| We are seeing many new resources for the FlashR designer. Flash particle systems are very popular. In the past, if you wanted to create falling snow or rain, you needed to write your own ActionScript code for the particle system. Now, we have many "packaged" particle systems that range from free open source to commercial. Why would you want to use one of these systems if you can write your own in ActionScript? There is no reason why you couldn't use your own code except for the ease and flexibility of these systems, as well as the savings in production time. Let's take a look at some of the common features. Most systems come with at least a few preset effects. It's relatively easy to change the parameter values to customize these effects to your needs. Although most systems have supporting documentation in the form of ASDocs, this may not be very much help unless you are familiar with particle systems and how they work. Luckily, a few systems also have a user guide or a few tutorials that will demonstrate how to use the system. Most systems support XML control of the particles in order to customize the effect without the need to recompile. A few have a particle explorer, which is a user interface for changing parameter values and previewing the results. Flint Particle System http://flintparticles.org/ Author: Richard Lord MIT Licence User Guide: No ASDocs Tutorials: Few Examples: Yes, with AS3, Flash and Flex code Supports 2D and 3D particle effects Forum: Yes Stardust AS3 Particle Engine http://code.google.com/p/stardust-particle-engine/ Author: Allen Chou MIT License User Guide: Yes ASDocs Video Tutorials on YouTube Tutorials on ActiveTuts Examples: Yes Supports 2D and 3D particle effects Forum: Yes Pulse Particles http://www.rogue-development.com/ Author: Marc Hughes MIT License User Guide: No ASDocs Tutorials: Few Examples: Few Particle Explorer: Yes Orion Particle Engine http://blog.coursevector.com/orion Authors: Gabriel Mariani and James Efstathiou User Guide: No ASDocs Examples: Yes Particle Explorer: Yes Partigen 2 http://desuade.com/ Author: Andrew Fitzgerald MIT license: Source Code only ASDocs Examples: 165+ Particle Explorer within Flash IDE (commercial) Control entire life of particle Flash Particle Studio http://www.increditools.com/flash_particle_studio/index.php Author: Increditools Commercial License Examples: Few Export as AVI, SWF, FLV or PNGs Join us in the Flash forum. |
