In my opinion, the most effective approach involves crafting a personalized shader material. By utilizing attributes, you can introduce unique properties to each particle. Here is a glimpse of how your shader code could be structured:
Vertex shader:
attribute vec3 customizedColor;
attribute float customizedSize;
varying vec3 vColor;
void main()
{
vColor = customizedColor; // assigns color to vertex for later use in fragment shader
vec4 mvPosition = modelViewMatrix * vec4( position, 1.0 );
gl_PointSize = customizedSize * ( 300.0 / length( mvPosition.xyz ) );
gl_Position = projectionMatrix * mvPosition;
}
Fragment shader:
uniform sampler2D texture;
varying vec3 vColor; // colors assigned to vertices by vertex shader
void main()
{
gl_FragColor = vec4( vColor, 1.0 ); // calculates color for particle
gl_FragColor = gl_FragColor * texture2D( texture, gl_PointCoord ); // sets particle texture to specified color
}
To see a similar interactive demonstration, visit: