VFX16

A playful VFX creation tool.

What is this?

VFX16 is a procedural generator for particle systems in games.

Why?

I originally made it to help me create particle systems more quickly for my own games. It exports to other game engines and tries to respect their native file formats and runtimes as much as possible. 

Inspirations include:

•  sfxr, a sound generation tool.
• Teenage Engineering hardware designs.

Instructions:

Just play around! If you want to actually use an effect in your game, you can export to Unity or Godot.

Unity Export requires VFX16_Assets_Unity.zip below. Unzip the pack anywhere in your Unity project's Asset directory. Then press the Unity button to export your effect as a prefab.

Godot Export is currently disabled! I need this Godot PR merged for it to work.  requires VFX16_Assets_Godot.zip below. Unzip the pack to your Godot project's directory. You should end up with "VFX16/" in the project's root directory.  Then press the Godot button to export your effect as a scene.

You can also press Open to import previously exported Unity prefabs and Godot scenes. Then you can make changes and re-export.

Known Issues

• Godot export is disabled pending this Godot PR.
• The generators need more variety.
• Safari on macOS has various problems like window size and performance.
• Trails don't seem to be working in the web tool but they should appear in your export.
• Second and third textures on 3D meshes can have artifacts at the mesh boundaries (like the 3D fireball) but this is a web rendering error. Exports should look fine. 
• Manually entering scale values for an emitter doesn't work reliably. Better to just use the widget.
• There's no way to reset the camera view, so you can get lost sometimes.
• There's no toggle for world vs. local space yet. Would be very handy.
• It'd be nice if there was a way to loop playback of one-shot effects like explosions.
• Can't tab between text boxes.

Contact Me

If you try it and like it or find other problems (you will!), please let me know on Twitter or Discord.

Credits

I created a private version in Unity, and then co-created the initial public release in Godot with Guillaume Bailey.