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wowbagger84 — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 08:32:25 GMT

This is a great particle engine! But the documentation needs some more work ;) I would love to see a nice FAQ added so you have a place for all the silly small questions you have in the beginning.

Updated Wiki: Home

JimJams — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 10:43:37 GMT

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Mercury Particle Engine is a multi-platform API which allows developers to add rich visual effects to their games. Implemented in C# and targeting the Microsoft XNA Framework, it is fully compatible with Windows, Windows Phone 7 and Xbox 360.

Mercury is in its element when it comes to adding the little graphical flares that make your game appear professional and polished. Whether it's billowing smoke trails, intense fire effects, sparkling stars and sparks, or swirling magic spells, Mercury makes it easy to add the final visual touches to your game, allowing you to ship on time and to a high visual standard.

Mercury has been designed with two main objectives - ease of use coupled with blistering speed. The API is well thought out and easy to get to grips with, however this ease of use does not come at the cost of speed. Mercury is easily able to update and render up to 130,000 particles on a mid-range windows PC (Xbox 360 benchmarks pending). Also included is an intuitive Windows editor application, which makes visually designing particle effects a breeze! A fully featured content pipeline allows particle effects designed in the editor to be imported into your game with surprisingly little effort.

The project is available under an extremely permissive open-source license (MS-PL).

Donate!

Latest News

Source code repository change completed
The migration from SVN to Mercurial has been completed. The repository has been reset as part of this migration and is currently empty. We will take this opportunity to restructure the source code and build process, and will re-commit the latest source code along with legacy versions over the next week.

The source code repository format will change from Subversion to Mercurial. Microsoft has plans to update Codeplex to better reflect the way open source projects are managed on sites such as Bitbucket and Github. For now this Codeplex site will still be the projects home, however I am considering a move to Bitbucket depending on how Codeplex evolves over the next few months (this evolution is already under way).
I will personally be concentrating on moving forward with the 2D core of the engine, and not getting involved in other aspects such as 3D or Windows Phone support. I will be encouraging contributors to maintain forks of the project which cater to these requirements, and will endeavour to support these contributors as much as possible with their forks.
Mercury will be going cross platform. Given the somewhat hazy future of XNA, particularly on Windows 8, Mercury will become a framework agnostic engine with extensions for many popular platforms such as XNA, MonoGame, SlimDX, SharpDX, Mogre, OpenTK, Tau etc. The goal is that Mercury will be a viable option for any game which is written in C#.

As part of this process I have asked the administrators at Codeplex to convert the source code repository to Mercurial. Unfortunately they have advised me that doing so may erase the revision history, therefore I would like to warn users that the source code repository may effectively disappear within the next two weeks. If you would like to keep the current repository I strongly suggest doing a complete checkout and making a backup of it as soon as possible.

If anyone would like to be involved in the future of the project, or would like to own a specialised fork, please contact me via Codeplex :)

Windows Phone 7 Tutorial
Andrea @ RoundCrisis has put together a comprehensive tutorial for using Mercury on a Windows Phone project. Check out the tutorial >here<

Midi + Mercury
There is a beta version available for controlling your Mercury particle engine with MIDI. For more info, go to the documentation: Midi Version.

Kinect SDK + Mercury
View the full article on Channel9
Click here to view the video.

mtBAR
This is probably the coolest use of Mercury yet!
Click here to view the video.

Spring Up Harmony Release
Frozax has released Spring Up Harmony on Xbox Live Indie Games. Spring Up Harmony is a mix between pachinko and Breakout, and has some really rather nice particle effects!
Click here to view the video.

Demo Video
Click here to view the video.

Gerbil Physics 2 Release
Pencel games have recently released Gerbil Physics 2 on Xbox Live Indie Games. Like the original game, the team at Pencel have utilized Mercury for their particle effects in the sequel.
Click here to view the video.
Check out some high resolution screenshots of Gerbil Physics 2 in the Showcase section!

