Play with physics. Create and save dynamic scenes using an array of tools. Witness complex physical interactions and emergent behavior.
PARTICULATE simulates millions of tiny particles using the massive parallel processing power of VR-capable graphics cards. Built using a new and fully-custom engine for high performance, PARTICULATE is a physics sandbox but also a fully-fledged creative tool.
PARTICULATE comes with interactive featured scenes for when you just want to relax and watch cool stuff happen. Or you can build and save your own scenes when you're feeling creative.
Ten different types of tools can be placed into scenes statically, or you can record (and loop) their motion using a simple press-move-release mechanic. Tools include several particle emitters, the Attractor/Repeller, Orbiter, Collision Sphere, Distortion Field, Dragger, and Stirrer.
Turn on Audio Reactivity and play your own music (using any app) to add a whole new dimension to any scene.
Email mike@miketuritzin.com with any questions or issues.
Image assets for use in press coverage: DOWNLOAD
I (Mike Turitzin) designed and developed PARTICULATE between 2017 and 2019 (with some tinkering on the engine done in my spare time before that). I've programmed for almost 30 years, doing Quake modding in my teens, then publishing computer graphics research at Stanford, working on the search indexing system at Google, and founding a note-taking / organization app company (WorkFlowy).
My VR tinkering started in the Oculus DK2 days, and I was initially experimenting with music visualization. After the release of Oculus Touch, I decided to change directions to what has become PARTICULATE. I noticed that it's fundamentally really cool to interact with particles in VR, and my goal with PARTICULATE was to create the ultimate VR particle experience.
This is indeed unfortunate, and I would have liked to support SteamVR (and non-Oculus headsets) from the outset. However, because PARTICULATE is built on a custom engine that I started tinkering with using an Oculus DK2 (before the commercial releases of the Rift and Vive), it does not (yet) support VR SDK's other than Oculus's. I would love to support SteamVR and will do the port if there is sufficient demand - but I want to release for the Oculus platform now. (The port is not enormously difficult but also non-trivial.)
Note that the version on Steam right now uses the Oculus SDK and is identical to the version on the Oculus Store.
Good question! :) While there are many disadvantages these days to building one's own engine, there are advantages, particularly regarding performance. With a custom engine, you have 100% control over data layouts, render passes, and so on. This means you can design something that does exactly what you want and nothing you don't (while having full control over how what you want is done). In PARTICULATE, particle spawning, simulation, and rendering are all done using compute shaders - the rendering technique in particular is one I have not seen done elsewhere (I wrote about it here). All that said, I also built PARTICULATE from scratch for fun and for the learning experience.
For the curious, the PARTICULATE engine was built using C++, OpenGL, and the Oculus SDK.
Probably because I either didn't think about it or it's on one of my long to-do lists. I love to read any feedback, so send it in, and I'll see what I can do.