Thanks so much. I was making it far too complicated.

Was wondering what would be the best way to measure impact upon collision. By way of example, if I have a rock of a certain density traveling at a certain velocity, it should deliver a greater impact if the velocity is higher, etc. I want to have some objects get destroyed but only if the impact is great enough. Any ideas on the best way to do this?

This would require packaging a synthesizer along with your build which in most cases would mean audio samples and potentially increasing your build quite substantially. It might be possible to use the default midi sounds on the user's machine but that would most likely limit its functionality to desktop only (i.e. I'm not sure that mobile devices have default midi synths).

So here's an idea. Make your own sampler. Record each note for a couple octaves of a synth sound that you like. If you limit it to two octaves that would be 24 samples and you could make these files very small - only a second long. Then instead of trigger prerecorded music files you will send sequences to your sampler. With the new audio effects you can add reverb, delay, and other effects to create a diverse range of music. Hmmm...if I can get some time in the next week I will try to make an example of this as I plan to make a virtual instrument app in the upcoming months.

This is really fantastic and deserves more attention/notice. Coming from 3D game making, I'm very excited to see this. One thing I have hoped with the addition of shader effects is the ability to do "2.5D" games where everything other than particle effects would have normal maps. I've tried this with some high def realistic textures and normal maps made in Filter Forge and it looks really good.

I'm assuming if you added all your objects to a family, put dynamic lighting effect on that family, you could achieve this without having to set the vectors for each object?

It would be a cool enough effect to just have the light follow the camera while placing the center at the edge of the screen in whatever direction/angle the user was moving. Additional lights could be added by creating additional "center" objects that would really function as the lights' directionality. However, I'm not sure how you would account for multiple light sources on a single object. Some interpolation between light sources would have to impact the effect vectors.

Is there a way to add a "falloff" where if an object or part of an object is a certain distance from a light source it would grow progressively dark? Right now it appears that the light projects out into infinity in whatever direction it is pointing. Though I am just making a lot of guesses based on 30 minute of playing around.

Anyway, this is a huge step in the right direction!

Ah, I see! Nice sketches btw. I think this should be no problem. Will try to get to it this weekend in addition to more explosions. Thanks!

Thanks! and yeah I just carelessly made a soft brush dot in photoshop and the spray went over the edge of the image. And then was too lazy to open up photoshop and correct. I'll update it with a proper image.

Certainly! And if you're interested, I can try to get the full effect with the mist and sparkles in there.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2876662/TrailExample/Trails.capx

Oh wow, I didn't notice the date, as it was on the first page, and was trying to help you. Who knows? Maybe other people who haven't already figured it out might find it helpful. :/

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/2876662/TrailExample/index.html

NOTE: hold down left mouse button to make trails

Not sure if something like this is anything like what you are talking about but - just to explicate how simple it is - it took about 5 minutes. And the source image is yucky with the alpha going into the border. Yet still pretty neat.

Edit: Let me know if the above is part of the effect you are going for and if so, I will put some more time into it and get those mist effects like shown in your image working.

I'm very interested in this. Thanks so much!

Oh good catch!! It is incorrectly labelled "4x4" when it should be "4x3". If you import it as 4x3 it works as it should.

Thanks for the feedback and for the suggestions. Could you explain a bit more what you mean by flying bullets? Sounds fun!

Thanks!

Oh great! Thanks for all the replies. I used ExGen and Photoshop for these though I do also use AfterEffects and other video editors depending on what it is.