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Out-of-date Documentation is available here: https://github.com/isathar/Blender_UE4_VectorFieldEditor/wiki (or the wiki link on the side)

• Very out of date, will be updated as soon as time permits.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