Particles? what can/cant be done?

[Spiney]

Some pie in the sky thinking.

It would be cool if some Quake port did a fully fledged particle system. Preferably something that could be standardized and co-exist with existing effects.

What do I mean with 'fully fledged'? I mean you have variables like lifespan, size, rotation direction, and how those vary over a lifespan. Darkplaces particles are very nice and easy to mod, but doing some more extensive effects isn't possible using only effectsinfo. So I'dd like more functions for particles and more variables to tweak. This is a good example (it looks more involved then it really is)
Particle Effects for Games - TimelineFX

Another idea for stuff like fire would be to have an 8bit grayscale sprite (256 colors) and a texture with width of 256 as a look up table. The width would define the colors and the height would be the transition over time (so rows of look up colors that get traversed). So you could start with a gradient that goes from orange to yellow to white and ends with red to black. With additive blending that could give very convincing energy and fire effects, etc.

In the meanwhile we'll just need to live with Quake's limitations. Just would be nice to have and all...

[MadGypsy]

^Make it. You seem like you have a brain in your head, revolutionize some stuff. I regret to believe that you will give the same answer as everyone else in a similar (them:"I have an idea" me:"do it") situation.

"I cant"

Sometimes I wonder if anyone believes that they can do anything at all. All I ever hear is an idea followed by "I can't do it".

Anyway, just do it, man. There are plenty of engine sources out there - all you have to do is upgrade the particle system.

[Spiney]

Sure, I could do it if I had infinite time, haha. I can't be good at everything unfortunatly, I wish I had the time to do buckle down in to the nitty gritty of everything. I certainly interests me. I've learned to map, model, uv map, rig, animate, do basic QC, mix sounds etc over the past year. But coding is a whole other artform and I need to prioritize.

[Inkshock]

I wanted to answer in German (as it is our both mothertongue), but that would not be a good idea.

Not for the forum, anyway. You can write PMs, though

Then click on weapons.qc and search for "spawn_touchblood".

I used the standard void particle(vector origin, vector dir, float color, float count) you mention later.

I want the particles to go in random directions, but I don't want all of them to go in exactly the same direction. I want with every hit to have maybe 4 or 5 particles that behave maybe like sparks from a welding tool.

Try to use multiple particle calls in your function directly after another.

I'll try that later, maybe I'll have some time today.

Create a particle effect (small dot that flies away).

color = 0 for chunk
color = 75 for yellow
color = 73 for blood red
color = 225 for entity damage

I tried these values, they don't work. Yellow isn't yellow, it's red too on ProQuake.

You can look at the Quake color palette for example, or search for 8-bit color table in the internet

I tried looking up 8 bit tables, but they don't correspond to the Quake palette. I found the actual Quake palette, now I have to try if I can somehow "pick" the values from it.
Guide to Black color

[Spiney]

This page has the numbers superimposed on the colors:
Quake palette - Quake Wiki

[Inkshock]

Thanks, this is exactly what I need!

And it also shows that color = 75 for yellow isn't true at all.

[Amon26]

haha hey! that's awesome! thanks