SPARK2 Ideas... What you think ?

Hi Juff ! I try to make some kind of "mushroom cloud" effect... I implemented a Push modifier based on Nikolaus Gebhardt's CParticlePushAffector , but it has too much Vector length calculations and the group needs 3 Push modifiers to get a basic mushroom cloud effect... I didn't tested it but i'm sure it will be too slow if i create 5-6 mushroom cloud system...
I made another modifier which modifies the velocity of a particle , but i wasn't satisfied with it either...
So i realised that the best way to achieve this is to implement a VectorInterpolator and a PARAM_VELOCITY or a PARAM_OFFSET parameter and calculate the direction of the particles based on the vectors.
And simply use a GraphInterpolator to simulate the mushroom cloud ...

So what you think ? Which would be better ? A Modifier or a Param for this ? Also a VectorInterpolator would be useful in many other situations too

Regards

I'm taking at look know. I have to think a bit about it. Anyway I'm adding 3D textures support for smooth transition beteween indexed textures. So spark will be able to do something like the fire demo of Nvidia. A mushroom cloud will benefint enourmosly from that also.

Hi,

Having a new param is not really an option as the interface of SPARK may be enough as it is to achieve your effect.
You definitely have to write a modifier. The real strength of modifiers is that they can hold their own data per particle and process it.

If you want to interpolate custom data within a modifier, it should be possible, with little modification to SPARK code, to allow modifiers to encapsulates interpolators to interpolate their custom data. I will work on this to see if it is possible with little effort.

Regarding the VectorInterpolator, this can be useful. The only problem is that the way to interpolate the vector depends on what it represents.
For vectors representing positions, a simple linear interpolation on every member whereas for vectors representing a direction, they have to be converted to quaternions and the interpolation is performed on the quaternions, the the result is converted back to a vector.

If you started a modifier and dont manage to get the desire effect, dont hesitate to show you code, so we can help.

@Rampollo : When you talking about integrating 3D textures, you mean in the Direct3D renderer ? Because 3D textures are already supported with OpenGL. If you get a result, I m interested in integrating your code to the official release.

no no I mean OpenGL . I found 3d textures support in the opengl renderer. But i didn't find where is possible changin the 3rd coordinate of the texture. in the interpolators

To change the 3rd coordianate of the texture, you need to use an interpolator on the group for PARAM_TEXTURE_INDEX
Exactly the same as with texture atlas for texture 2D