Share your best bangs

Afternoon all,

I can find my away around the particle system reasonably well now, but so far all my attempts at making an explosion have been less 'destruction of Death Star' and more 'indoor firework'.

Would anyone like to share their favourite particle system settings/textures to help my little droids explode rather than fizzle.

Here's one that I use for a plasma bolt:

explode()
{
    llParticleSystem([
    PSYS_PART_FLAGS, PSYS_PART_EMISSIVE_MASK | PSYS_PART_FOLLOW_VELOCITY_MASK | PSYS_PART_INTERP_COLOR_MASK | PSYS_PART_FOLLOW_SRC_MASK, 
    PSYS_PART_START_COLOR, <1.0,1.0,1.0>, 
    PSYS_PART_START_ALPHA, 1.0, 
    PSYS_PART_END_COLOR, <1.0,0,0>, 
    PSYS_PART_END_ALPHA, 0.0, 
    PSYS_PART_START_SCALE, <1,1,0>, 
    PSYS_PART_MAX_AGE, 1.50,
    PSYS_SRC_ACCEL, <0.00,0.00,0.0>, 
    PSYS_SRC_PATTERN, PSYS_SRC_PATTERN_EXPLODE,
    PSYS_SRC_BURST_RATE, 0.1, 
    PSYS_SRC_BURST_PART_COUNT, 50, 
    PSYS_SRC_BURST_SPEED_MIN, 4.00, 
    PSYS_SRC_BURST_SPEED_MAX, 5.00, 
    PSYS_SRC_MAX_AGE, 1.0, 
    PSYS_SRC_OMEGA, <0.00,0.00,0.00>
    ]);
    llPlaySound("explosion", 1.0);
    llSetStatus(STATUS_PHYSICS, FALSE);
    llSetAlpha(0.0, ALL_SIDES);
    llSleep(1.0);
    llDie();
}

The script locks the bolt in place and makes it invisible so that it can carry on emitting particles for a second, then kills it. I think it's a bit prettier that way.

I don't have the ability to log on, but my better looking explosions use a decreasing alpha and increasing size with a "fire" texture on the particles, and a 2nd particle system without a texture that creates a smoke effect using similar size/alpha.

You can see my hair in my AV pic on the left side, my bangs are kinda long, hid partially under a hat.

What? Oh, no, not that kind of bang? Well, I don't "cyber" and if I did I certainly wouldn't post pics of any banging!!

Oh. OH! Ahh. THAT kind of "bang". Now I getya.

key TEXT = "8047c429-ae04-cc28-0a92-23c70ad572ca"; //Texture
key SND = "390f6fbd-ae8d-2ee0-65d3-4c4950989c2a"; //Sound

boom()
    {
         llParticleSystem([
         PSYS_PART_FLAGS, 0 | PSYS_PART_EMISSIVE_MASK | 
         PSYS_PART_INTERP_COLOR_MASK | PSYS_PART_INTERP_SCALE_MASK | 
         PSYS_PART_FOLLOW_SRC_MASK | PSYS_PART_FOLLOW_VELOCITY_MASK,
         PSYS_SRC_PATTERN,PSYS_SRC_PATTERN_EXPLODE,
         PSYS_SRC_TEXTURE, TEXT,
         PSYS_PART_MAX_AGE,3.000000, 
         PSYS_PART_START_SCALE,<0.05, 0.1, 0.9>,
         PSYS_PART_END_SCALE,<3.25, 3.52, 2.19>,
         PSYS_SRC_BURST_RATE,0.005,
         PSYS_SRC_ACCEL,<0.0000, 0.0000, 0.0000>,
         PSYS_SRC_BURST_PART_COUNT,10,
         PSYS_SRC_BURST_RADIUS,0.01,
         PSYS_SRC_BURST_SPEED_MIN,0.290000,
         PSYS_SRC_BURST_SPEED_MAX,0.35,
         PSYS_SRC_INNERANGLE,1.550000,
         PSYS_SRC_OUTERANGLE,1.540000,
         PSYS_SRC_OMEGA,<2.00000, 2.00000, 2.00000>,
         PSYS_SRC_MAX_AGE,4.000000,
         PSYS_PART_START_ALPHA,0.5900000,
         PSYS_PART_END_ALPHA,.050000
         ]);   
    }


default 
{ 
    touch(integer bologna)
    { 

            llPlaySound(SND,1);
            llSleep(0.1);
            boom();
            llSleep(5);
            //llDie(); 
    } 
} 

I second Senuka's approach-- have the main aprticle script fire off linkmessages to other waiting particle scripts. Explosions look much better with smoke, flames of mulitple kinds, shrapnel, pyroclastic missiles, etc. Just please reduce the # of particles per script for each script added. =)

Thanks guys,

You have put me on the right track.

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