GameMaker Studio - Particle Effects Tutorial Video Lecture - Game Maker

hey guys how you doing it's January and
it's way too cold the snow everywhere
way more snow than I'm ever fan of the
amount of snow I'm a fan of is zero snow
of course hate snow way too cold just
everything about it just ruins all my
travel plans ruins everything I hate it
hate snow not a big fan that said today
it's tutorial is going to be on particle
effects very very very common request
honestly not something I know too much
about but I've just you know told myself
a bit about just so I could you do this
to tour of you guys since it was very
commonly requested and I'm gonna show
you basically how to do the one thing
I've used particle effects to do before
which is to create a snow effect in your
game if for some insane reason you want
snow in your game so all we have here is
the platformer game that we had before
in the before even a special I did own
platformer games and collisions and
stuff go watch that if you haven't
already and basically it's already set
up I'm working so if I compile this now
just to show you who's really pretty
snow falling everywhere a little snow
really see yep we call some snow
particle effects and they're falling
kind of giving a little bit of a wiggle
and stuff all looks very nice so how do
we get that going all we have is like I
said it's the platformer game we have
before and the only difference is we
have this object called obj on the
school snow doesn't matter where we put
it as enough sprite or anything so it
just shows up this little question mark
inside a blue circle when something
doesn't have a sprite and that's how it
shows up in the level editor and that's
obj underscore snow over here so if we
double click that we'll see it's only
made out to events I'll show you show
you both of them basically and I'll
create them what we need to do is
basically three different things when
you
to create the particle system in the
first place and embed it into sort of
the memory sort of like the game knows
it has a particle system going on create
a particle type for that particle system
so we create like the snowflake and we
set up all the different random
properties it can have the direction
speed and all that kind of stuff and
then all we do is simply turn the
emitter on by we create a particle
emitter and a specific region where we
want the particles to appear and then we
tell the game to start streaming
particles from that Aneta so let me walk
you through this sort of step by step so
what we're doing at the top here is
basically establishing the particle
system to existent first place we've
created snow equals part on the score
system
underscore create which creates a
particle system in the memory of the
game
and it'll stay there and be referred to
us no they do take up a bit of memory so
you have to make sure that when you're
you're done with your particle system
then you destroy the object you do run
this line which is part of the school
system on the school destroy and then in
brackets now as you can see let me come
on so that like it gets rid of it out of
your memory and it's not sort of saying
that otherwise it can create nail you
don't want to eating away at your game
so that's how we create sort of a system
and all that is is just a blank template
right now for us to put information into
about how the particle system works part
on the school system under school depth
um here we're saying our debt 250 what
this means and depth is kind of an
important concept to understanding
GameMaker generally you'll notice every
object has like a depth same like every
object by default as the depth of zero
and your backgrounds like I think like
by default like in tiles and stuff yeah
they're by default set to like a depth
of like a million one hundred thousand
so that like how death works
is when is basically the draw order of
the object so and it's kind of like
relative and arbitrary so if you all
like if an object has a high depth it
will be drawn before an object with a
low depth so things at a higher depth
are drawn before things with lower depth
what that means is that because our
backgrounds and stuff have a really high
depth they are drawn first so all the
backgrounds are stuff are drawn first by
the game and then all your objects are
drawn second so your objects are drawn
on top of the backgrounds like if they
were the same depth and stuff you would
have backgrounds overlapping of objects
and that kind of stuff is basically how
the layering works in your game so if
you want like because all objects by
default is set to a depth of zero if you
want something to appear in front of
everything in your game what you need to
do is just set your depth to like any
negative number like negative 50 or
something like that and it'll be drawn
after everything else and therefore
appear in front of everything else and
the same said if you want something to
appear behind everything then you need
to set it to a positive depth like
positive 50 and a little bit appear
behind all of your objects so you'll
need to settle a positive a billion or
something to put it in front of
background or just raise the depth of
your backgrounds you know so on and so
forth
so what we're doing in our snow system
is we're just saying that to be 50 so
