The fourth of July

The mere mention of Fourth of July has different meaning for us all, for the Americans it is Independence Day, It is also synonymous with Fireworks, which in many parts of the world is a common sight, be it Guy Fawkes Day, Bastille Day, Diwal and so on. Fireworks light up our skies and our lives, in the same way as particle explosions, etc light up our games on the mobile devices.

We had a review for Particle Candy, the 3rd Party Library to create particles for use in your CoronaSDK applications. The only little caveat here is that though the library comes with a rich set of samples to demonstrate a variety of Particles, what if you wanted to create a custom particle emitter, easy, change the settings, right? yes, but to what, which settings would change what?

Solution

From Michael Daly of 71 Squared, here is another offering, Particle Designer. A visual tool to create particles.

So what does it do

As the screenshot suggests, there is a Visual simulator which displays the particle effects, the orientation and the iOS device can be changed as per the liking. The main screen has a rich set of around 300 pre-set particle animations that can be used in your apps, the resulting data is saved as a pList file. The configuration screen that allows for tinkering with the settings looks like a very complicated control panel.

How can I use these in my apps

If you are developing using Cocos2D, there is a code sample with the app that demonstrates how to use the plist files. The entire settings used for the particle emitter are stored in the plist, so you can easily have various configurations and set them by just loading a new particle file. The plist files can also embed the textures (images) if any.

If you are wanting to use this with CoronaSDK via ParticleCandy, it might be a little work on the part of Mike or Mike (from x-pressive.com or 71squared.com) to make this happen. However the *complicated* control panel is not so complicated when you get to know it, so if you can pick up the relevant settings, watch a real time preview, put those setting into the lua file for the Particle Candy emitter, you are fine.

Summary

As mentioned earlier, Particles make a lot of difference to the app, it can make all the difference between realism and a stiff game. Many new games like Feed me Oil, Where's my water, sprinkle are using them, other older games use particles but not for FX but as the actual game, like in Tilt to Live. However be it for FX or for a swarming/agent/bot behaviour, particles make a lot of difference to the games. The ability to visually configure and tweak the same is just amazing. There are a couple of such apps on the store, however Particle Designer beats them all hands down in terms of presentation, the number of controllable parameters, the integrated file format, etc. Plus given the price of $7.99 it reminds me of the MAD magazine, they would have on their cover the price and followed by CHEAP. This is an amazing price for the functionality that it can add to your code.

For a more detailed view, here's a video


SUMMARY
Software : Particle Designer
Version : 1.3.1
Publisher : 71 Squared
Website : http://www.71squared.com
Twitter : @71squared
Platform : Mac OS X (10.6.x or higher)
Demo : DAYS days
Price : $7.99

And we have a copy of ParticleDesigner for one lucky winner, all you need to do
1. Follow @whatsin4me
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