Mercury Particle Engine

New Post: Source code for samples?

62316e — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 12:03:47 GMT

Yo... where can i download Beta? i'm really want to see FarseerPhysicsModifier:)

New Post: XNA 2.0 Release

genbox — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:07:00 GMT

I have a modified version of Skinakas working with XNA 3.0 CTP. I've fixed a bug where the textures would not be loaded because an particleeffect has no rendering.
I've moved the content into the XNA content folder \Content and modified the paths in the source code.

I've also backported AtmosphereModifier and DampingModifier from an earlier codebase not avaliable from codeplex.
There is also 3 controllers: MouseClickController, MouseController and ScreenCurveController where MouseController comes from the earlier codebase.

It's uploaded here for those who want it:
Download here

New Post: Rendering on a renderTarget

YourFurryFiend — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 20:28:24 GMT

Ok after looking at it properly, I realised that I just was just mixing with the clear colour of the rendertarget :|

Nothing to see here, move along!

NEW POST: XNA 2.0 Release

YourFurryFiend — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:39:00 GMT

Hey guys,

I've not had many problems (if any) with converting it to XNA 2.0. What problems are you having? I might be able to help.

Andy, did you sort your problem? I'm thinking that the Content references weren't updated or that it was picking up an old version of PointSprite due to a wrong path

Cheers!

NEW POST: Rendering on a renderTarget

YourFurryFiend — Mon, 05 May 2008 18:35:20 GMT

Hey,

Has anybody used Mercury with renderTargets? I'm using a camera system, whereby the scenes contents are rendered to a render target. This means I'm not using Mercury with XNA components to Draw as I have to draw at a specific time. The thing is that, the PointSprite.fx shader is not writing to my renderTarget and I'm not sure why. I might be missing something obvious; any ideas are appreciated.

Cheers!

NEW POST: XNA 2.0 Release

sonofdaedalus — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 02:52:40 GMT

Seems like the project is fairly abandoned...

Has anyone taken a stab at porting the last release to xna2.0? I just took a stab a porting the caloris release, but wasn't successful... (I still have a lot to learn about xna I'm afraid)... anyway, I got as far as swapping out the references for xna 2.0 and changing the LoadGraphicsContent methods to LoadContent and ran the app... but, I get the following exception:

Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentLoadException was unhandled
Error loading "PointSprite". This file was compiled using the wrong version of the XNA Framework.

from this line in the BasicRenderer:

            this._pointSpriteEffect = base.Content.Load<Effect>("PointSprite");

I'm not sure what this means... do I need to modify the fx file in some way? Anyway - if anyone is interested in porting caloris to 2.0, maybe we can figure it out together and it won't be too bad... anyone out there who already has done this- maybe you can respond... would be greatly appreciated.

Andy.

NEW POST: XNA 2.0 Release

cdxrd — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 18:53:50 GMT

I would love to know this myself! I've been looking all over for a good 2d particle engine, and this could do it (or so I've heard) but I need it to play nicely with xna 2.0. Is this dead or is there a general eta?

NEW POST: XNA 2.0 Release

sirsteveman — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 03:05:30 GMT

I know you've mentioned that you had a XNA 2.0 build, and we've been waiting for a couple months for it. Do you think you could upload it, or is the project abandoned?

Thanks,

Steve

NEW POST: Removing emitters and Pausing the engine.

Vedranb — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 00:28:55 GMT

Hey, I'm just wondering about the status of that December 11th build. I'd also love to be able to pause the particles when necessary.

I've tried assigning emitter.ReleaseQuantity = 0 to 'pause' the particles, but with no results. Right now my pause method just consists of disabling the Effect when pausing is necessary. The problem with that is that the math keeps updating. When I enable the effect again it begins where it would have left off if I hadn't previously disabled it.

Now of course that's expected: That's what the code is supposed to do. I'm just hoping the new build comes out and we can all .Pause() to our heart's content.

Thanks,

Vedran.

NEW POST: Beginner's Questions

ChristianB — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 21:30:17 GMT

That looks to be the right one!

Thank you very much for this

NEW POST: Beginner's Questions

Vedranb — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 10:24:40 GMT

Alright, I've done some research.

That link posted to the old versions does not work, but there's hope:

http://www.codeplex.com/Project/Download/FileDownload.aspx?ProjectName=mpe&DownloadId=4801

That's the link to ProjectMercury1.0.

Thanks to http://www.archive.org I was able to find the old link.

Hope it helps somebody out.

NEW POST: Problem with XNA 2.0

chedabob — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 13:05:06 GMT

I'm using the code that is in the Skinakas demo, but in XNA 2.0. When the emitter is created, I get the following error:

System.ArrayTypeMismatchException was unhandled
Message="Attempted to access an element as a type incompatible with the array."

Any ideas how I can get around this?

NEW POST: Beginner's Questions

ChristianB — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 11:02:14 GMT

Hi, I have searched high and low and can't seem to find a tutorial or documentation anywhere.

