Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
In addition to being able to create custom effects, the Particle Emitter editor offers a col-
lection of prebuilt particle templates. These templates give you a great starting point for
creating your own custom effects.
Table 6-1
describes each of these templates.
Template
Name
Use
This template creates a hexagonal collection of particles that grow and blur and then fade out
at the end of their life cycles.
Bokeh
This template creates a fire effect that you might use as a torch or, just maybe, as the exhaust
of a spaceman.
Fire
The Fireflies template creates a collection of yellow particles that randomly move a short dis-
tance while growing and blurring and then fading out at the end of their life cycles.
Fireflies
The Magic template creates a collection of green (by default) particles that also randomly
move a short distance while growing and blurring before fading out at the end of their life
cycles.
Magic
The Rain template does just what you would think it would; it creates a collection of particles
that start at the top of the emitter and move toward the bottom of the screen with the purpose
of emulating a rain storm.
Rain
The Smoke template creates several large black particles that start at the bottom of the emitter
and move toward the top of the screen. As each particle moves toward the top of the screen, it
slowly fades out.
Smoke
The Snow template creates white, diffuse, round particles that start at the top of the emitter
and, like the Rain particles, move toward the bottom of the screen.
Snow
The Spark template creates short-lived, golden particles that burst out of the emitter in all 360
degrees before fading out to nothing.
Spark
Creating a Particle Emitter
Let's start playing around with these particle emitters. Go to Xcode and create a new iOS
project, using the Game template. Name it whatever you would like and save the project
wherever you would like. This project will be a “throwaway” project used only as a play
area for your emitter experiments.
