Create amazing particle effects in Flash with Partigen component

Particle effects are one of the most difficult effects to achieve in Flash. Try to imagine a realistic candle flame, or a realistic explosion, or a realistic smoke. Keyword: realistic. Even if you should manage to create such effects, I bet you would spend a lot of time.

A company called Desuade comes in our help with the most complete Flash particle generator ever.

Partigen

Partigen is a Flash component that allow the user to crate extremely realistic particle effects in Flash. Moreover, all effects are generated in real time, there isn’t anything pre-rendered, and this gives us the complete control over effects.

I say it again: Partigen is not a video particle rendering package, but a true particle generator. You can manage particles with Actionscript, adjusting tons of parameters in the component inspector or simply dragging and dropping one of the 133 (yes, I counted’em all!) preset effects into the stage. Those effects include realistic waterfalls, explosions, fire, smoke, rain and more.

Everything is customizable: the physic laws particles obey, color overlays, particles life, tween, scaling, rotation… you can ever create your own custom particle shape and apply it the particle effect you want.

Sounds hard to manage…

Partigen is as difficult as you want it to be. Are you making a game and want some dynamic effects? Master all three actionscript classes Partigen comes with. Do you just want to create a fancy background for your movie? Choose a preset and drop it to the stage.

Partigen comes with a “blank emitter” template that allows you to set your animation in a matter of seconds.

The package comes without a manual but there is a detailed online documentation.

Create… exchange… share…

Should you create a new incredible effect, you can save it in a XML-ish way and share it with other developers… the open particle configuration system is intended to encourage exchanging particle settings.

What if I dont’have Flash CS3?

Partigen supports Flash Players from 6 to above, including FlashLite 2.0 and 2.1, and works with MX, Flash 8 and CS3.

Ok, I am bored, some examples please?

If you look at this page, you’ll find some particle demos made by Desuade staff.

Instead of copying their effects, I experimented in another way and created two photo “optimizations” just using the preset effects and changing some values

This is called “underwater”

And this “haunted house”

I am considering the making of a game using some effects, maybe another day.

Final considerations

Partigen is an extremely useful package for Flash designers who want to include special effects into their works, no matter their level of knowledge. You can achieve interesting effects if you are a newbie and incredible effects if you are a pro.

At the price of $99 it’s a must have

And last but not least, Desuade guys let me allow comments…

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