Alpha objects are usually drawn last from back to front. That way they don't occlude each other, don't interfere with everything else, and properly blend on top of anything already rendered.

To make a glowing effect, you'll probably have to go with a specialized texture that has a bright center and fades a lot at the edges. That way, when you render a lot of them layered against each other, you'l get an intense center with a glow effect around them. It's likely that the example you posted involves more than just the same texture layered with multiple particles, though. You may need special flare textures that you can render last.

[Edited by - Waverider on September 5, 2007 10:16:06 AM]

To get a sparkly particle effect you want to use additive blending. In OpenGL that's done with glBlendFunc(GL_SRC_ALPHA, GL_ONE), but you look like you've got default blending currently (glBlendFunc(GL_SRC_ALPHA, GL_ONE_MINUS_SRC_ALPHA).

It looks like you've left depth testing on for the particles, which causes them to block ones behind them. To fix this draw your particles last, and disable depth writing (glDepthWrite(false)) but leave depth testing enabled. Fortunately additive blending doesn't need particles to be sorted so you can just draw them in any order.

And don't forget to put your state back to it's previous setting so you don't affect other objects drawn after your particle system.

Looks to me like OrangyTang's got the answer - enable depth testing but disable depth writing. Should sort your problems out [smile]

Jack

Have you tried

sceGuBlendFunc(GU_ADD, GU_SRC_ALPHA, GU_FIX, 0, 0x00ffffff);