Re: [Flightgear-devel] Particle system future

[Edward d'A. <tru...@gm...>]

On 15 February 2016 at 07:36, Thorsten Renk
<tho...@sc...> wrote:
>
> As a look into our Wiki demonstrates, there's more than one issue with the
> particle system
>
> http://wiki.flightgear.org/Particle_system
>
> and I believe there's been talk about phasing it out before.
>
> However, I personally believe we should do this in a controlled way. From
> my own experience I know that I've spent several days tuning particle
> effects till they looked 'right'. If particles simply disappear and rain,
> spray, smoke, contrails, sparks, ... simply disappear, there's not only
> the users who will see this as a strong regression without a benefit but
> also the aircraft developers who will feel let down.

Hi Thorsten,

The particle system is buggy, not so well integrated, and very
computationally expensive - it requires a lot of CPU work - but I
don't think it needs to be eliminated.  I think there are benefits in
using both approaches.  For example a rendering framework independent
effect for boat wake for use by all the boats in the Terrascenery
database as well as the AI models, instead of overloading the
expensive particle system, might be of significant benefit.  It would
probably look more realistic than a spray of large square white water
particles as well.  So I see benefits of minimising the use of the
particle system, but not throwing it out completely.

Regards,

Edward