Retro-Progress-5 – Dust FX
For the smoke effects, I have used custom particles for fast prototyping. This is a simple object that fades away or disappear after a short animation. I have spawned thousands of them with no performance issues. I actually kept this principle so far.
Remember smoke is there for esthetic but it is also a key feedback to player so that he knows the character has landed for instance. So before fine-tuning the look make sure it conveys the right input to the player. Also, game can have feedbacks for running and jumping but also for colliding, striking, being hurt, dying, droping pickups etc.. What is key is to prioritize all feedbacks depending on what seems more important to match the desired gameplay.
Now that I look back, I have spent way too much time playing with this FX when I see how basic the results is.
I first started to use a simple sprite, like a small cloud, with a single frame that I would ‘animate’ with fade-in and scale-up for appearance before the classical scale-down disparition. It was ok and I am not sure drawing FX was worth the time it has required me… Anyway, I drew my own frames and I also added some speed behaviors to my smoke based on the player movement…. but it is hardly noticeable… Sometime simple is better.
When drawing FX, I learnt a lot from Jason. You can find him here:
Dead Clones game making 