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Particles

Add particle effects to your game using engine.particles().

About particles​

Particles are one of the easiest ways to make your game feel more polished. Particles in ScrewBox are just entities marked with a ParticleComponent. This component is used to calculate current particle count in the Environment.

Spawning particles​

Particles can be spawned using on of the spawn methods in Particles. The particle look and behaviour can be specified using ParticleOptions. The ParticleOptions provide a huge variety on customization options that can also be extended using the customize method as seen below:

Entity player = //...
particles.spawn(player.bounds(), SpawnMode.BOTTOM_SIDE, ParticleOptions.source(player)
        .sprite(SpriteBundle.DOT_BLUE)
        .randomBaseSpeed(20)
        .animateOpacity()
        .customize("use-gravity", particle -> particle.get(PhysicsComponent.class).gravityModifier = 1));

Particle entities will be provided with a PhysicsComponent but will ignore gravity and collisions by default. Particle entities will also self destroy using a TweenDestroyComponent. Of cause the lifetime can be customized as well.

Limiting particles​

Particles are considered decoration an will therefore be limited to a maximum count to limit cpu usage. The limit can also be customized. Particles will also not spawn when they are too far away from the players attention area. This will also work when using split screen. The spawn distance can be customized.

paritcles.setParticleLimit(2000);
particles.setSpawnDistance(3000);
long currentParticleCount = particles.particleCount();
long allTimeParticleCount = particles.particlesSpawnCount();

Using the entity system​

The entity component system is also handy when working with particles.

To automatically spawn particles use the ParticleComponent. The ParticleBurstComponent will shut down the spawn after a timeout. Add a ParticleInteraactionComponent to a physics entity to push particles nearby in the direction of movement.

See Components Overview for a full list of all particle related components.