First off:
Thank you for downloading the Lotus Particle System.

That said, I'm going to claim something ridiculous: my particle system is the best free and open source particle system available.

Seriously though, if you've found one that does the job better (with price and such in consideration) than mine then you should use it.
But I stand by my opinion that mine is the best for the price ($0, nada, zilch, free).

This is open-source software, and as such I'm not liable for any problems you have, but if you need help implementing it into your game or want me to add a feature or change/fix something, I'll try to make it work for you.

There are some things you have to keep in mind though: there are bugs, and there are limitations (that implementing new features can remove, though).  I've listed two of the most signifigant, in my opinion, below:

1. Debug Mode:  NEVER run your application in Debug Mode with the particle system activated.  For some reason or another, the application will quickly slow to a halt and you'll find your FPS dropping to well below 10 (which is unquestionably bad).  This could be due to a memory leak I haven't found, or it could be due to something in Blitz, but I don't know and I'm not going to try to find out if it's the latter.

**UPDATE**
Concerning the 'debug mode' bug, this seems to be caused by using Render Tweening (maybe improperly?).  I can't figure out why this would occur, but it does.  And as such, I think you should know this.

2. 'Stages' are not really possible, there is a work-around for this though.  For every emitter that needs multiple stages, make its children the stages.  If you want, you can implement your own stage-handler or whatever, but I don't want to because that would mean rewriting a good portion of the code and revising about 80% (estimate) of the system itself- basically, it would be better to just completely rewrite it.


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Picking your particle code
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Because not everyone has Tokamak (and/or the wrapper) installed, I've included two different code 'bases'.

These two are are found under ~/NParticles and ~/TParticles.  N stands for 'normal', it doesn't have the Tokamak extension.  T stands for 'Tokamak', it includes the Tokamak extension.

Using Tokamak can be great for effects, but it could slow down your game (could, I can't say it will).  This, ultimately, depends on how many particles Tokamak will control- for effects such as fire, lasers, and other less-intensive effects you obviously won't need Tokamak enabled for them, but for effects such as bullet casings and rain and the such you will probably want them enabled.

Also, LotusTest.bb uses Bot Builder's Tokomak Interface Library.  This is so that the little 'spark' particles can bounce off of the terrain.


If you have any problems, questions, or whatever you know who to contact: me.  E-mail me at noel_cower@earthlink.net for support/questions/whatever, of course.  I do not accept job offers though- underage bullshit.