As part of the last update, a new app got added to the demos, which we think is worth writing an own blog post: The Felgo Particle Editor. As videos say more than a thousand words, here is a demo of it:
The Particle Editor allows to create and modify particle effects. Your particle property changes are applied immediately, which makes it very easy to test different settings and to get the perfect look for your game effects. If you are not satisfied with the results, just double-click on the sliders and the changed value will be reset to its default setting.
The great thing is, that it is not only available on all supported desktop platforms Windows, Mac OS X and Linux, but also on all mobile platforms including iOS, Android, Symbian and MeeGo! This is perfect for testing the particle performance directly on your target devices and allows you to see the performance impact of property changes while the app is running.
The editor source code is available as part of the Felgo download in the folder <Felgo SDK Installation Directory>/Demos/FelgoSDK/ParticleEditor/ You can copy the example and add your own particle effects for creation of totally new effects, or for testing the performance impact of particle properties. As particles are quite performance-intensive on mobile devices, we added a dedicated performance section to the Particle documentation.
If you want to use your particle effects with the Particle Editor, you should use the new Particle component instead of the old Particles component, which is now deprecated. The API got a bit simplified, which led us to the decision to add a new component. The old Particles component is still working fine, so if you do not want to use the new functionality you do not need to adapt it to the new one. You can find an overview which properties got changed here.
The Felgo Particle Editor is a project we are continuing to work on, and which we will publish in the App Stores. The final version will include the option to import particle effects more easily and to export them to plist format so the effects are also usable with other engines like cocos2d. Additionally we will add the feature to share your particle creations with other users within the app. What else would you expect of a great particle editor? Let us know in the comments section below, or in our support forums.
