[Lab] Render and edit particles, trails, and other time-based effects

[z64555]

This feature request would make it easier to "live design" particle effects and trails for weaponry. In addition to rendering the effects, as they would show up in-game, developers would also be able to tweak the entry for the weapon to get the effect to what they desire.

[z64555]

I looked at the particle system and didn't see a clear way of implementing this without making a special case, or otherwise a seperate codepath.

[asarium]

@z64555 What issues did you encounter? When I designed the system I made sure that it didn't have any dependency on being in the gameplay state so it should be relatively easy to add a particle system viewer.

[z64555]

Well I mean the rendering and spawning of the particles would have to be made specifically for the lab. I wouldn't be able to use many of the existing routines that are used in-game. I already have the idea of spawning the particles from the object's origin and giving them the object's tabled velocity in the reverse direction, but I haven't gotten to working on it (in part due to the feature freeze).

[asarium]

Well, ideally you would change the existing code so that it can be used in the lab and in game so that future changes will not require changing two different locations in the code.