I'm making a particle effect at the moment where when an enemy dies they spawn about 20 particles, and I want every one to move in a random direction.

The only way I can do this at the moment is to copy and paste this command 20 times:

But, I would like to do something like this.

This code spawns 20 particles with one command, but it only randomly generates an x velocity and y velocity once, so all those 20 particles move in the exact same direction.

I've messed around with the "blood" function that I have for the particles, trying to set vel_x and vel_y to a random number (which results in the particles spazzing out and moving in random directions every frame), and trying out other methods, but none have worked.

So, how do I spawn 20 particles with one line of code, and have every particle move in a different direction, without the direction changing every frame?

Thanks to anyone who tries to help. I'm a noob. :3

function bloodfade(PARTICLE *p)
{
p.alpha -= 20*time_step;

if (p.alpha <= 0)
{
p.lifespan = 0;
}
}

function blood(PARTICLE *p)
{

p.bmap = bloodbmap;

p.vel_x+=random(10)-random(10);
p.vel_y+=random(10)-random(10);
p.vel_z-=random(10)-random(10);

p.size=random(4);
p.alpha = 100;
p.flags |= ( MOVE | TRANSLUCENT );
p.event = bloodfade; // change to a shorter, faster function
}

Hm, not exactly what I wanted. Here's a picture. The "Bad" part is what I'm getting at the moment (and what I got before when I experimented). The "Good" part is what I want, and can accomplish by copy and pasting the effect code over and over again. I don't want every particle to go in a random direction every frame, but choose a direction when they spawn, and go towards that direction for it's whole lifespan, while also being pulled down by gravity.



Thanks.

Ok, I made something like this a view months ago...
I'm sure there's a smarter way, but this works also:



This makes a firework, but the particels hold their direction.
Hope I helped you a bit. ^^
~greets

Awesome! I modified it a bit, and it works perfectly.

Thanks.