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Just a quick update! I’ve mainly been working on adding spline paths in to the library the last month which I’m still working on but I wanted to just get a new alpha out which fixes a bunch of bugs and also introduces a simple but very effective feature where you can now spin particles on their pitch and yaw axis. Previously you could only spin particles on the axis that faces the camera but now you can set the Particle Rotation settings to free align and then adjust the spin attributes under particle behaviour. I also added the ability Read more

This is the final update for version 25 where I’ve been focusing on help and documentation. In this version I’ve added 2 new features to help new and existing users get a quick insight into how each effect and emitter works.   Insights I’ve introduced a new tab labelled Insights. On this tab is auto generated documentation for each effect that gives a brief overview of the main properties that are used. Each property that is referenced has a link that you can click on that where that property is so you can easily get to grips with where things Read more

I just uploaded the latest alpha which builds on the last version with a brand new help section! This help is entirely in the editor and searchable by key word. It even works like a simple browser where you can go back and forward to previous sections you were looking at and it also has links that link either to other help files in the editor or externally too. I also added an About pop up that opens up on start up. It’s pretty basic for now but I can improve it at a later date. Both the about and Read more

Happy New Year! Alpha version 24 has now been released. It has been a very busy period for me over the holiday, and a real time of learning new things.   Bounding Boxes for Sprite Data Something I wanted to accomplish was calculating the bounding boxes for each frame of a sprite data animation. This is where you can pre-record your effects and simply use a compute shader to interpolate the compressed data to playback the effects. It is a very fast way to use effects, as almost everything happens on the GPU. All the CPU has to do is Read more

I just completed a refactor of the TimelineFX library so it’s further along in terms of stability of code, ie., less chance of me making a lot of breaking changes. I mentioned in the last post what I’d be working on but here’s what I did: Implemented my memory allocator for much cleaner memory management. A large memory pool is now allocated on initialisation and then sub allocated from. If the pool runs out of space then a new pool is automatically added. This of course can be overridden if anyone wants to use their own allocator instead. I did Read more

I just uploaded a new version of the TimelineFX Alpha with a few new features and more bug fixes. Here’s the main highlights: Cylinders I added 2 new emission types for 3d effects. The first is cylinder, which is exactly as you’d expects – allows you to spawn particles in a cylinder shape. Also worth pointing out that making the cylinder have 0 height you also have a ring emission type. Icospheres Icosphere is similar to an ellipse but with the icosphere you can spawn in a grid with up to 5 subdivisions to give a unique effect. An icosphere Read more

For the last month and a half since the last blog post where I mentioned that I was strongly thinking about adding 3d particle effects to timelinefx – that’s exactly what I’ve been doing. It’s been a lot of fun mixed in with a lot of head scratching as I wrap my head around 3d math again (it’s been a while since I did any 3d stuff) but I’m mostly there with it. I still have a few things to iron out with it and would like to create an example library to go with the next alpha update but Read more