Particle effects can look brilliant, but they can be spoiled by scaling issues. This post looks at one way to fix it in OpenGL.

OpenGL enables light 0 by default. This can be helpful for tinkering, but it can cause some confusing lighting issues if you forget to disable it.

When specifying normals in OpenGL, remember to scale them correctly or the lighting calculations will be incorrect.

When working with OpenGL (and potentially other graphics library), don't put your near clipping plane too close to the camera.

Pay attention to what your texture parameters apply to when working with OpenGL.