With huge thanks to Trung Le (Kagamma), we have a new 3D particle system for CGE, and serious upgrades to the existing 2D particle system:

1. The 2D particle system has now an alternative GPU-based implementation.

   It allows to render 1 million particles on the screen, with FPS still stable at 60 🙂

   Note: It is using Transform Feedback and some OpenGL 3+ stuff, so an OpenGL 3.3+ compatible graphics card is required, and it doesn’t yet work on mobile. But there is still a CPU-based compatible implementation, just use TCastle2DParticleEffect instead of TCastle2DParticleEmitterGPU, and it will work everywhere.

2. We have a new 3D particle system:

   • With a GPU-based implementation.

     As above, it is using Transform Feedback, so an OpenGL 3.3+ compatible graphics card is required, and it doesn’t yet work on mobile. There is no CPU implementation in this case, so it doesn’t (yet!) run everywhere where CGE is.

   • With its own 3D particle editor and JSON-based format to design 3D particle systems.

Both particle emitters nicely integrate in the editor — you can put them in editor_units in your CastleEngineManifest.xml, and they will register components like 3D Particle Emitter (GPU), 2D Particle Emitter, 2D Particle Emitter (GPU).

Get the linked repositories and run demos inside!

Both repositories are listed now on our gallery of CGE components. (Do you develop any components that may be useful for other CGE developers? Let us know and we’ll happily add your components there.)

See also forum posts about these developments: 3D particle system, Cge-2d-particle-emitter now supports GPU-based particle.