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Blender - FGA Vector Field Editor

Allows creation and manipulation of vector fields using Blender particle simulations and vector math operations, as well as importing/exporting FGA files used by Unreal Engine 4.

  • Requires Blender 2.8 and up.

  • The menu panel can be found in the Panels section in the right part of the workspace. The documentation hasn't been updated to reflect this yet.

Out-of-date Documentation is available here: https://github.com/isathar/Blender_UE4_VectorFieldEditor/wiki (or the wiki link on the side)

  • Very out of date, will be updated as soon as time permits.

Some example .fga files: http://www.mediafire.com/download/4x174fgf8lmec6g/VF_Examples.zip

Features

Vector Field Editor:

  • Saves current particle system velocities and blends them with saved results using one of the following methods:
    • Replace, Average, Add, Multiply, Cross Product, Vector Reflection
  • Particle velocities used in these calculations can be obtained using the following methods:
    • Velocity, Offset Distance, Angular Velocity, Custom Vector, Point
  • Curve Force tool that uses wind forces to move particles along a line.

Importer + Exporter for FGA files for use in Unreal Engine 4

Installation

  • Extract to your addons directory
  • Enable it in the addon manager (named FGA Vector Field Tools)
  • A new tab named Vector Fields should be visible in the tools panel

Notes

Performance
  • This addon's performance is heavily dependent on the speed of your CPU and memory.
  • Blender may stop responding during the Create and Calculate operations, but shouldn't crash.
  • On vector fields with a density of less than 128^3, operations should take less than a minute, with lower density fields (<64^3) taking a few seconds at most.
  • At maximum density (128^3), creating a new vector field takes about 20 seconds on my mid-range Core i5 based PC, and calculating velocities can take up to 2 minutes (after recent tweaks).
  • Performance while editing reasonably sized (< 1 million vertices) vector fields is good, while a 128^3 volume can be painfully slow under the right (wrong) circumstances.
128x128x128 and System Memory
  • Editing a 128x128x128 vector field requires a 64-bit system and Blender version, as well as a large amount (> 6-8 GB) of system memory.
  • This is due to the amount of particles that need to have their dynamics cached (and the number of vertices in the volume mesh)
  • To avoid running out of memory while editing very high resolution vector fields, you may want to lower your undo history steps.
  • Using a disk cache for your particles may help, too.

Changelog:

1.2.1:

  • probably fixed noneType error messages (Thank you to kkaja123 for reporting and looking into fixing it!)
  • moved the menu to the panels at the right side of the workspace

1.2.0:

  • initial update to support Blender 2.8.

1.1.5:

  • changed sorting of the calculation/velocity dropdown lists
  • new calculation method: Vector Reflection
  • added constraint to vector field volume, only moving the bounding box now moves the volume

1.1.4:

  • fix for display lines not updating when new velocities are calculated
  • new calculation method: Cross Product

1.1.3:

  • removed the need for the update data/offsets buttons
  • slight performance optimizations for display lines

1.1.2:

  • new presets can now be added/removed
  • export should now work with any part of the vector field selected (or both)

1.1.0:

  • added support for selecting a physics preset to edit particle physics settings easily for selected vector field

1.0.1:

  • renamed curve path tool to Wind Curve Force
  • added editor for created curve wind force strength, distance + falloff
  • the Ratio property should now work (apparently forgot to use the variable)

1.0.0:

  • General:
    • tools panel category renamed to Vector Fields
    • saved data only includes velocities now (removed position, index)
      • files made with old versions are still compatible
    • cleaned up ui panel to reduce clutter, added section toggles
    • some code cleanup
  • Import/Export:
    • moved import/export to standard menu
    • made import/export properties local to their functions
  • Editor:
    • performance tweaks for creating new vector fields + calculating velocities
    • removed slice selection tool (redundant, easily done in edit mode)
    • matched default scaling to (grid units x field density)
      • distances were at half scale before
      • density variable used for creation is now distance between particles
    • added undo functionality to Generate function
    • new velocity mode: Point
  • Curve Force Tool:
    • changed curve force tool to create an object group to remove scene outliner clutter
    • fixed curve force fields' parenting issue
      • all transformations to the curve force object should now work
    • curve forces now display an arrow pointing in the force's direction

0.9.5:

  • Editor:
    • added new calculation method: Multiply
    • added different methods for obtaining velocities
    • reorganized the main editor
    • added calculate for selection
    • added invert all button
    • seperated normalize function from calculation - it's a button again
  • Import/Export:
    • moved density variable to object space for export script
      • allows multiple vector fields in the scene during export (still exports one at a time)
    • added ability to use object locations as offsets + import/export them
    • scaling tweaks
    • manual bounds option
  • General:
    • added ability to undo slice selection, calculation, curve tool, and normalize
    • select x,y,z slice
    • created index by axis for velocities list for slice selection and upcoming features
    • switched bpy.context to passed context where possible
    • description text for all variables + operators (some may be vague)
    • added bug reporting url to addon manager (Github)
    • readme formatting

0.9.1:

  • added different generation modes: Replace, Additive, Average
  • added trail option for curve path (fade influence with curve position)
  • changed the way invert and normalize work
  • slight calculation performance tweak

0.9:

  • another performance tweak
  • added invert, normalize, disable gravity options

0.8:

  • added import functionality
  • massive speed improvement

0.5:

  • initial upload