First Video Tutorial available
I have recently recorded the first video tutorial for Mercury, which is a getting started guide designed to get you off the ground. More video tutorials will follow shortly covering topics such as using the effect editor & importing xml effects, integrating with existing game engines and more advanced topics such as creating custom modifiers.
Click here to view the video.
I recommend launching the video in an external window and choosing the highest resolution available to facilitate reading the code


Proud user ofThe best C# & VB.NET refactoring plugin for Visual Studio	Proud user of.NET performance profiler
Proud user ofUnit test coverage in Visual Studio	Powered byThe most intelligent bug tracker and task manager
NDepend is a Visual Studio tool to manage complex .NET code and achieve high Code Quality

Updated Wiki: Home

JimJams — Mon, 14 May 2012 15:33:59 GMT

Documentation

Showcase

Screenshots

Videos

Acknowledgments

Latest News

The source code repository format will change from Subversion to Mercurial. Microsoft has plans to update Codeplex to better reflect the way open source projects are managed on sites such as Bitbucket and Github. For now this Codeplex site will still be the projects home, however I am considering a move to Bitbucket depending on how Codeplex evolves over the next few months (this evolution is already under way).
I will personally be concentrating on moving forward with the 2D core of the engine, and not getting involved in other aspects such as 3D or Windows Phone support. I will be encouraging contributors to maintain forks of the project which cater to these requirements, and will endeavour to support these contributors as much as possible with their forks.
Mercury will be going cross platform. Given the somewhat hazy future of XNA, particularly on Windows 8, Mercury will become a framework agnostic engine with extensions for many popular platforms such as XNA, MonoGame, SlimDX, SharpDX, Mogre, OpenTK, Tau etc. The goal is that Mercury will be a viable option for any game which is written in C#.

As part of this process I have asked the administrators at Codeplex to convert the source code repository to Mercurial. Unfortunately they have advised me that doing so may erase the revision history, therefore I would like to warn users that the source code repository may effectively disappear within the next two weeks. If you would like to keep the current repository I strongly suggest doing a complete checkout and making a backup of it as soon as possible.

If anyone would like to be involved in the future of the project, or would like to own a specialised fork, please contact me via Codeplex :)

Windows Phone 7 Tutorial
Andrea @ RoundCrisis has put together a comprehensive tutorial for using Mercury on a Windows Phone project. Check out the tutorial >here<

Hopper Free
Click here to view the video.

Midi + Mercury
There is a beta version available for controlling your Mercury particle engine with MIDI. For more info, go to the documentation: Midi Version.

Kinect SDK + Mercury
View the full article on Channel9
Click here to view the video.

Progenitor
Exato Game Studios proudly present their first game, Progenitor. Utilizing the new 3D features of Mercury 4.0!
Click here to view the video.

Commander
Ephemere Games emailed to let us know they used Mercury in their game Commander
Click here to view the video.

mtBAR
This is probably the coolest use of Mercury yet!
Click here to view the video.

EffectEditor Mystery Bug Resolved
Some users have reported problems when using the EffectEditor application where the default plugin library is not being loaded. Depending on which version you are using, you may see a "could not find any emitter|modifier|serialization plugins!" error message, or you could find that several menu items in the front end don't appear to "do" anything. This is caused by windows security policy for files downloaded from the internet, and can be resolved by unblocking the archive before extracting it.

Spring Up Harmony Release
Frozax has released Spring Up Harmony on Xbox Live Indie Games. Spring Up Harmony is a mix between pachinko and Breakout, and has some really rather nice particle effects!
Click here to view the video.

Demo Video
Click here to view the video.

Gerbil Physics 2 Release
Pencel games have recently released Gerbil Physics 2 on Xbox Live Indie Games. Like the original game, the team at Pencel have utilized Mercury for their particle effects in the sequel.
Click here to view the video.
Check out some high resolution screenshots of Gerbil Physics 2 in the Showcase section!

