Actually, here's some ASCII art to demonstrate what I'm talking about.

\                    / \             ___  /  \             |  /   \              /    \            /     \__________/      \        /       \      /        \    /         \  /          \/

Here's a particle (with normal) facing the near plane as your method would produce. However, it isn't facing the camera, so it would become skewed from the perspective projection.

But this is the same effect on everything else in the scene, including straight walls and the like. The effect is almost non existant... unless you are using some kindof odd FOV/Aspect?

Quote:Original post by Vampyre_Dark
But this is the same effect on everything else in the scene, including straight walls and the like. The effect is almost non existant... unless you are using some kindof odd FOV/Aspect?

Granted, however, walls and the like are apart of the normal scene (as in, they aren't supposed to look the same from all directions) - and thus must be transformed as so. Particles (billboarded) need to always face the camera, such that they always look the same from every angle. This isn't the case if you just make the particle point at the -normal of the near plane. Still, your method of billboarding, while less accurate, would be faster - by what margin however is hard to say.