Which particle emitter should I use?

[typeoneerror]

We're looking to have our characters kick up some dust/grass/sand/snow based on the type of enivronment they are in. Looking at the samples for the particles-distanceEmitter, it looks really straightforward, but I noticed a few different Emitters in the src, namely Emitter, DistanceEmitter, and TimedEmitter. I'm wondering if anyone has any thoughts on which would be the best Emitter to use for a quick particle "kick up". Basically, if the character does a dash on grass, we want to have some grass particles kick up behind him/her quickly to give the dash a little more "oomph". Seems like TimedEmitter would be good for our "falling snow" level, but I'm not sure about these short-lived emitters. Any advice would be appreciated.

[ibisum]

I would say you don't need anything more than a plain old Emitter .. but its easy enough to implement each emitter type, so why don't you just try them all and go with the 'cheapest' one that does the job without consuming too many resources (CPU/etc.)

[derickdong]

I don't think its going to matter, one way or the other. The different emitters simply specify the conditions under which new particles are automatically generated. From the sounds of it, you would just use MOAIParticleEmitter's surge function to kick out the necessary particles, when the character first starts moving. However, if you want particles to be produced continuously as the character is moving, then MOAIParticleDistanceEmitter would probably be the way to go.

MOAIParticleEmitter - I'm pretty sure this is simply a base class, from which all other particle emitter's are going to derive from. Users don't seem have to access to it (I don't, anyway)
MOAIParticleDistanceEmitter - Particle(s) are emitted when the emitter has traveled the specified distance.
MOAIParticleTimedEmitter - Particle(s) are emitted at specified time intervals.

[plandem]

sure MOAIParticleEmitter is 'abstract class', but you can use MOAIParticleSystem directly to spawn particles via pushSprite/pushParticle.