71² – The ramblings of two 30-something developers

gheidorn  on May 5th, 2011

I’m having trouble getting my PD 1.3 to update to 1.4. Do I need to re-download or something? When I check for updates, it tells me 1.3 is the latest.

Thanks for a great product,
Greg

mike  on May 5th, 2011

If you download the current version from the website, that will automatically pick up your license giving you the latest version.

Not sure why it’s not updating automatically…

Mike

gheidorn  on May 5th, 2011

Thanks for the quick reply!

If it helps, I hadn’t picked up the 1.2 or 1.3 until I saw the 1.4 announcement. Perhaps something in taking multiple updates is bugging your update? Maybe that helps … shame on me for not staying current! :)

Trisect Development  on May 5th, 2011

Well my Particle designer 1.3 also does not update automatic.

mike  on May 5th, 2011

Hmmm, very odd. I’ve just tried doing an update using the old 1.2 release and it picked it up fine, from a none dev machine.

I’ll have to have a dig around to see what may be happening.

Thanks guys

Mike

mr.Ugly  on May 5th, 2011

Please make new controls at least optional..

from the screenshot it looks more like your taking care about the look of the gui and not the usability of it.. :/ i don’t need funky sliders.. i rather like it to be functional and easy to handle

mike  on May 5th, 2011

Thanks for the honest feedback. That is exactly the kind of feedback we are after. Usability is very important to us and the app. Sharing these controls early and also providing test apps as we can we are hoping to get input early in the dev cycle so we can address issues and concerns.

Mike

Trisect Development  on May 5th, 2011

I download PD from the website but it still says its version 1.3
And still does not update to 1.4

mike  on May 5th, 2011

Bugger, that’s my fault. There is no Particle Designer 1.4, only 1.3, it’s Glyph Designer that is at 1.4.

I had Glyph Designer in my head when I read the first comment and managed to confuse myself LOL

If you have Particle Designer 1.3 then you are up to date.

Sorry about that :o)

Mike

Mario  on May 5th, 2011

Hi Mike:
I hope everyone write a opinion.
I think that a redesign of the UI will be great, because now we see a bunch of controls all so similar. Great idea to use other controls, a better use of the limited space for so many controls(maybe you add more in the future). Don’t forget that we can lock the control for random, so the little gray circles can lock the control. Some suggestions:

- Separate sections with a different symbol or background, to distinguish better each one.
- In the colors better use a palette, so we can reuse and save the colors and select in a easy way. That will be great and put all color controls in other section with different controls.
-I really like the prototype, maybe add some values to the control , so we look and we can see the limits, the middle value too.
-And let user select “classical interface” or the new. That way we can select if we wan’t use a more fun UI :D
Best regards.

headkaze  on May 6th, 2011

Hi Mike

Is is possible to add an option to support a perspective view? The values are currently exported as pixels. It would be nice to have an option to set a pixel ratio. Eg. 1.0f:0.1f. Then all appropriate values are multiplied by 0.1f when exported.

Tawashi  on May 6th, 2011

Hi Mike,
I think the tutorials deserve some love too :-) , we’re waiting!!
Thanks

mike  on May 7th, 2011

Hi Tawashi, now your just making me feel bad ;o)

The tutorials have taken a hit and I’m really conscious about that. I would really not kill them off as I do enjoy them and I love seeing people get benefit from them, they just take time.

PD and GD have taken up a lot of time and they are important as their income supports all of the other activities now. PD is due a 2.0 release to really bring it up to spec with GD. GD has many more features I want to add but the next release will be a simple bug fix release while we focus on PD.

I’m almost done on the next tutorial which was a short one that covers adding texture support to the first tutorial, so I hope to get that one out within the next week, there I’ve said it, within a week :o)

I really appreciate all the support I get from people on the blog, apps and tutorials and I really am working hard to not let any of it drop.

@headkaze I’ve had a number of requests for that feature and it’s certainly on the list of features to add and will most likely be in 2.0.

Cheers

Mike

Benihana  on May 8th, 2011

Mike,

Love your product, thanks for the hard work and very reasonable price (impulse buy for developers!).

Is the design of PD such that modules or scripting could be used to extend the designer for user custom code? In other words, I’ve added a category to the cocos2d engine which allows particles to face the direction they are fired in, and would love to be able to simulate that.

Something like:
`
float startA = -CC_RADIANS_TO_DEGREES(a) + startSpin + startSpinVar * CCRANDOM_MINUS1_1();
`
where a is the emit direction (moved above emit rotation calculation) and a similar change is made to endA.

mike  on May 9th, 2011

Hi Benihana, this is something we have been toying with. We would love to be able to make PD extensible by using scripting or something like that. This is something we will investigate more for PD 2.0

Mike

Chakie  on May 10th, 2011

Are any bugfixes scheduled? I work with a few plist particle effects for my Cocos2D game, and PD 1.3 always keeps on overwriting my textures. It’s very, very annoying when PD overwrites the textures of *all* the effects that have been open with the default white ball. Today I lost a texture I had made as I didn’t have any backups. In this regard 1.2 (which was the first I tried) was much better, it didn’t corrupt important data.

lroathe  on May 11th, 2011

I like the idea of the GUI changes, as the current GUI layout is quite crowded and even a bit intimidating as you say. Not exactly sure how I like the example without being able to actually use it.

One thought I have is that, just visually, I would expect to be able to use these just like normal sliders. So, perhaps making the graphical area tall enough to include the ‘slider’ circle would make that possible? I could then drag the slider circle or click within the arc where I wanted the circle to be, as w/a normal slider.

