A muzzle flash for a FPS is relatively straightforward. The perspective is fixed, so you can pretty much just glue a sprite to the end of your gun and your golden, but not so much in a third person perspective. I'm wondering if the best way is to billboard around a local axis to point at the camera, or whether it's better to construct a simple funnel shape with the end chopped off or what. I've seen it done both ways, and I'm not particularly certain what the best approach is. I'm pretty sure particles are a bad idea, because they're wasteful on performance and impractical to generate fast enough, but beyond that, not really sure.
Any other tips to make the effect look good would be appreciated too. I've never done muzzle flashes in any shape or form, so I don't know whether I should be playing with scale and/or alpha or anything else.
Any other tips to make the effect look good would be appreciated too. I've never done muzzle flashes in any shape or form, so I don't know whether I should be playing with scale and/or alpha or anything else.