Notes of a Developer

This is just one possible configuration – one of the simpler ones, actually, as it is only using point rendering and simple gravity – no textures, no wind, no transparency, etc. I call this configuration “fountain”, and it’s can be created in one line of code:

ParticleEmitter3D *fountain = [ParticleEmitter3D fountain];
then, you just need to tell the fountain to draw itself each time through your draw loop or callback…
[fountain drawSelf];
It’s probably going to be a few days before I get the first version of the code posted – it’s got some rough edges still, plus a few more bits of functionality I feel are needed before it can survive public scrutiny.

The above movie was taken on the simulator. The code does work on my first generation iPhone but I have to reduce the number of points emitted per second to get it to look good with no hiccups. I haven’t yet tested it on my second generation iPod Touch to see how much of a difference the new processor and FPU make. I’m also hoping that pooling and reusing the particles, rather than constantly allocating and freeing them will help a fair amount.

Google Site

This is a particle generator wrote to help learn OpenGL ES 1.1 better. This project is intended for use on the iPhone, though imagine large chunks of it could be ported to other embedded devices that support OpenGL ES 1.1 or higher.

iPhone Particles samples