How do you create explosions?

[elias4444]

I figured this would be a fun one for the forum:

How do you create nice looking explosions in lwjgl? (or even just opengl for that matter)

What's the best way without killing your frame rate? Use low polycount, texture mapped GLU spheres? (I tried this, it killed my framerate actually). Use a single polygon that flips through an animated texture, always keeping it positioned correctly in front of the camera?

Any ideas?

[Orangy Tang]

Particles. Lots and lots of animated swirly particles. You can get some really nice effects by having multiple particle systems at the same time - one for the core firey explosion and one for the smoke given off.

[Fool Running]

Yeah, Particles are definitely the way to go :wink: