Weather · Expansion packs · Phaser AE

What it does

One effect covers the view: what falls is born in a band above the screen, what the wind carries along its upwind edge too, and what hangs in the air fades in where it is. Each weather is prewarmed, so its first frame already shows a sky full of rain, and several emitters give it depth, such as far streaks behind near ones or haze behind the sand.

Spawn one with game.particles.effect(name, opts) and it loops until killed; to change the weather, kill one and spawn the next. On a scrolling world, follow the camera's target or use a screen-space layer, and pass scale for a bigger view: 2 covers 1280 by 720. Every emitter is live by name, so you can thin a storm or switch off its lightning without copying it.

Features

Rain — steady rain over a mist, fine drizzle under a grey murk, and a slanting storm with sheet lightning.
Snow and ice — gentle snow at three depths, a driving blizzard, and hail that bounces off the ground.
Seasons — tumbling autumn leaves and cherry blossom petals.
Hostile air — grey ash with live embers, and an ochre sandstorm.
Atmosphere — blinking fireflies and dustMotes in a shaft of light.
Data you can copy — a heavier downpour, or hail landing on higher ground, is a copied definition.

Good for

Platformers and adventures — rain over a city, snow on a winter level, leaves in an autumn forest.
Mountain, desert and volcano levels — blizzards, sandstorms and ash.
Story and mood scenes — fireflies over a night meadow, dust in the light through a window.
Weather that changes — one effect swapped for the next as a level goes on.

Make it yours

Each weather is one effect with scale, follow and an angle that tilts the rain a few degrees. A side-scrolling platformer lets snow follow the player and swaps it for a blizzard on the mountain pass; a fixed-screen puzzle game drops petals in spring, leaves in autumn, and plays a storm with its lightning stopped in a sad scene.

A quick look

Rain at the centre of the view, snow that follows the player, and a storm for a bigger view with its lightning off:

const rain = game.particles.effect('rain', { x: 320, y: 180, layer: 'fx' });
const snow = game.particles.effect('snow', { follow: player, offset: { y: -40 } });
const storm = game.particles.effect('storm', { x: 640, y: 360, scale: 2 });
storm.emitters['flash']!.emitter.stop(true);   // a storm with no lightning
rain.kill();

Works with

particles-2d and particle-textures — required; core-2d includes both.
audio — for the rain and the wind.
rig-follow — the follow camera whose target the weather can follow.
particles-gpu — for weather that must fill a huge view densely, past about twenty thousand particles.
vfx3d-weather — weather as volumes round the player in 3D.

Good to know

Tuned for a 640 by 360 view; scale covers bigger views in proportion, but a view of another shape needs a copy with wider zones.
The wind blows left to right, and angle does not turn wind or gravity; weather blowing left is a mirrored copy.
Nothing settles on your platforms: only hail lands, on a line 170 units below the centre.
The blizzard is the busiest at about 1,350 live particles, and spawning prewarms for up to about 60 ms, so start the weather with the scene.