Bi-directional particle sprite random rotation?

General
1

Hi, guys.

I’ve noticed that there’s no easy way to make particle sprites to randomly rotate in different directions within one point renderer. The Rotation Randomness attribute of the Point Renderer randomizes the speed of rotation, but not the direction in which the sprites are being rotated (for clarity I’ve attached a test file). Bi-directional random sprite rotation becomes really important when it comes to cheap smoke and fire simulations in game engines. I wish Notch had that too.

A nice workaround is to make a copy of the emitter+point renderer(+continuous modifier) under the same Particle Root node. Change the seed of either of the emitters, set either of the continuous modifiers to Sub and… voila (file attached)!

But tweaking 2 nodes instead of just one feels sorta… ineffective. Besides, it creates unnecessary system load…

If any of the devs is reading this, please, take note of this issue.

Thank you.

-Andy

2

Hi
I use clone to particle and randomise effector to do similar effect.

K.

3

Hi there,

The clone to particle rig works great for meshes but not sprites. Sprites can’t be cloned. However, a ‘sprite mesh’ primitive wouldn’t hurt. :wink:

Best,
-Andy

4

I do snow in this technique, half of was sprite and half primitive mesh with UV, that give me variety of behave, and nice natural view.

K.

5

Another tip is to use an Image Plane as a source geometry for the cloner, but you’ll have to constrain the orientation of the image plane to face camera by a Target Effector.