Hey Everyone! I’ve made some leaf particles to celebrate the fall weather, and for use in my indie game project. This is my first real attempt at making some interesting particles beyond the standard lights or dust.
And here’s them in action in a demo scene http://bitzawolf.com/images/demos/Leaves%20Heavy.gif (Might take awhile to load)
Any tips or suggestions for improvements? I might get rid of the trail, or give it a custom shader so it looks a little better.
Leaves rarely, if ever, move back “up”. They also spin a lot more than most people think they do. These are stylistic choices more than anything though, so it’s fine. My biggest problem is in the demo scene they don’t match the visual style of the rest of the scene and look significantly out of place, not to mention the trees they’re falling from are still green.
I would greatly simplify the shape if they’re intended for the scene they’re in. They also look like they fade to white when they fade out? I’m guessing you’re using the default particle shader rather than the alpha blend shader, or it’s something the gif is doing to the video. If you’re using the default particle shader, aka Particles/Alpha Blended Premultiply, you should never use this because it doesn’t behave like most people expect. Worse it doesn’t even behave like it should for people who understand what the Premultiply part means.
Use Particles/Alpha Blended instead.
One last suggestion I’d make is to randomize the color a little. Most of my particle textures are pure white, or have some minor tinting in them to add depth or gradients. I drive the color via the particle system color. Random between two colors with one being that orange, and the second being a slightly darker, more redish orange, can do wonders for adding some dimension to otherwise flat effects.
edit: Okay, I lied. One more. Put some static leaves on the ground. Most people won’t even notice the leaves just going through the ground if you do that and will think they each nicely land.
Oh wow! That’s a lot of great criticism! I love it, I’ll apply that when I can. Thank you so much.
