Graphics2D effects for a newbie

Newbie & Debugging Questions
#1

I’m in an intro game programming class, and I decided to make a game based off a popular game called Geometry Wars in Java2D (professor decided to use it). I’m at a point where I’ve created a decent game, but with very simple graphics (simple circles, rectangles, solid colors, etc). I have about 0 experience in graphics programming (although quite a bit in other kinds of programming), but I want my game to have a “polished” look.

Specifically I would like to know:

  • How to create a glow effect
  • Give moving shapes/lines a “trail”
  • Do them efficiently

I’m getting a lot of inspiration from this game: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-_qlaywKBs
I especially like the explosions and I’ve implemented a similar effect in my game which basically paints a bunch of white spheres. So for instance, how could I paint them (as efficiently as possible without too much trouble) to both glow and have the cool trail? Of course I would extend the technique to other things in my game.

And thanks for help in advance. Sorry I’m such a newbie, but I’m really enjoying what I’ve been learning so far.

#2

Glow effect could be made by drawing a slightly bigger version of the shape with lower alpha so gradually you get a nice gradient fade out at the edges, simulating a glow.

Trail effect is a simple particle system where you just spawn many particles of tiny yellow dots that have a certain direction and lifetime.

This probably won’t strain the computer really bad, unless you start getting into ridiculous numbers. Limit the glow effect to 4-5 draws, and a max of 100-200 particles.

#3

With java2d, all you have is play of color, size and alpha without hard blending. So let’s be creative.

#4

So I’ve tried doing the glow idea which works great!..Except I get about 1fps using alpha transparency. Here is a screenshot of the glow effect:

and here’s the code:

AffineTransform saveTransform = g2.getTransform();
g2.rotate(Math.atan(PARTICLES[i*2+1]/PARTICLES[i*2]),posX + x, posY + y);

for(int j = 3 ; j > 0; j--) {
	g2.setColor(new Color(0,255,0,50 - j*7));
	g2.setStroke(new BasicStroke(2 + j*7, BasicStroke.CAP_ROUND, 
              BasicStroke.JOIN_ROUND));
	g2.draw(new Line2D.Double(posX + x, posY + y, posX + x - 7, posY + y));
}
g2.setColor(Color.WHITE);
g2.setStroke(new BasicStroke(2));
g2.draw(new Line2D.Double(posX + x, posY + y, posX + x - 7, posY + y));

g2.setTransform(saveTransform);

please ignore the horribly hacked code; I just wanted something that would work for now…
What can I do about the ridiculously bad frame rates when I use alpha transparency? I am going to need it especially when I add in a background.

#5

Some tips. Use Graphics2D’s method to draw line by only passing 4 params so you can avoid an object creation. You created so many object with new instance. Declare all variables on upper side and reuse.

#6

I considerably improved performance by first painting the particle to a BufferedImage, then reusing that so each particle doesn’t have to keep being rendered. However, I’ve found what the real problem is:

intermediateImage.getCapabilities(null).isAccelerated();

always returns false. It returns true (after two accesses) when there is no alpha transparency and this goes quite fast. This article http://java.sun.com/products/java-media/2D/perf_graphics.html says that on all systems except Mac OSX, translucent images are not accelerated by default. Should I use a VolatileImage instead?

#7

Wow. I fixed it. OpenGL apparently wasn’t being used on my system. Just passing the flag in this blog made everything super fast.

http://www.systemparadox.co.uk/node/29