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Game Development Patterns and Best Practices

You're reading from   Game Development Patterns and Best Practices Better games, less hassle

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Product type Paperback
Published in Apr 2017
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781787127838
Length 394 pages
Edition 1st Edition
Languages
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Authors (2):
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John P. Doran John P. Doran
Author Profile Icon John P. Doran
John P. Doran
Matt Casanova Matt Casanova
Author Profile Icon Matt Casanova
Matt Casanova
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Toc

Table of Contents (13) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Introduction to Design Patterns 2. One Instance to Rule Them All - Singletons FREE CHAPTER 3. Creating Flexibility with the Component Object Model 4. Artificial Intelligence Using the State Pattern 5. Decoupling Code via the Factory Method Pattern 6. Creating Objects with the Prototype Pattern 7. Improving Performance with Object Pools 8. Controlling the UI via the Command Pattern 9. Decoupling Gameplay via the Observer Pattern 10. Sharing Objects with the Flyweight Pattern 11. Understanding Graphics and Animation 12. Best Practices

Transitioning to ParticleSystems

So with that in mind, what we will do is separate the information that will be shared by each particle, which we will call a ParticleSystem:

// Abstract class for us to derive from 
class ParticleSystem
{
public:
float lifeTime;
M5Vec2 startScale;
float endScale;

// Pure virtual functions
virtual void Init(M5Object * object) = 0;
virtual void Update(M5Object * object, float dt, float lifeLeft) = 0;

float Lerp(float start, float end, float fraction);

};

The class acts as our intrinsic state, which is shared. Since the starting scale, end scale, and lifetime of our object never change, it makes sense for these variables to be shared instead of each object having one. In our previous example, we only had one particle system, but we may want the ability to have more as well, and it's when we start using it that some of the benefits of the Flyweight pattern become...

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