Flash - Gravity Effect - Particle System

This gravity/disintegration effect is accomplished through a small, simple particle system. It can be applied to any of your MovieClips or Sprites, and includes many settings to control how the effect is applied, including:

vx: The starting velocity the particles will have on the X axis, measured in pixels.
vy: The starting velocity the particles will have on the Y axis, measured in pixels.
speed: This is a numerical value greater than 0 that controls how quickly particles can move when pulled by gravity.
friction: Friction controls the rate of slowdown on particles once they’re being pulled by gravity. It is a value between 0 and 1, and is multiplied against the particle’s speed. As such, if the friction is set to 0, then a particle won’t move. If friction is set to 1, the particle will move quite fluidly, as though it were moving on a slippery surface.

Click on the icons above to see how the gravity effect performs for both static and moving objects (vx and vy properties are used for the moving object). The gravity effect is accomplished through the GravityEffect class. You create a GravityEffect object, passing it the object you want pulled by gravity. Then you just add it to the stage and have it go! You can control the gravity’s pull at any time, and also reset the object back to the way it was before the effect took place.

The help file that comes with your download provides more information on how to implement the GravityEffect in your projects. And the FLA of the above demo is also included with full comments on how it works.

With only a 1kb footprint in your published SWF , it’s an easy and efficient way to add realistic particle effects to your work. This effect is written in AS3 and works for Flash Player 9+. Enjoy!