Where there's smoke, fire and explosions... there's the 3D particle engine, Tranquility

Today's Mobile Monday project is one that's both simple, yet complicated. Simple in that this project is just one piece of the overall picture of where you can use it. Complicated in that this might be something the average dev might not be able to just knock out.

Let's say you're writing a cool game and you need an explosion to cap it off. You'd don't want a cheesy one, but your not sure where else to go?

Go here...

Tranquility 3D Particle Engine

Tranquility is a compact, easy to use and highly extendible 3D particle system for Windows Phone 7 XNA projects.

For installation/integration, check out the Getting Started Guide. To learn how to use Tranquility check out Using Tranquility.

Using Tranquility

Using Tranquility is easy; most tasks can be achieved in a couple of lines of code. The demo project included with the source showcases more advanced scenarios including AppHub’s fire, smoke and explosion samples.

Particle Manager

All particle properties, behavior and drawing are managed by Tranquility's ParticleManager. ParticleManager is a DrawableGameComponent that can simply be added to your Game’s component collection.

....

Using Tranquility

Using Tranquility is easy; most tasks can be achieved in a couple of lines of code. The demo project included with the source showcases more advanced scenarios including AppHub’s fire, smoke and explosion samples.

Particle Manager

All particle properties, behavior and drawing are managed by Tranquility's ParticleManager. ParticleManager is a DrawableGameComponent that can simply be added to your Game’s component collection.

The ParticleManager needs to know how your world is being viewed. Use the SetMatrices method to set the view and projection matrices.

Particle Systems

A ParticleSystem defines a group of particles that share a texture representation. There are two base particle system types in Tranquility:

• StaticParticleSystem: All particles in this system have static properties. Once a particle is added to this system type, it cannot move, grow, change color, etc. Although particles can be added and removed to/from this system on the fly, it is ideal for static allocation of particles.
• DynamicParticleSystem:A dynamic particle system contains particles that can have a velocity, rotation, lifespan and can be affected by various affectors.

  Creating and registering a particle system

  To create a system, specify the maximum capacity and the texture to be used for this system in the LoadContent method. For example, create a dynamic particle system:

  • ..

  • Particles

    The overloaded AddParticle method can be used to add particles to any system. The RandomHelper class can be used to randomize the generation of particles. For example:

    particleSystem.AddParticle(           
    RandomHelper.Vector3Between(Vector3.Up, Vector3.Down),           
    RandomHelper.Color(),           
    RandomHelper.NormalizedVector3(),           
    RandomHelper.Float(),           
    TimeSpan.FromSeconds(RandomHelper.IntBetween(1, 3))      
    );

  Particle Emitters

  Emission of particles can be automated using a particle emitter. To create a custom particle emitter, implement the IParticleEmitter interface:

     1:  public class CustomParticleEmitter : IParticleEmitter 

  Implementing the Update method will allow the emitter to automatically emit particles in the particle system it is added to. The Emit method can be used to emit particles manually.

  ...

• Particle Affectors

  A particle affector can affect one or more properties of all particles in a system. There are three default affectors in Tranquillity that use the particle’s age as the time factor:

• Decelerate: Slows a particle down to a complete stop towards the end of its lifespan. This affectors affects only particles that have a velocity.
• Fadeout: Reduces the alpha of a particle until it becomes completely transparent towards the end of its lifespan.
• Shrink:Reduces the size of a particle until it disappears completely towards the end of its lifespan.
  • ...

Here's a snap of the Solution. As you can see, it's not crazy or insanely complicated (nor uses another other libraries).

Here's a snip from the Demo;

public FireParticleSystem(int maxCapacity, Texture2D texture)
     : base(maxCapacity, texture)
{

}

public override void Update(GameTime gameTime)
{
     EmitParticles(gameTime);

     foreach (DynamicParticle particle in liveParticles)
     {
         particle.Color = Color.Lerp(particle.InitialColor, new Color(1.0f, 1.0f, 1.0f, 0.0f), 1.0f - particle.Age.Value);
         particle.Scale += 0.001f;
     }

     base.Update(gameTime);
}

private void EmitParticles(GameTime gameTime)
{
     particlesEmitted += (float)gameTime.ElapsedGameTime.TotalSeconds * (float)EmissionRate;

     int emittedCount = (int)particlesEmitted;

     if (emittedCount > 0)
     {
         for (int i = 0; i < emittedCount; i++)
         {
             AddParticle(
                 RandomPointOnCircle(),
                 new Color(255, 255, 255, 100),
                 RandomHelper.Vector3Between(new Vector3(-0.25f, 0.0f, 0.0f), new Vector3(0.25f, 1.0f, 0.0f)),
                 RandomHelper.FloatBetween(-0.01f, 0.1f),
                 TimeSpan.FromSeconds(RandomHelper.IntBetween(1, 2)),
                 true,
                 RandomHelper.FloatBetween(0.0f, MathHelper.TwoPi),
                 RandomHelper.FloatBetween(0.05f, 0.075f));
         }

         particlesEmitted -= emittedCount;
     }
}

This is one of those projects that will help you add that final touch, help you apply a nice bit of polish to your app or game...