I would ask that it be possible to enter numbers, important for when I need values to be exact (often used when making minor changes to several effects where those changes should be exact between them).

Matt  on May 12th, 2011

Are you planning any performance upgrades for the objective-c template? I’d like to be able to easily run multiple particles with a decent FPS.

With the current system of launching multiple particle objects really bogs down an iPhone/iPad after just a few particles…

Thanks!

mike  on May 12th, 2011

@lroathe great feedback and the kind of things we are also thinking as well. Being able to enter numbers manually is very much at the top of the list for any controls that we create, because as you say, that gives you the fine control that is necessary.

@matt, when you say the Objective-C template I’m assuming you mean the ParticleEmitter class provided. If so then the answer is yes, we are planning to look at that class again for PD 2.0. We want to update it to make use of quads rather than point sprites so that rotation is possible plus work on performance and, if we get time, work on adding more parameters to control such as the particle image always facing direction of travel etc.

Mike

Kjell-nooby  on May 19th, 2011

Im getting the feeling that your first 3D tutorial on iOS was just a way to sell this software more, correct ?
But im affraid it wont last for long without new tutorials, sorry for saying

mike  on May 19th, 2011

Hi Kjell-nooby, I’m sorry you feel that way. That was not the intent. As I’m sure you can imagine, keeping on top of the apps, blog and tutorials as well as my day job and family is not easy.

I put as much time as I can into keeping things moving forward but there are only so many hours in a day and that does mean things slip. If I did nothing but run the blog then I’m sure things would get finished on a more regular basis. I hope you understand that the tutorials are done for the benefit of the community and I do my best to keep them coming.

There are more tutorials to come. I’m just editing the next one which adds textures to the objects we created in the first tutorial. This should be available before next week.

Mike

lroathe  on May 24th, 2011

Re: “We want to update it to make use of quads rather than point sprites so that rotation is possible”

Have you looked at the performance of a large # of quads vs point sprites? I’ve always found that I needed to support both quads and point sprites, as for lots of small objects point sprites are a big win, but for larger objects quads are the best way to go. Of course, if you want rotation and other effects, quads are required.

Anyway, is there any reason not to support both methods? In the UI perhaps a segment control for [point sprite|quad] and disabling/enabling ui elements accordingly?

I’d hate to give up performance for a feature I’ll rarely use.

PS: thanks for the responses here, know how it goes trying to do a blog, work, family, etc. (I’m months behind on my own!)

Max  on May 24th, 2011

Unfortunately it does not work. I’m trying the configuration file with the particle emitter class from Chapter 10 of Sir Lamorak’s quest projects and the results are very erratic, not at all the same particle fountain than in the particle designer. So much for plug and play. Where can i download a particle emitter class which is compatible with this update, or where can I download a previous version which is compatible with the code from SLQTSOR? I just paid $7 for this app and all I got was a fancy particle simulator.

mike  on May 25th, 2011

Hi Max, I’ll test this out as there should be no changes to how the PArticleEmitter class uses the latest versions config. The only thing that is not supported is the rotation.

I’ll do some testing and see if I can spot anything and report back later.

Mike

Dan  on May 27th, 2011

Its ok to keep some sliders in there, I think its important to have a variety of controls.

marcus  on June 11th, 2011

hey mike, i love your tutorials
but there hasn’t been a tutorial for like months….
is there any chance to see one soon ?

Jim  on June 11th, 2011

I think I can deal with just about any kind of slider/gadget/doodad as long as there’s numerical input. Precision and repeatability are critical with something like this. I’ve worked with software that didn’t allow typing in values and ended up raging because I couldn’t get predictable behavior from it.

Also, I’m working on an Isometric tile game and it would be great to flip an “Iso switch” that would make ring emitters into a squashed ellipse to conform to Iso orientation. I haven’t figured out how to get the effect I want with the current system.

Jim  on June 11th, 2011

One more thing, I like the designer’s attempt at merging a control with its variance, but the relationship shown in these new slide-o-meters is still a bit awkward. I recommend the zero value of the variance is always locked to the main needle and the extent of the variance is controlled by handles on each end where appropriate. The main needle should just be its own handle, so make it a bit easier to grab and delete its floating handle. That way, the handle(s) for variance are more clear.

Simon  on June 12th, 2011

Hey Mike,

I see that Tutorials are taking a wee bit longer than you’d hoped. I’d be happy to put some together (non openGL related – still iPhone) if you’d be willing to post them on your site. You’ve got my e-mail address, if it is something you’d consider let me know and I’ll put a few together. You’d then have new content (potentially :) on a more regular basis.

mike  on June 12th, 2011

Hi Jim

Thanks for the valuable feedback, that is exactly the kind of information we need and Tom and I will work it through the input and use what we can in the next prototype.

Thanks again for the input :)

Mike

Dan  on July 14th, 2011

A possible bug in PD 1.3, is that sometimes after creating a new emitter I get that horrible : EXC-BAD-ACCESS error and it directs me to some part of the xml parser class to do with child elements in the xml file.

I’m not sure what part of the emitter is causing this, as sometimes just re-creating the emitter in PD resolves the issue. ‘~’

Apart from the teething issues trying to get it working with the 71 Squared engine its a great tool! ^-^

Owen  on August 4th, 2011

Background image in the demo project is not working, either size and rotation is wrong and it becomes to foreground image, please fix.

Thank you,