APE - A 3d particle engine for GLBasic.

[SnooPI]

Nice to see that you are working on this again.

Me too 

It's a good news kanonet that libSPRITE became multi-plateform   

[mentalthink]

Hemlos if you need ideas for this IDE search some video on internet about programs like 3ds Max, Cinema, Blender or another of the "greats"-"expensive" soft, and you can see the way them do the systmem particles and how works.

I always lookinf this program I thinked in a Ide for touch a lot of things, and agree wind, types of wind gravity, and change the sprites...

I think the point, IMHO fail the program it's the image selected for the billboards, perhaps you have to add another way to change the sprites, an idea, for heigth, depend on a single particle it's hegth from the floor changes to anoter sprite animation.

[Hemlos]

The special effects are very much like 3d studio or any particle system.
@mental
There is not any gui to make ape code for you....you can do that yourself with this system as the backbone.
I think my directional particle algorithm is unique, i dont think 3d studio has that in thier system

You can use this system inside any algorithm you want....thats what makes ape so sweet.

For instance...you remember the bezier lib i wrote in 3d snippets?
That lib includes 3d beziers curves, and you can warp them easily with timers and spinners (sin()cos()).
You can link several ape's to the curves ....like strings of christmas lights....or crazy looking firework strands of fire...blankets of fire swirling around.

Really, the imagination is your limit what you can do with ape.

@kanonet
could you crack open this lib and find your code to see if its multi platform?

[kanonet]

Thank you for releasing your project, its very nice!

@kanonet
could you crack open this lib and find your code to see if its multi platform?

You are using a version of my libs thats almost one year old, I made it multi platform later, in September 2013 so you would need to get a never version to get it working on android etc. Happily this just means you need to replace your copy of my lib with the current one, simple copy+paste (or better add it as separate .gbas files so it could easily get replaced) and slightly alter your lib_APE__Obeject_.Show() (rename billboard.init to billboard.start + maybe add billboard.stop, which is not needed but recommended).

[Hemlos]

Im glad to hear APE has the possibilty of being multiplatform, thats good news.
Plans for an APE utility program are in the works.
Eventually, I will do an overhaul based on your latest multiplatform billboard controller.
This utility will generate a visually designed particle system, and generate code for GLBasic.

One other thing in the future of APE, is spawnpoint mapping, using vertice data from objects. This allows tou to create object shaped particle spawn points.
I have already done this in the past, but alot of changes were made to GLBasic so I have omited this function for now.
Someday ill reimplement it, i feel this will be important to some game developers.
With the this vertice mapping, you will be able to "write" words that are built out of particles, which was the coolest effect i doing with it.
As a matter of fact, the idea comes from SpriteZ image mapping function, the difference here is you will use an object instead of a bmp.

If anyone has questions about constructing specific special effects, i am more than willing to throw you some ideas to help you make some cool stuff.
Here are generic ideas that ive done with this system over the years:
Bullets, missles(3d and guided with smoke and rocket fire exhausted), water fountains, water falls, snow, snow melting on the ground, lightning, clouds(moving ones), rain falling, rain splash on the ground, explosions(multi layered, smoke and debris and fire), explosion spall, glass shattering, steam, tornados! , black hole(part of APE is gravitation energy, both positive and negative), fireworks, fireballs, arrow storms, bugs crawling on the ground, bugs swarming.

[Hemlos]

Does anyone still use this particle engine for anything?
Or is the code out of date for the modern GLBasic?

[kanonet]

I dont see any reason why it should be outdated.

[erico]

Me either, it is just I haven´t tackled 3d yet.

[Hemlos]

actually 3d isnt that hard.

just need to get the camera where you want it.

a game in 2d could be converted to 3d....3d is 2d with a height map in 2d/3d games.
heights can be assigned in the player types, monster types, object types etc

What APE needs is a game, based on the PE itself, something simple and fun.
wish i had the time, i dont.

[Hemlos]

What APE needs is a game, based on the PE itself, something simple and fun.
wish i had the time, i dont.

Ok i made time...and i have been working with APE in a new game test environment.

APE is coming along great, and i think i finally got the math 100%....check screeny..
ps. ill be starting a new beta thread soon with the current project.

and i will update APE here in this thread when im certain its corrected.

Right now, using kanonets libTsprite, i can run 50k skinned particles, smoothly, and accurately.
Blackholes effect is working, perfect, and all the other features ape has is working too.

The timers seem 100% now, and all motion is smooth and logically calculated.

The goal for this is to make the inputs 100% logical to allow the programmer to calculate how the output should look 100% as expected.

Ive made ALOT of progress, and the entire library has been revamped....its faster, smaller, OOP, and just amazing looking.