The renderer api can be used to control how the simulation in TPT gets rendered. You can set render / display modes, and change things related to the HUD / grid mode. Some renderer related functions are in the legacy tpt.* api.

ren.* is an alias for renderer.* and can be used to write things shorter.

Methods

renderer.renderModes

table ren.renderModes()
ren.renderModes(table newModes)

If called with no arguments, returns a table containing the currently activated render modes. If called with a table argument, turns on all the render modes specified in the table. Render modes are typically used to change the way all particles render, display modes set extra added effects.

Print out all current render modes in hex:

for k,v in pairs(ren.renderModes()) do
    print(k,"0x"..bit.tohex(v))
end
>>1, 0x00fff380; 2, 0xff00f270; 3, 0x0400f381

Set the current render mode to a weird form of blob display

ren.renderModes({ren.RENDER_BLOB, ren.RENDER_EFFE})

renderer.displayModes

table ren.displayModes()
ren.displayModes(table newModes)

Works exactly like rennder.renderModes(). If called with no arguments, returns a table containing the currently activated display modes. If called with a table argument, turns on all the display modes specified in the table. Render modes are typically used to change the way all particles render, display modes set extra added effects.

Print out all current display modes in hex:

for k,v in pairs(ren.displayModes()) do
    print(k,"0x"..bit.tohex(v))
end
>>1, 0x00000002; 2, 0x00000010

Set the current display mode to persistent with cracker velocity display

ren.displayModes({ren.DISPLAY_AIRC, ren.DISPLAY_PERS})

renderer.colourMode

number ren.colourMode()
ren.colourMode(number colourMode)

number ren.colorMode
ren.colorMode(number colourMode)

A colour mode is basically a description of how particles are drawn. The other details which are considered when particles are drawn are fire mode, pixel mode and effect mode (rare cases like portals).

ren.COLOUR_BASC, for example, draws every particle with its usual color (which I will here define as the Colour property of the element). It also disregards little details like the heat-glow of LAVA and metals.
ren.COLOUR_HEAT disregards its usual color entirely and uses the heat map only.
ren.COLOUR_GRAD kind of uses the usual colour of the element, except the colour is gradually turned brighter and then back to normal to create a gradient or stripy effect.
ren.COLOUR_LIFE is the colour mode that gets applied when you use the 'Life display' render mode - it gets brighter the larger the life property of the particle is.
ren.COLOUR_DEFAULT is the colour mode that occurs usually: in it things like lava and metal get an 'usual colour' that gets brighter when the element heats up.

This function takes one optional integer and sets which colour modes the currently appIying render mode uses. If the function is called with no arguments, it returns the current colour mode as an integer as well.

renderer.colorMode

number ren.colorMode()
ren.colorMode(number colorMode)

An alias for ren.colourMode.

renderer.decorations

number ren.decorations()
ren.decorations(number decoSetting)

If called with no arguments, returns a 0 or a 1 representing the current deco mode setting. If a number is passed in, turns decorations on or off.

renderer.grid

number ren.grid()
ren.grid(number gridSize)

If called with no arguments, returns the current grid size (normally set with 'g'). Grid sizes range from 0 (no grid) to 9. Each size increases the number of pixels between lines by 4.

If an argument is passed in, sets the current grid size. There are no checks to make sure it is in the valid range, but if negative numbers are passed in it may cause strange behavior.

renderer.debugHUD

number ren.debugHUD()
ren.debugHUD(number debugSetting)

If called with no arguments, returns a 0 or a 1 representing whether the debug HUD (normally set with 'd') is on or off. If a number is passed in, turns the debug HUD on or off.

Constants

Any of these constants can be accessed with renderer.<constant name here>

Particle graphics function modes

These should be used in lua graphics functions to set how particles will be drawn. Effects like fire, glowing, and flares are set here. How a particle is actually rendered depends on the current render and display modes.

Render modes

These are the values used and returned by ren.renderMode. They are combinations of the above values, and sometimes overlap. All source definitions also include OPTIONS and PSPEC_STICKMAN (so that options can always be set and stickmen are always rendered), but they are not listed here.

Display modes

These are the values used and returned by ren.displayMode. They can be set together, although no official display mode does this.