Creating Seamless Animated Sprite From Particles

R

robproctor83

Guest
Hello,

Quick details, I have a game that uses delta time and in order to get particles to work with delta time I have some complicated stuff going on that takes up more FPS than normal. So, I was using particle effects for static effects like lights and a few other things, but now in an attempt to optimize performance I want to convert these static position particles to sprites. The problem is, I don't know how to do that. How to take something animated like this and convert it to a loopable sprite. To make things even more complicated I need three separate animations that all flow into each other:

1) Activate - the particles start streaming upward
2) Stream - the particles flow in a seamless loop (60 frames preferably)
3) Deactivate - the particles stop streaming

I purchased what I thought would solve this, a program called Pixel FX Designer, which works in some ways but ultimately doesn't produce what I need. My game is pixel art, 270p res, and for whatever reason pixeldesigner doesn't seem to work well with particles that small (1-4px particles). It produces some distortions and artifacts that ruin it for me.

Anyways, I am wondering if anyone has any suggestions. My ideal solution would be able to use my existing particles somehow, so some GM tool that I can paste my data into. But, whatever works is okay with me, I just need a way to get the particles to be the right resolution and still look right.
 

Yal

šŸ§ *penguin noises*
GMC Elder
How about designing particles in much bigger size in Pixel FX Designer, generate sprites from that, and then shrinking them to the size you need?

To generate graphics from your existing particle effects, you could use a program that records GIFs from the screen (I think even GMS2 has functions for that now!) and then just create an empty room with only the particle emitter object. Spawn the effect, record it to a GIF, and then post-process it in GIMP or Photoshop to cut out unused blank space and stuff and bam, you've got your sprite.
 
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