Scripted Particles

Okay guys, need your opinion on the way I am doing things with my particle system. I have Lua integrated with my particle system to allow complete customization of the way the particles work. The way I have it set up to work is like so: in psuedo c++ code

for(int i=0; i < particles.size(); i++){
    // send variables to Lua(as globals) such as

    // particle position/velocity/color/ect.


    // call a function in a lua script that

    // alters said global variables

    script->Call("Execute");

    // gather those variables and set this particle's

    // data members to reflect what happened in the script


    // move the particle(vel*elapsedTime)

    particle[i]->Process(elapsedTime);
}
 

rinse and repeat each frame. As you can imagine, it is relatively slow. I have also set it up so that it will only execute the script at a set interval, and gather the time that elapses between execution and pass it to the script. Since I take time into consideration(dist = vel*time) in my script, this works pretty well. The effects don't look exactly the same, but pretty close for the speed increase I get(about 40% depending on the interval between executions of the script). My question is this: How do you guys do your scripted particles? Or how do the pros do it? Any ideas/comments? CD Jesus is Lord!! [edited by - CD579 on April 21, 2004 7:37:41 PM]