The “Particle-engines-ain’t-that-hard’-challenge

The other day, a colleague and I where looking at a cool application, Machine Flow. It’s a visual development environment and interpreter for the programming language Machine Flow. The language it self is defined by small lua-scripts, which you visually connect together. The running of the program is illustrated by small marbles carrying data around. It’s quite fun to play with, and the source is open, so there should be one or two things to look at there to.

What caught my colleagues interest, was a small firework-effect when the development environment was cleared. So we started discussing it, and soon I was determined to show that it’s really not that hard to make such effects. Now, I have never before done anything like this before. I lack experience with both graphics programming and the necessary math/physics. But it can’t be that hard, can it?

Well, we’ll just have to wait and see, then. The first challenge will be to get something unto the screen, and than I can start look at how to make it look nice. I will try to steer away from available libraries and tutorials, and rather come up with something completely on my own. The visual part will require  some reading though…