[sldev] The "flashing particles" bug isn't a flashing particlesbug...

[Gary Wardell]

There is always the stance that if someone took advantage of an undocumented feature, shame on them when it gets "fixed" to work
as documented.

I suppose there then is a problem if there is no documentation on how it's "supposed" to work.

If that's so, maybe it's time to write/design some?

Gary

> -----Original Message-----
> From: sldev-bounces at lists.secondlife.com
> [mailto:sldev-bounces at lists.secondlife.com]On Behalf Of Argent
> Stonecutter
> Sent: Thu, June 14, 2007 4:23 PM
> To: sldev at lists.secondlife.com
> Subject: [sldev] The "flashing particles" bug isn't a flashing
> particlesbug...
>
>
> OK, I've been working with Farallon on this, and I've figured it out.
>
> The problem is that if you have "PSYS_PART_FOLLOW_SRC_MASK" then
> "PSYS_SRC_BURST_RADIUS" is ignored... you can't create a particle
> system that uses "PSYS_PART_FOLLOW_SRC_MASK" and starts the particle
> emission at a distance. Why not, I don't know, it's always been an
> annoyance to me, but I'd just gotten used to it. Farallon had some
> particle systems he'd modified that had a non-zero radius
> set, and he
> hadn't zeroed them out...
>
> Before 1.15 or so, it acted as if "PSYS_SRC_BURST_RADIUS" was zero.
>
> Now it seems to create the particles at "PSYS_SRC_BURST_RADIUS" then
> applies the "PSYS_PART_FOLLOW_SRC_MASK" rule on the following frame.
>
> The correct "fix" is uncertain.
>
> It seems to me that "PSYS_PART_FOLLOW_SRC_MASK" shouldn't prevent
> "PSYS_SRC_BURST_RADIUS" from working, and this should be fixed so
> that particles can be created at a distance and still follow source.
> that is, the original behavior is a bug.
>
> However, that would possibly make some existing particle systems act
> funny. Now me, I'd go ahead and say "well, you created an undefined
> particle system, it's legal for Second Life to make demons
> fly out of
> your nose" (nasal demons look like red sparks. Who knew?). There's
> precedent for this, and I've not seen these sparks outside Seal Cove
> so I suspect there's not that many particle systems out there with
> the problem. Plus, there's probably some systems out there where
> people have set this and figured that when the bug got fixed their
> particle systems would start working right.
>
> The alternate fix, simply zeroing out "PSYS_SRC_BURST_RADIUS" when
> "PSYS_PART_FOLLOW_SRC_MASK" is set, seems miserly to me. We
> should be
> looking for ways to fix old bugs like this.
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