving / before testing ingame
3. If you cut/delete a parent/child emitter, make sure to test the particle before saving (press shift and play it), because this action often leads to crash. If the particle is saved while it is destined to crash, you'll lose the particle forever.
The particle editor needs texture (dds or tga) files in the vanilla games (needed for the particle editor and vanilla game changes) or your mods (needed for your mod) data/art/textures directory. You can also add textures in the same spot you browsed them from, or in the same directory as the .alo file to display, but these won't show textures ingame. If textures are not displayed in the particle editor when viewing a particle file from the particle editor or ingame, check the texture files name and placement again.
Ingame total -burst type- particle lifetime depends on the topmost in the emitter list burst particles lifetime, hence it should have the longest liftetime in the particle file. If the particle doesn't show up correctly ingame, try rearranging the emitter sequence.
Particle lifetime in realtime ingame is set in the particles.xml in frames. I use 30 frames per seconds, so if you're particle should last 1 second, you give <Particle_Lifetime_Frames>30</Particle_Lifetime_Frames> to your particle in the xml.
Delayed (initial spawn delay in basic tab) and burst emitters of more than one bursts are only previewed properly if shift is held down for the total particle lifetime duration.
The particle editor views emitter layer lists backwards. In the editors preview window the topmost emitter on the list is in front (closer to viewer), however ingame or in the map editor the bottommost (last) emitter in the list is visible as closest to the viewer. This is why you don't see the same effect in the particle editor as ingame.
If you use fixed random rotation option, the first number must not be 0. 0 degrees would be pointing vertically upwards (positive z axis, away from gound) if always face camera option is checked.
Setting up a particle for your mod:
Every new particle .alo file you want to see shall be put into *your mod*/data/art/models directory.
Every new texture file (.dds or .tga) your particle uses shall be put into *your mod*/data/art/textures directory.
Every new texture file (.dds or .tga) your particle uses shall be put into *your mod*/data/art/textures directory.
You can add particles into the game two ways:
1. use the name of a vanilla particle, your creation will replace the vanilla effect
2. set up a new particle in your mods particles.xml file (*your mod*/data/xml)
Testing your particle:
The particle editor uses lots of system memory. Every time you press shift to preview the particle, it takes memory equivalent to all the texture files displayed, and you don't get it back until the particle editor is closed). If system memory limit is reached, the particle editor will crash, and you'll lose your unsaved particle. If you have problems with previewing your particle, use the map editor for such purposes instead (and to display the correct emitter layer sequence). Put the files of the map editor into your mods main directory, and start it from there so it'll see your particles.
Edited by megabalta, 07 February 2017 - 09:00 AM.
