[x2495iiii]

I was playing some emulated GBA games and I realized that those games, with only one layer of graphic power (i. e. one billboard in Alice), were able to passably simulate weather effects like rain, snow, and sand. I recalled seeing a few questions as to how to make weather effects in worlds as well before this, so I figured if the Developers of Golden Sun and Dynasty Warriors Advance can do it, so can I. So I did. Except with two layers instead of one, for depth and realism and stuff.

I guarantee it's better than anything else anyone's tried (cylinders...), even though it's just a few textures for a pair of billboards stuck to the camera.

Here's how it works:

Change the textures of the both objects to the desired weather effect manually, before runtime.

Refer to the note at the top of bigWeather's "WeatherAnim" method for the numbers to enter as values for the bigWeather variables "duration" and "delay" respectively. These are just values I thought looked good. Fool around with them, get some heavy effects with smaller values, stuff like that.

The weather only goes one way, down and left. This was so I only had to make two textures for each effect.

Remember these are transparent billboards in front of the camera, so Mouse click methods will not work while they are showing.

Also remember that these billboards are not pressed flat against the camera, so approaching a wall would show the flat nature of the weather. Personally, I'd use this for cutscenes, and if in a game, I'd have the weather's opacity drop as you get closer to the wall, which isn't too far from reality.

If you save these and import them into your own worlds, be sure to import bigWeather2 first, otherwise you'll have unresolved references. When placing them, make them oriented to the camera, turned 1/2 revolution, then moved forward and up so that their bounding box's highlighted edges are just out of sight.

Finally, no criticism. Seriously, just don't feel like it. If you like it, praise it. If you use it, cite it. If you want more, make a request. Otherwise, don't post. It will land you right on my ignore list.

Rant over.

The effects are Rain, Snow, Hail, Sand, and Fire.