that appears behind all of the objects
in the platformer game
I mean we could set it to something like
minus 50 if we wanted it to appear in
front of everything which you might you
know but now we're just going to have it
appear behind everything so we'll set
the depth to 50 I mean that could be
anything 5,000 or whatever it doesn't
matter
it's it's only relative it's only
important what this number is relative
to what the depth of everything else in
your game is so I mean the fact that
everything is zero means some I can just
set this to 50 and I know that it's
going to appear behind everything other
than the background so yeah that's how
that's works and that's so we've created
a system and now we need to put a
particle type into it so the very first
thing we do is just
say give our particle a name and just
say snowflake equals part on the school
type underscore create so we've created
a type of particle again it's completely
blank it doesn't have anything so and we
need to set a ton of things there's a
million of these types of sayings and
you can set like loads of different
things which we saw blending out for and
all that kind of thing but mostly we're
just going to set up like the shape of
our particle and we're going to set up
some basic settings of how we want that
particle to behave and so we're going to
set part and it's got type underscore
shape which sets the type of particle we
want to be PT underscore shape
underscore snow which is a built-in
built-in particle which looks like a
snowflake which I'll show you if I go to
part under Scott alright I'm just core
and here you can see all the different
types of built in particles you have to
work with if you use something like
ponder school type and it's got sprite
you can use your own sprites as a
particle but I mean if there's one if
one of these built-in ones is going to
work for you then it's no harm in using
one of those so um so I'm using the
snowflake one over here because it looks
like a snowflake so that's uh that's why
I'm doing that so that now we told a
told the game what sprite to use for the
snow foreach ER for each particle and
then I'm going to make various
modifications to how it behaves so I
mean orientation will do things with its
angle sighs well I'm going to just run
through each of these and it's all very
basic sense and then kind of explain how
they work so size will sort of affect
how big or small the snowflake is like
at random like how these lines of code
work is they take a minimum like
generally anyway some work in different
ways but they'll take a minimum value
and a maximum value and it'll pick
around the value in between those two
for each particle because obviously you
generally want each particle to be a
little bit different like you know lots
of little little like if you're doing
flames or whatever lots of little sparks
lots of big Sparks and stuff so they
like that you know they're varied and
they go in different directions and
different speeds and you know they
disappear at different time so that you
can read that kind of random sporadic
effect so you're creating minimums and
maximums and then the game is picking
somewhere in between them for the
behavior of that particle and then
there's a bunch of little flags on the
end and other other kinds of things you
can set so that maybe your size the size
of your particle increases over time or
like there's a wiggle in the size like
they get bigger and smaller and bigger
and smaller you know and the only really
way to do really way the only way to
really learn those things and it's
basically just to use the f1 menu and go
to part on the school type and to sort
of you know browse through all these
different settings and different options
and functions you have and basically
find the sort of effects that you're
looking for because there's a lot of
them I can't possibly hope they'll go
through them all in one tutorial so um
see how we're saying our size to be a
sort of a random value between 0.05 no
point naught to 5 for every snowflake
made the speed to be something between 1
and 1.5 and to also increase by not 0.05
every frame so that it falls a little
bit faster and faster and faster you
know it's all gravity you know impacts
on the snowflake um the direction to
make it fall straight down like I've
just set the min or maximum to be the
same so it pulls straight straight down
and I've also set or wiggled before so
the while is falling straight down it
also kind of varies every flank for
frames or something like sizer the
amount of frames on the amount pixels I
forget exactly how that that one
argument works but it's something like
it'll move like four pixels to the right
and four pixels to the left and four
pixels right so it creates a sort of
wiggle zigzag effect as it falls down
the screen part underscore type
underscore life and that's just saying
how long look each particle is going to
live for so between a hundred frames and
150 frames
so when the snowflake is made it will
pick a value between those two like 112
and 112 frames after it's been created
it'll be destroyed so you know we make
each one live for different lengths of
time so now we set up everything to do
with the particle itself um we just need
to create an emitter and actually make
