Particles

Particles are very simple objects (much simpler than actors) that are used by ZDoom for several special effects:

• Missile trails behind actors with the GRENADETRAIL or ROCKETTRAIL flags.
• Helix trail around railgun attacks.
• Red, green, blue, yellow, purple, black or white particle fountains actors.

Since they are extremely simple, the engine can supports displaying thousands of particles at once.

Authors can also spawn their own particles, using ZScript, DECORATE or ACS, as described below.

Functions

There are several ways to spawn particles and define their appearance:

• A_SpawnParticle is a function available in ZScript and DECORATE that allows spawning particles with custom color, size, position, velocity and other parameters.
• A_SpawnParticleEx is a ZScript-only function. In contrast to A_SpawnParticle, this extended function allows attaching a graphic to particles, thus giving them custom appearance, which can potentially be very effective for creating effects like debris, smoke and others. It also allows giving the particles rotation and animation.
• SpawnParticle (ZScript) is a ZScript-only struct-using version of A_SpawnParticle.
• SpawnParticle is an ACS function with capabilities similar to A_SpawnParticle.

Console variables

The following console variables affect particles:

• cl_rockettrails
• cl_bloodtype
• cl_pufftype
• r_maxparticles
• r_rail_smartspiral
• r_rail_spiralsparsity
• r_rail_trailsparsity
• gl_particles_style (OpenGL only: not supported by ZDoom)

Colors

The default non-textured particles can have one of the following colors:

1. ██ black
2. ██ blue
3. ██ blue1
4. ██ dred
5. ██ green
6. ██ green1
7. ██ grey1
8. ██ grey2
9. ██ grey3
10. ██ grey4
11. ██ grey5
12. ██ maroon1
13. ██ maroon2
14. ██ orange
15. ██ purple
16. ██ purple1
17. ██ rblue1
18. ██ rblue2
19. ██ rblue3
20. ██ rblue4
21. ██ red
22. ██ red1
23. ██ yellow
24. ██ yellow1
25. ██ yorange
26. ██ white