Creating complex effects with particle systems

A particle system is a great way to simulate complex effects such as fire, smoke, explosions, and so on. Basically, a particle system consists of a number of images that are rendered using either a normal (alpha masked) mode, or an additive blending mode to create interesting results.

Take a look at the following screenshot to see the difference between normal and additive blending modes:

LibGDX provides a sophisticated particle system through its ParticleEffect class. It's merely a container that allows you to easily work with your final effects on a high level, such as setting the position or triggering or cancelling the designed particle effect.

The following is a brief description of the most important methods of ParticleEffect:

• start(): This starts the animation of the particle effect
• reset(): This resets and restarts the animation of the particle effect
• update(): This must be called to let the particle effect act in accordance to time...