Particle Designer 1.0b – Released
*** WARNING: THE PARTICLE DESIGNER APPLICATION CAN CONSUME MANY MORE HOURS THAN EXPECTED AND SHOULD BE USED WITH CAUTION ***
We are proud to announce the release of Particle Designer 1.0b. This is a beta version of the app which we want to use to get peoples feedback and identify any bugs that may exist.
Feedback about Particle Designer can be submitted using the feedback button within the app itself. Feedback submitted is placed as a comment against this post so that everyone can see the feedback submitted by users.
This will be a supported and regularly updated application and will come with the particle emitter class needed to consume the Particle Designers config files. We feel this will become an important tool in a game developers toolkit. To support the development and hosting of this application it will therefore carry a small one-off charge. We would very much like to hear your comments about this approach.
For this reason the save feature in this version has been disabled and will be available in the final version of Particle Designer. This version does however support the sharing of emitters. Shared emitters are saved and distributed through our website and on entering the Shared Emitters panel inside Particle Designer, you will be able to see our initial emitters and all those shared by other users. When sharing an emitter it will be reviewed by Tom or I to make sure we don’t end up with a large number of duplicates, and is then made available to others through the shared emitter function in the app.
Tom and I hope you really enjoy playing with Particle Designer as much as we have and we are looking forward to your feedback and suggestions.
Mike/Tom
50 Comments
penguins on April 17th, 2010
I too am getting the same error.
I am running snow leopard 10.6.2.
I am so happy this got released!! I can’t wait to try it out.
Mike on April 17th, 2010
Sorry guys. We are looking into the error and will post a new version shortly.
Mike
Tom on April 17th, 2010
Hi guys, I’ve been able to replicate the issue and I’m working on a fix!
Thanks
fredflinstone on April 17th, 2010
Just to say, I also get the same error. I am running 10.6.3.
Also the date of the blog post says 22 March 2010.
Unless I’ve lost track of days and we have gone back in time i’m pretty sure it is the 17th April.
Good luck finding the source of the error.
Tom on April 17th, 2010
We have fixed the error! Mike is just finishing off a few things and he will update the site with the new version.
mike on April 17th, 2010
Sorry about the problems. I created my own IBPlugin and framework for displaying particle emitters on the shared emitter panel in the app. We wanted to have a cool looking image of the emitter which a reflection etc. This was not configured in a manner that allowed it to be embedded within the App so that needed to be set up.
That’s now been done and tests indicate it should work fine now, so download the latest version and let us know how it goes.
Thanks
Mike
P.S. The post date is old as we created the original post back on the 22nd March for testing. I’ve used the same post and made it sticky so it will stay on the front page. That is why the date looks odd. So no, we haven’t created a time machine ;o)
Tony on April 17th, 2010
Haha! Awesome. This has given me ideas for games based on a single particle emitter and nothing else.
I think your idea of a small one-off charge is fair.
The only bugs I see are the ones in the app I’m SUPPOSED to be working on, instead of playing with smiley faces blowing up on my screen.
Great job, as usual!
Tweets that mention Particle Designer 1.0b – Released | 71² - The ramblings of two 30-something developers -- Topsy.com on April 17th, 2010
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Joe Meenen, cocos2dfan_jp. cocos2dfan_jp said: cocos2dでも使えるのか！？ Particle Designer 1.0bリリース。ただし現在エラーがでて使えず・・・orz しばらくお待ちを。 http://www.71squared.com/2010/.....ot-remove/ [...]
Tony on April 17th, 2010
Hi guys,
I’m a stickler for detail! There’s a letter n missing on the Share screen, “…subject to aN approval …”. Also, I just noticed on the feedback screen, Thankyou should be two words. Great icon!
Thanks,
Tony
Tzahi on April 18th, 2010
keyboard copy and paste isn’t working on the info screens (share, feedback, etc…) but maybe its only on my machine.
btw,
Thanks for a great application can’t wait for the final version.
Trevor Newsome on April 18th, 2010
Hi Mike, When do you think you might be posting more tutorials? Can one be to show how you can run the simulator and pass live data in from the computer like you have in this Particle Generator app. Yes I think it is a good idea about the one off charge.
Trev
nexus6 on April 18th, 2010
Nice app Mike, this will save a lot of time. That is once I can stop playing around with it. :-)
It sure beats having to sit and tweak parameters around and running the simulator to see what it looks like…
Nice Job…
nexus6 on April 18th, 2010
hey Mike, I noticed that when you use the Radial emitter type. All of the up/down buttons under the Rotation Heading change ( Max Particles ) instead what they are meant to do.
