Hydra Update 13/07

 We now have the option to set up billboard particles which follow the camera as an alternative to 3D mesh ones that we have been working on up until now.

I have slowly been testing and documenting the particle system and trying to make shaders using the node-based Shader Forge plugin. I am currently trying to set up a shader that will allow parts of a mesh to glow whilst not diminishing the original diffuse colours as this first example I tried, though the emssion 'glow' seems more prominent:

Hydra Update 03/07

 We've been working on organising our particle system in a more effective manner.

 Below is a breakdown of some of the components we are currently implementing. The particles system is being designed with 3D particles in mind, though we are hoping to implement billboard particles too at a later time.

EMITTER

Emission - number of models per sec
Simulation - Slow mo/fast forward
Energy - life span

Velocity - Rate of speed at which the particles are emitted
Rotation - Choose the rotational axis that each particle will turn on and the velocity at which it rotates
Scale - Size to which the meshes scale to

- There is the option for most of these component pieces to be randomised

RENDERERS

We're going to be providing access to 3 separate renderer options, as they all have pros and cons for different uses. All renders will have the options for casting/receiving shadows, setting a mesh and setting materials

Baked
Efficient to draw just heavy on CPU side - slow processing - hard limit on number of verts

GL
Our first experiment with GL particle renderer was slow - disappointing
This should have been fast to process and should be fast to draw cant figure out why - should be the fastest and most efficient of the 3

Draw
Fast to process but generates a ton of draw calls - one draw call for each material used

FORCES

Gravity - This should act in accordance with the settings for gravity under Edit >> Project Settings >> Physics

Gravity Well - Can be attached to an object to pull the particles in

Codename 'Hydra'

Myself and a colleague have been considering some ideas for a new Unity3D particle system for a few weeks now, but not had much time to start any work on such an idea. Now I currently have no work commitments, which now gives me plenty of time to start planning out lay out the ground work for it.

Our goal is to create a system to support 3D particles as a plug-in for Unity3D. We want to try and reduce the draw calls as much as possible, searching for the most efficient method to do this to allow the user to get the most amount of detail possible, without the drop in frame rate. We want to give an alternative to the current built-in Shuriken system. More information to follow soon...