First Video Tutorial available
I have recently recorded the first video tutorial for Mercury, which is a getting started guide designed to get you off the ground. More video tutorials will follow shortly covering topics such as using the effect editor & importing xml effects, integrating with existing game engines and more advanced topics such as creating custom modifiers.
Click here to view the video.
I recommend launching the video in an external window and choosing the highest resolution available to facilitate reading the code


Proud user ofThe best C# & VB.NET refactoring plugin for Visual Studio	Proud user of.NET performance profiler
Proud user ofUnit test coverage in Visual Studio	Powered byThe most intelligent bug tracker and task manager
NDepend is a Visual Studio tool to manage complex .NET code and achieve high Code Quality

Updated Wiki: Acknowledgments

JimJams — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:32:49 GMT

Documentation

Showcase

Screenshots

Videos

Acknowledgments

Contributors

The following people have given their time & expertise to contribute code and/or documentation for the project.

Matthew Davey
Owner of the Mercury Particle Engine project - first released back in 2006 and then refined over 5 major iterations to find the perfect architecture for the particle engine.

Ian Qvist
Joined the project in 2009. Wrote documentation and restructured the project to make it appealing for game developers. Now works as a developer on extending the capabilities of the engine. Ian is also the project lead on the brilliant Farseer Physics Engine project.

Daniel Pramel
Joined the project in 2010, contributed multi-threading support and sample applications among other things. Visit his website addmore games

Alexandre Beber
Created the PolygonEmitter and TextureEmitter and contributed both to the MPE project. (TextureEmitter has now been replaced by MaskEmitter, however Alexandres code is still present)

Donators

The following people have generously donated to the Mercury Particle Engine project.

Kevin Mcleod
JetBrains (donated free Resharper license)
Tamer Elsayed
Patrick Smacchia (donated free NDepend license)

Updated Wiki: Acknowledgments

JimJams — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:32:14 GMT

Documentation

Showcase

Screenshots

Videos

Acknowledgments

Contributors

Donators

The following people have generously donated to the Mercury Particle Engine project.

Kevin Mcleod
JetBrains
Tamer Elsayed
Patrick Smacchia (donated free NDepend license)

Updated Wiki: Acknowledgments

JimJams — Tue, 08 May 2012 14:31:59 GMT

Documentation

Showcase

Screenshots

Videos

Acknowledgments

Contributors

Donators

The following people have generously donated to the Mercury Particle Engine project.

Kevin Mcleod
Tamer Elsayed
Patrick Smacchia (donated free NDepend license)

Updated Wiki: Showcase

JimJams — Tue, 08 May 2012 12:02:08 GMT

Documentation

Showcase

Screenshots

Videos

Acknowledgments

Showcase

The following is a list of games which use Mercury Particle Engine. Click on the game title to view videos and screenshots showing Mercury in action!

Gerbil Physics for Windows Phone by Pencel Games
Escapism by Tamer Elsayed
Gerbil Physics 2 by Pencel Games
Gerbil Physics by Pencel Games
Horn Swaggle Islands by Pencel Games

Updated Wiki: Showcase

JimJams — Tue, 08 May 2012 11:55:01 GMT

Documentation

Showcase

Screenshots

Videos

Acknowledgments

Showcase

Updated Wiki: Home

JimJams — Tue, 08 May 2012 11:23:40 GMT

Documentation

Showcase

Screenshots

Videos

Acknowledgments

Latest News

The source code repository format will change from Subversion to Mercurial. Microsoft has plans to update Codeplex to better reflect the way open source projects are managed on sites such as Bitbucket and Github. For now this Codeplex site will still be the projects home, however I am considering a move to Bitbucket depending on how Codeplex evolves over the next few months (this evolution is already under way).
I will personally be concentrating on moving forward with the 2D core of the engine, and not getting involved in other aspects such as 3D or Windows Phone support. I will be encouraging contributors to maintain forks of the project which cater to these requirements, and will endeavour to support these contributors as much as possible with their forks.
Mercury will be going cross platform. Given the somewhat hazy future of XNA, particularly on Windows 8, Mercury will become a framework agnostic engine with extensions for many popular platforms such as XNA, MonoGame, SlimDX, SharpDX, Mogre, OpenTK, Tau etc. The goal is that Mercury will be a viable option for any game which is written in C#.

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