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Hey all,
This patch adds a particle editor to scene wallpapers, more particle presets and uses a new runtime that is less prone to break when there are system issues with Windows (i.e. msvcp DLLs missing). Existing particles can be fully edited now and you can create new ones too. The entire particle system has been rewritten with SSE2 instructions for performance improvements and lots of new properties and behaviors for particles have been added.
Particles now support event driven hierarchies, two different rendering modes, mouse interaction, various forces/turbulence and a number of linear animations. They do not support animated textures/spritesheets yet which is in my opinion a must-have to make certain effects (fire, smoke) look good, so I will likely add that in the future.
An example particle that uses forces, turbulence and interacts with the mouse cursor:
https://gyazo.com/963104e87df495ae272e71e80b8bc8ce
And a few exemplary wallpapers you can subscribe to (click them to check out their video previews). The project files can be downloaded below, copy to projects/myprojects/:
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=932720254
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=932721232
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=932722060
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=932722750
(Remove space)
Campfire http://www.mediafire .com/file/rc6lwhgj9thdj7f/campfire.zip
River http://www.mediafire .com/file/3694366zew3rxra/jungleriver.zip
City http://www.mediafire .com/file/domw5ox47dfsqr7/cityfireworks.zip
Jungle http://www.mediafire .com/file/m57pa82jd0uruuq/tropicalrain.zip
I haven't made a guide for the particle editor yet, because I think this kind of information belongs on a wiki which I will start working on later. The next patch will focus on improvements for multi-monitor environments and I'm going to spend some time on cleaning up the FAQ threads on the forum somehow as well.
Full changelog
Additions
- Added particle editor.
- Added Nitro image effect.
- Added more rendering stats for particles.
- Added detection for corrupted 32-bit d3dx9_43.dll and prompt for the user to fix the file.
- Added refraction to particle shader.
- Added texture browser to texture properties.
- Added inheritable control point system to particles.
- Added angular velocity to particles.
- New particle operators: oscillate alpha, oscillate size, simplex noise turbulence, vortex force, control point attract, angular movement.
- New particle renderer: sprite trail.
Fixes
- Fixed more Boost mount point issues.
- Fixed some image blend modes ignoring alpha values.
- Fixed wallpapers not unpausing when task views are in the foreground (alt-tab, win-tab).
Misc
- Changed runtime to Visual Studio 2017, v141 and static linking.
- Changed UI update prompt to immediately close app instead of relying on the updater to close it later.
- Rewrote particle system with SSE2 instructions.
- Changed NVAPI to always set the .exe files to the integrated GPU again.