The Essential Guide to Physics for Flash Games, Animation, and Simulations

Introduction to particle system modeling

Although a precise definition of a particle system probably does not exist, it helps to explain what we have in mind before we do anything else. In the sense in which we use the term, a particle system consists of the following ingredients:

• A group of particles
• Rules by which they move and change
• Rules by which they interact (if any)

This definition is very general: the said “rules” could be based on physics, artificial intelligence, biology, or anything else. It won't come as a surprise that we'll limit ourselves to particles moving and interacting under physical laws (with perhaps the odd tweak here and there). Therefore, the particle systems we'll consider will animate particles according to Newton's ...