Editing Particle system (section)

{{short description|Technique in game physics, motion graphics and computer graphics}}
{{about|3D computer graphics|the computer game developer|Particle Systems}}
{{inline|date=January 2018}}
[[File:particle sys fire.jpg|thumb|A particle system used to simulate a fire, created in [[3dengfx]]]]
[[File:particle sys galaxy.jpg|thumb|''Ad hoc'' particle system used to simulate a galaxy, created in 3dengfx]]
[[File:Pi-explosion.jpg|thumb|A particle system used to simulate a bomb explosion, created in [[particleIllusion]]]]
A '''particle system''' is a technique in [[game physics]], [[motion graphics]], and [[3D computer graphics|computer graphics]] that uses many minute [[sprite (computer graphics)|sprite]]s, [[3D model]]s, or other graphic objects to simulate certain kinds of "fuzzy" phenomena, which are otherwise very hard to reproduce with conventional rendering techniques – usually highly [[Chaos theory|chaotic]] systems, natural phenomena, or processes caused by chemical reactions.

Introduced in the 1982 film ''[[Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan]]'' for the fictional "Genesis effect",<ref name="reeves">{{cite journal 
| last1=Reeves 
| first1=William 
| date=1983 
| title=Particle Systems&mdash;A Technique for Modeling a Class of Fuzzy Objects 
| url=https://cal.cs.umbc.edu/Courses/CS6967-F08/Papers/Reeves-1983-PSA.pdf 
| journal=[[ACM Transactions on Graphics]] 
| volume=2 
| issue=2 
| pages=91–108 
| doi=10.1145/357318.357320 
| access-date=2018-06-13 
| citeseerx=10.1.1.517.4835 
| s2cid=181508 
}}</ref> other examples include replicating the phenomena of [[fire]], [[explosion]]s, [[smoke]], moving water (such as a waterfall), [[Electric spark|spark]]s, falling leaves, rock falls, [[cloud]]s, [[fog]], [[snow]], [[dust]], [[meteor]] tails, stars and galaxies, or abstract visual effects like glowing trails, [[magic spell]]s, etc. – these use particles that fade out quickly and are then re-emitted from the effect's source. Another technique can be used for things that contain many [[:wikt:strand|strand]]s – such as fur, hair, and grass – involving rendering an entire particle's lifetime at once, which can then be drawn and manipulated as a single strand of the material in question.

Particle systems are defined as a group of points in space, guided by a collection of rules defining behavior and appearance. Particle systems model phenomena as a cloud of particles, using [[stochastic processes]] to simplify the definition of [[dynamical system]] and [[fluid mechanics]] with that are difficult to represent with [[affine transformations]].<ref>{{cite journal
| vauthors   = Hastings EJ, Guha RK, Stanley KO
| date       = 2008-12-09
| title      = Interactive evolution of particle systems for computer graphics and animation
| journal    = IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation
| volume     = 13
| issue      = 2
| pages      = 418–32
| doi        = 10.1109/TEVC.2008.2004261
| pmc        = 
| pmid       = 
| citeseerx = 10.1.1.365.5720
| s2cid = 11390585
}}</ref>