Following some feedback on my first release of ParticleLab 2.0, I decided to rebuild my node based user interface from the ground up. I feel the main issue with my original node based particle editor was the sheer size of the nodes meant navigating through the scenes was quite an unfriendly experience. To that end, I've stuck with the detail panel but added a node based UI for navigation and selection.
This now offers an immediate view of the entire scene and illustrates the relationships between all the objects. Although the UI doesn't yet allow users to create relationships, it can display shared nodes (for example several emitters may all use the same gravity well action).
I've based the new UI on a set of Flex TileLists - one for each category of Flint object. Using TileLists gives me all the nice transitions when nodes are added or removed and handles layout nicely. It's a shame that the TileList can't center justify its children.
The next step is to add in place editing for the different zones. This version uses Degrafa to render the zones in the editor and renderer.
Because this is the first attempt at recreating a Flex node based UI and there's a lot of room for tweaking, optimising, refactoring and general faffing about, I'm holding back on releasing the source. However, the application is available here.
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