Btw. this blog has been added to the Adobe MXNA weblog.

See how you could change the grid.

myEmitter = new SurfaceEmitter(x, y, surface);
myEmitter.gridResolution = 5;

If you have f.e. an image with a resolution of about 100×100 pixel, the emitter will render only 20×20 tiles. And for sure you have all the possibilities with the surface emitter that you have with the other emitter types(gravity, post effects, etc.). For difficult images you could also set the particle-concentration parameter to prevent performance issues. Last but not least, you could choose between color-matching on or off. And for sure, the surface emitter parameters are fully animateable.

This is the PNG-file i have used to emit from.

SurfaceEmitter, 300pps, grid-resolution of 2, particle-concentration of 10, no emit from transperant areas
(Move your mouse over the app to start the emit-process)

SurfaceEmitter, 300pps, grid-resolution of 2, particle-concentration of 10, no emit from transperant areas
(Move your mouse over the app to start the emit-process)

Finally, here you can download the updated code base with a quick and dirty class documentation and a test file.

Ps.: I have to give a big credit to the developers of Tweener. It’s a nice and easy-to-use tweening engine. All animations i have done for Particle2D are realized with this nice package.

Particle2D is a ActionScript 3.0 based particle simulator. I started the development because i need an easy-to-implement and animateable particle system. During the development process for this specific project i decided to give it a try and put some time into writing a basic particle simulator framework. There are already some features included, like PostEffects and GravitySimulation or different types of emitters(OmniEmitter, DirectionalEmitter) but there is a lot of work to do.

Have a look at the Demo here.

For the first release i want to have much more emitter types. I think surface or bitmap-emitters would be great. Also the particle-types should be extended (only shapes available until now).

So, now give us some code.

myEmitter = new OmniEmitter(this.stage.stageWidth / 2, this.stage.stageHeight / 2);
myEmitter.particlesPerSecond = 1000;

This two lines initializes a emitter with default values, if you want to change emitter, particleField or particle parameters you have to initialize several other objects. Have a look on how the post effects are applied.

var postEffects:ParticlePostEffect = new ParticlePostEffect();
postEffects.addPreset(ParticlePostEffect.BLUR);
postEffects.addPreset(ParticlePostEffect.OUTER_GLOW);
myEmitter.particleField.postProcessing = true;
myEmitter.particleField.postEffects = postEffects;

As you can see, the postEffects are applied to the particleField. I have implemented some presets for testing, but you can use every Filter that extends the BitmapFilter class.

Particle2D is designed for being a particle simulator which is animateable and reusable. For this reason there are some limitations you should know. Particle2D is not designed for creating a big amount of particles in a short time. The reason is, that the timer which triggers the particle generating process, depends on the current frame rate. The timer event is f.e. at 33 fps only called 330 times or less in a second. That means that in most cases this will be the maximum number.

Finally, here is a quick and dirty developer preview from Particle2D for download and testing.

I would recommend you to NOT use this in a real project.

I had a little mistake when i assinged a number to a variable.

var myNumber:Number = 0.0.25; 

The problem is that neighter the compiler nor the runtime error system recognized this mistake. I decide to post this, because it maybe save someones precious time.

http://theflashblog.com/?p=286

If this become true, Flash will trump them all.

NASA (National-Action-Script-Association), muahahaha

Ps.: An die Fr. Jellinek, nach dem ich dank rechtschreibkorrigierendem Fremdwirken jetzt endgültig jede Selbsicherheit beim englischen Schreiben verloren habe, ich habe über den Begriff lebende Fremdsprache nachgedacht und welche wirren Konstruktionen im Deutschen gebraucht werden, ich bin der Meinung man kann alles schreiben, so lange es jemand lesen kann.

• The crazy taxi driver who gets me to work today(traffic lights always turned to red when he is starting to get above the crossroads)
• The beautiful blond, sitting at Mc Donald’s, i am sure there was no gram fat on her gorgeous body.
• Kevin Sweeney

Who the hell is Kevin Sweeney. Kevin is featured in the current edition of Computer Arts magazine and he is an employee at the “we-want-to-be-pixar-for-interactivity” company, called Fantasy Interactive. I like Fantasy Interactive since the days they have called themselfes Fantasy Interfaces. They do a great work on everything what is about Flash Platform and Design/Typography and maybe these swedish ones, are the most advanced in the business.

But as i have read this article about Papervision3D from Kevin, my hair stood on end. Sure, the date of the article is right 2 month ago but as most of you know in July it was predictable that Papervision3D will become a powerful tool and it will be possible to integrate it into daily production pipeline. This was simply an unprofessional statement from Kevin and so he is the third person today i’m wondering about. I like Papervision3D much and i have used it for 2 small projects now. It simply works(in AS 2.0 and AS 3.0). Papervision3D has an extremely robust code base and is easy to use. The API is simply great and the possibility to use Collada for Object-Import is wonderful. And what is most impressing, the project is used in big project and it integrates seamlessly as you can see here.

Thumbs up to the dev team of Papervison3D.