it snow so we're going to create an
emitter for our snow particle which is
to create like an area on screen and
sort of a distribution method and like a
number of particles per frame to make
sort of things so that's what irony at
this so we've got snow and just got meta
equals part underscore emitter
underscore create again that's just the
same as this thing and the same as this
thing just sort of creating the variable
that we can refer to as a particle
emitter and then we're basically going
to give that emitter a region from which
to create its particles which is going
to be like this kind of rectangle like
based on sort of the room with that like
rectangle of this or top of the screen
and it's going to create them sort of in
like but in ellipse air is like a sort
of circular area and then all it needs
to do after you've created the region
where you're streaming your particles
from it's basically tell the game to
actually start streaming them so you
know you have this region set up and you
just basically basically need to set
tell the particle system to go so this
is going to say to start streaming using
this particle system using from this
emitter and this particle type and then
this number here is the number of
particles you want to sorry my mind is
blank it's another of particles you want
to create every frame so if I set this
to something like five or crease like
five snowflakes every single frame but
like because I want to kind of create
like a subtle gentle snowing effect I
want a very small number every frame
so that means I you know less than one
every frame I just wanted there to be a
chance of a sparkle being made every
frame so there's like a 3d slow
self-creation and if you set this to a
negative value
like what negative seven means it means
every single frame there is a one in
seven chance like like a ratio of like
one to seven every single frame of snow
particle getting created if I set it to
something like seven hit mean it would
actually create seven particles every
single frame and there would be a lot of
snow like let's just run that actually
just show you like to be a lot of snow
when it's let to seven because it's
being seven made every single frame at
60fps that's a lot of particles so
instead I had it set to I mean it just
depends what kind of effect you're after
really and I say it's a very very
customizable system as a particles and
it's actually pretty cool so that every
single frame was a one in seven chance
of you know making a making another
particle I thought that or it might work
by saying just make one every seven
frames it might do that this yeah that
might be high weight other remember
exactly like I said I'm not a hundred
percent familiar with this system but I
mean everything like when I wanted to
learn the system like I didn't look like
I didn't have to look up a tutorial on
it
because all I did was say hey there's a
particle system make it now I wouldn't
have that way so I just typed in
particles into the help system came to
here and I was like Oh particles and
there's this a whole section here that
kind of explains how particles work and
it explains it really in-depth explains
all the limitations and explains exactly
how they work and how they're going to
interact with everyone else in your game
know believe that they don't snap are
girls do not interact with anything and
you know exactly like how the best ways
to use them and stuff like that and it
shows you like take teaches you all the
different sort of lines of code teach
you everything I've used here really
particle system shows you all of these
lines of code
odhh everything like that can all be
found in in the the gaming studio help
menu Lane totally underrated hell man
you just have one there's so much
information in here like ridiculous like
if you got like I don't really actually
use the contents thing a lot which you
would think would be better because it's
all you know laying um split into
sections generally want to want to find
out about something I just go straight
to the index and type in like something
like particles and like it all guide me
to a page like this and okay super
useful I actually probably find it quite
hard to find all that stuff in here I'm
sure you can but it's just a personal
preference I always use the index I mean
not that I want to encourage you know
the fact that you don't technically
you'll need me or my videos please
subscribe please view but technically
you can learn a lot of stuff just
through like this index so I mean this
is how I learned it so I mean but that's
basically how you set it up you create a
particle system here you create types of
particles you set up all the behaviors
of that particle and then you just
create an init and you make it emit and
that's all in the create event of this
object so I mean you don't want to be
creating compiling or setting your
emission every frame that would probably
be horrible and then you know once
you're done with it you just clear from
the memory by saying pulses and destroy
no cleans it on your memory and that's
really that's pretty much all there is
to it
particle systems so yeah I hope you guys
have fun putting all sorts of fun
particle systems that you'll gain and
death just now yep that's really all
there is to it see you next time guys