Would it be possible to have the tutorials from the previous versions? I have downloaded the latest version and I it's impressive, but I would like to understand it a little better before I attempt to use it within anything

Thanks!

NEW POST: Upgraded to 2.0

Vinnepin — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 08:21:59 GMT

Hey all,

I used the fantastic particle engine for xna 1.0 where it all worked perfectly.

Now i upgraded it to the new 2.0 and i got some read acces violations.

When i created the basicrender i called LoadContent after it. In that function it creates a vertexdeclaration from the verts from the static class. Now when i called this function i crashes when he tries to instantiate that vertexdeclaration with an exception.
That exception tells me that something there is read protected or damaged in the mem (cant translate it perfectly). This all worked perfectly with 1.0 version.

Does anyone else have this problem?

NEW POST: Custom renderer?

Vinnepin — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 22:32:06 GMT

Thanks for the reply JimJams :).

I just mimic'ed the particleeffect class into a new class but then without the drawablecomponent. Then i just call the renders manually and everything works like a charm :).

The only problem i had is hat i forgot to turn off the spritebatch..... my fault hehe.

Anyway thanks again and cheers for this very nice engine!! :D

NEW POST: Custom renderer?

JimJams — Sun, 28 Oct 2007 09:00:10 GMT

I think the problem is that you're creating and or setting the particle effects renderer too late in the code. The particle effect should be instantiated in the games constructor or in the Initialize method. The renderer should also be instantiated and assigned to the particle effect at this time, this should all happen before the game enters the LoadGraphicsContent method. If you create the particle effect or renderer during the LoadGraphicsContent method, it's too late to catch the event and doesn't get loaded.

You're not the first to bring up this issue, i think in the next revision i will make the Renderer class an independant game component, rather than hanging it off the ParticleEffect class.

To the issue of drawing order, it should be easy to convert the ParticleEffect class from GameComponent into whatever format your scene graph needs. Unfortunately everyones needs in that respect are individual and i can't possibly cater for all of them, which is why i stuck with GameComponent. If however you do want to keep it as a DrawableGameComponent, you should pay attention to where the base.Draw() call is in your Draw() method. It is in base.Draw() that all the drawable game components will be drawn, so putting this at the bottom of your Draw() method should draw them all behind your custom drawing code.

Hope that helps a bit :)

NEW POST: Custom renderer?

Vinnepin — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 18:33:14 GMT

Here i made a screenshot of what is happening. This is a transition between my screens. This happens because i render everything myself i think.

http://www.soolstyle.com/images/renderorder.png

At this screen i stopped rendering and updating the emitor.

And i disabled the emitor, else i couldn't draw by myself....

NEW POST: Custom renderer?

Vinnepin — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 16:50:02 GMT

Hey, first of very nice particle engine as far as i have seen in your demo!

First a bug? When i included your project into mine, i got a nullreference execption because the textures wheren't loaded in the base class of the renderer. When i called the function LoadContent from the Renderer everything was fine, but i found it strange that this doesn't load automatically.

Second, is it possible to render the particles by yourself and not trough the DrawableGameComponent?? I dont use that in my project and i just want to have everything in control by myself :P. The problem now is that these particles are drawn before my scene.... kinda sucks :P.

I tried to draw them through the effect class, but again nothing is shown on the screen.

Thanks in advance!

NEW POST: New release?

GentooBox — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 20:52:04 GMT

JimJams - I'm very happy to have you back :)

I've already used your new engine in a game and I love it !
It's a joy coding with your particle engine and the performance is insane! (much better than the old engine) I saw that you reused some of the structure from the old engine, I easily ported some code from the old engine to the new one. I needed to do an explosion, and you had that coded in your old engine.

I thank you very much for this contribution.

UPDATED WIKI: Home

JimJams — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 14:13:48 GMT

Mercury Particle Engine

Latest release 14.October.2007

Mercury Particle Engine is a 2D particle system for Microsofts XNA Framework. It allows developers to add impressive visual effects to their Windows & XBox360 games with minimum effort.

In order to provide users with the best possible balance of extensibility & performance for their own particular requirements, i have split Project Mercury into two separate branches: 'Skinakas' and 'Caloris'.

Skinakas focuses slightly more on extensibility, giving the user the option to create their own customized particle structure with their required fields. Skinakas opens up possibilities for advanced effects utilizing modifiers that attach custom data to particles, resurrecting hope for the long overdue Farseer Physics modifier. Skinakas is recommended for projects targeting the Windows platform, and although it is compatible with the Xbox360, performance is likely to be limiting on the 360s' CLR.

Caloris focuses on pure unadulterated speed, at the expense of some extensibility. Caloris is highly optimized for the XBox360, achieving efficiency similar to Skinakas on the Windows platform. The ability to create customized particle structures has been removed, locking users into a predefined particle format. Caloris is recommended for projects targeting the XBox360 platform.

!!New Devblog
I've started a new development blog (mostly) about Project Mercury. Read all about it!