There is an "Effects Editor" with Elemental, so, you should have more or less everything you need to do this right from the start. Good luck .

That's very inspiring btw, so, I tell you what. If this turns out good and I think it looks "kick ass" then you can consider it to be a official part of the "Dragonlance Mod" if you'd like. But it has to be top of the line Dragonlance deserves nothing less.

That's all I was going for That and I thought you'd like to get your Mod out to as many players as possible. I meant no offense or to try to "Draft" you, my friend.

I've noticed custom particles can be made in PSD form (I use Photoshop for that) and used in the particle editor. I'm not sure what your skills are with making new custom art but if you need a hand or need any specific sprites made I could probably find time between the other stuff I'm doing. Just say the word.

Although, I'm going to assume you can probably do that on your own just as easily as I can, but, you can never be too sure so I thought I'd offer.

I think Fireball should be first on your list A 2d "campire" effect duplicated in a line to target is.. :/

I'm not much of an artist to help, but would like to wish you luck on the project

Whee! More powerful magic! Boom, boom, hahahaha!

...ahem. Yes, making magic flashier is worthy of...of good things.

-cough-

As someone who has worked with programs like these before, Icecrown, Stardock's particle engine is neither very good nor intuitive. They can and should do better than this. If not, we had better be able to mod and refine this tool ourselves.

Torchlight's TorchED tool has a much better particle editor. The 'ribbon trail' particle type is very cool, and you are able to use various physics nodes such as a jet, gravity well, and vortex to affect movement dynamically. Color was handled with a color picker and a gradient bar that could be customized on-the-fly by setting color and alpha handles, just like in photoshop.

Even SecondLife, where particles are handled entirely through a text interface (coding, and not the weak XML variety), is easier (in my opinion) to use and has better features. The only shortcoming, while a pretty sizeable one, is a lack of keyframe ability. You often have to make more emitters than normal to achieve a desired effect.

My suggestions and wishes for The Cauldron:

Improve color and alpha selection. There's no reason not to use gradient handles such as those in photoshop. If ditching XML is necessary to achieve this, so be it!

Reduce clickage required to set graphic options. I have to go into arm-spasm clicking mode to move through lists quickly using those silly left and right arrows. A dropdown would be better, and a texture browser type window ideal.

Scroll bars. While minor, I believe is not just an issue with the cauldron. When clicking and dragging a scroll bar, if at any point your mouse moves far enough to the left or right to exit the tin vertical column the scrollbar occupies, the focus is instantly dropped, scrolling stops, and you have to click back in to continue. Add a buffer zone to the left and right.