ZeroC on April 18th, 2010
Hi. Love it. What’s the price for the full xcode project (source code)? I would really love to have it.
Tom on April 18th, 2010
ZeroC, glad you like the app! Unfortunately, we won’t be releasing the source code to this program as neither Mike or myself have the time to support the source code. This allows us to retain control over the application and spend more time adding functionality to it. We both appreciate your interest and if you have any idea’s on features you’d like to see, drop us an email or post a message here.
Thanks
Simon on April 18th, 2010
I look forwarding to checking this out when I get back to my mac :) . Could you clarify something though. Are you saying that anything I create on this beta version of the app can’t be saved and used in my app?
Thanks
Simon
mike on April 18th, 2010
Hi Simon, I hope you enjoy it.
Your right, this version does not save the config to a file that can be used in your app. This will be in the final version.
Mike
Tony on April 18th, 2010
I’m not sure if this is what nexus6 meant, but when I switch to Radial, the up/down buttons, in the Rotation section, restart the emitter, but do not change their corresponding values.
Thanks,
Tony
mike on April 18th, 2010
Yep, that is what nexus was talking about. I’m fixing the problem at the moment. We are also adding sparkle support so that there is automated updates etc.
I’m hoping to get the next release out as soon as possible.
Let us know if you find anything else.
Thanks
Mike
nexus6 on April 19th, 2010
Hi Mike,
I also noticed that if you try to load an emitter.xml file it says it can’t find the image then it won’t let you out of the load screen, even if you use the cancel button.
Are we going to be able to load our own particle texture?
PS:
This is a great app
alnp1987 on April 19th, 2010
Hi Mike and Tony,
Thanks so much for this great app. I just love the interface and the layout you have came out with. Since I read the post about Mike working on this app I was eager to see the beta version. I hope to see support for the iPad in the coming version of this nice app.
Alvaro
mike on April 19th, 2010
Hi nexus
If you simply drag a 64×64 image into the image well, that image will be used as the texture. I think there is a small bug wen sharing an emitter with it’s own texture which we are looking into.
@Alvaro, we are looking at creating an iPad version of this editor as well as it would be very cool :0)
Mike
Tony on April 19th, 2010
@alnp1987: Thank you for the credit, but Mike and Tom have done all done work. I’m just and avid user, but will happily accept part of the proceeds!
@Mike: I hadn’t noticed that you could drag an image. I assumed that would be in the paid version along with saving. Great. Very well designed app.
Tony
Simon on April 19th, 2010
Hi Mike,
Happy to take a look and give feedback on the Beta. What sort of fee were you thinking for the final version?
rookie on April 19th, 2010
Cool and great stuff you have here! It can be develop as the commercial app, something like Particle Illusion. http://www.wondertouch.com/
mike on April 19th, 2010
@rookie, that is an interesting app and looks like its very configurable.
@Simon, thanks :o)
We have not set on a final price yet, but the highest it would be is £4.99
Mike
Ant1Vanden on April 20th, 2010
Hey,
Can I run it on Leopard r do I need Snow Leopard?
Thanks
Looks great getting Snow Leopard tomorrow I’ll try it them…
mike on April 20th, 2010
@Ant1Vanden, the app has been compiled for 10.6 Snow Leopard, so your coming upgrade is perfectly timed :o)
Mike
Holm76 on April 20th, 2010
Hi Mike.
Do you plan on creating a Leopard build?
Thing is I don’t plan on getting Snow Leopard but would like to help test this application… on regular Leopard.
Brian Braatz on April 20th, 2010
Love the particle designer!
Do you have a mailing list to get on? I would love to buy it when it is done!
thanks,
Brian
A Person on April 21st, 2010
Wow i just had a play with this and i must say this is really amazing. I spent about half an hour trying all the different effects i could make, i especially love the shared emitters section lots of cool ideas there. One thing i noticed is the radial effect particle emitter, although you may have already included this in the particle emitter tutorial i have not seen this before but it looks awesome.
FoxtrotF on April 21st, 2010
“You cannot use this version of the application Particle Designer with this version of Mac OS X” I’m running 10.5.8 ?
Tom on April 21st, 2010
No, like Mike said “the app has been compiled for 10.6 Snow Leopard” only. We may look at compiling for Leopard but to be honest we’d like to stay current and not spend much time supporting old technology. Besides, the Snow Leopard upgrade is only £25.
Holm76 on April 21st, 2010
Yeps. I totally understand.
But are there any specific Snow Leopard references used?
Or could you just flip a dropdown and change output to be compiled for Leopard. Then it’d be an easy compile.
Unfortunately the upgrade is $42 USD in my region which isn’t a whole lot but I dont understand why any would have to upgrade to Snow just to be able to run the next version of XCode and the applications it compiles unless there are any specific Snow Leopard references that it needs.
This is only a rant at Steve Jobs. Not you guys. I love what you are giving back to the community and I also bought your book at safari. You are only using the tools that Steve is providing.
(Yes. Im a windows user if you hadn’t noticed)
Tom on April 21st, 2010
I did try compiling for Leopard but it failed with 51 errors. We could try and make it backwards compatible with Leopard but seeing as the latest version of Xcode targets Snow Leopard only I really don’t think it’s a good use of our time. Snow Leopard does bring a truckload of new features to the OS and it’s quite a significant update. Our application makes use of a large number of these features.
Thanks
Holm76 on April 21st, 2010
Ok too bad. Thanks for trying.
Oh and even before you posted I made the stupid decision to shell out for this upgrade. So Im going to be able to run it tonite anyways.
Looking forward to trying it out and creating some amazing effects.
Tom on April 21st, 2010
Great! Hope you like it!
Holm76 on April 21st, 2010
Snow Leopard or Particle Designer
;)
.
Holm76 on April 21st, 2010
Hi there
So got Snow Leopard installed and am now trying the tool.
Its awesome. Particle Designer that is. Not Snow Leopard :)
Holm76 on April 21st, 2010
Hi again.
I already have some suggestions.
When I first start the application all properties are set to some default value. Testing out a property its nice to be able to quickly get back to the default value for that property. Clicking the corrosponding label or adding a little round thing a majig next to the label or control would enable this.
And if you try and variate a property from a saved emitter the default could be the loaded/saved value. Not the default value of a new emitter.
Oh and it would be nice if this Feedback dialog would remember name and email. Little thing I know but its nice when applications memember stuff.
Thanks you guys. You rock.
Holm76
Holm76 on April 21st, 2010
One of my key pillars when starting new projects is preserving windows preferences. Making sure that the application starts in the exact location in was closed and the same size and state of the window.
Now you app here is simple in terms of window stat given that you dont allow resize. It only supports one size. Which is perfectly acceptable for an app like this.
I dont know how this works on a mac but on windows remembering the window location is a pretty simple matter.
So windows location.
Currently I close the app to reset the setting and start over with a fresh emitter and the first thing I do is to move the app to the location in which I find it best. Sure would be nice if it could remember it for me.
Thanks.
Tom on April 21st, 2010
Holm76, Thanks for the comments!
Storing the window position and size is a very simple matter indeed. It’s a case of giving a windows a name in the xib file. OSX takes care of the rest ;)
I’ll get this sorted.
Glad you like the app!
Holm76 on April 21st, 2010
Here is another.
So Im thinking of using an emitter for space ship thrust.
What I would like to do is to somehow load my spaceship graphic into the app and then be able to place in somewhere on the iPhone surface or it could just be centered on the iPhone screen.
Then I’d be able to guide the emitter at the end of my graphics and then from there design the perfect thrust emitter for my graphic.
That would be awesome.
Thanks.
Tom on April 22nd, 2010
Yep, that is a great idea, and one we have had ourselves. You’d really be able to get a feel for how the particle emitter would look alongside other game components. This feature, will become part of a future release.
Thanks
ninjutsucoder on April 22nd, 2010
Super duper little app, looking forward to the finished app :)
It makes time fly…
Anonymous on April 26th, 2010
Brilliant, love it.
Ant1Vanden on May 5th, 2010
I have been really busy (as soon as I got snow leopard I was catapulted into the universe of 4.0) but I finally checked out the particle emitter and it is truly amazing!
Thank you so much
I have an unrelated question do you think apple is going to ban game salad? I personally strongly dislike it…
Linh on July 26th, 2011
abc
Shuang on April 17th, 2010
Dyld Error Message:
Library not loaded: //MTRoundedImageView.framework/Versions/A/MTRoundedImageView
Referenced from: /Users/shuang/Downloads/Particle Designer.app/Contents/MacOS/Particle Designer
Reason: image not found