Below is the vertex shader, the three attributes are 1000 in length stored in an array of floats uploaded to the shader as an array with pointers pointing to each of the three attributes... at least that's what I understand. If you open the java link it has the shader program and array code near the top.
uniform float u_time;
uniform vec3 u_centerPosition;
attribute float a_lifetime;
attribute vec3 a_startPosition;
attribute vec3 a_endPosition;
varying float v_lifetime;
void main()
{
if ( u_time <= a_lifetime )
{
gl_Position.xyz = a_startPosition + (u_time * a_endPosition);
gl_Position.xyz += u_centerPosition;
gl_Position.w = 1.0;
}
else
gl_Position = vec4( -1000, -1000, 0, 0 );
v_lifetime = 1.0 - ( u_time / a_lifetime );
v_lifetime = clamp ( v_lifetime, 0.0, 1.0 );
gl_PointSize = ( v_lifetime * v_lifetime ) * 40.0;
}