Mesh - PopcornFX

Overview

This renderer draws the particles as meshes
This renderer is supported in all of our public engine integrations.

Meshes are displayed onscreen based on an input position, scale, color and additional per particle or static properties (see mesh renderer node reference).
Note: PopcornFX v2.2 introduces mesh atlases, an efficient method to render keyframe-based animated meshes, or to randomly pick different meshes per-particle (ex: debris).
Meshes can be oriented using orientation helpers templates.

Default Materials:

Default_Mesh: Regular opaque mesh, can use alpha-testing for cutouts
Opaque_Mesh: Transparent mesh (additive, alpha-blended, or premultiplied-alpha)

Material: Default_Mesh

Property	Type	Description
`DoubleSided`	`bool`	If disabled, enables back face culling.
`Lit`	`bool`	Enables the Lit rendering feature: Lights the particle with the scene lights.
`LegacyLit`	`bool`	Enables the Legacy Lit rendering feature: Lights the particle with the scene lights. (legacy shader)
`Atlas`	`bool`	Enables the Atlas rendering feature: Allows to use a sprite-sheet as the diffuse texture, and control which subset of the texture is used using a per-particle `TextureID` input.
`MeshAtlas`	`bool`	Enables the Mesh Atlas rendering feature: Allows to use an ID to choose which sub-mesh of the specified mesh asset should be displayed.
`AlphaRemap`	`bool`	Enables the Alpha Remap rendering feature: Allows remapping the alpha using a 2D grayscale texture looked up with the particle alpha along its U coordinate, and a custom per-particle `Cursor` along its V coordinate.
`Emissive`	`bool`	Enables the Emissive rendering feature: Exposes an emissive map to use as a purely emissive color in addition to the regular diffuse component.
`TransformUVs`	`bool`	Enables the Transform UVs rendering feature: Exposes more control on the UV coordinates of the mesh corners.
`EmissiveRamp`	`bool`	Enables the Emissive Ramp rendering feature: Uses the red channel of the emissive texture (can be grayscale) to lookup a 1D color ramp to get the final RGB emissive color.
`UseVertexColors`	`bool`	When enabled, the mesh vertex colors will be multiplied with the diffuse component.
`MeshLOD`	`bool`	Enables the Mesh LOD rendering feature: If the mesh has builtin LODs, allows to control per-particle which LOD level gets drawn.
`Type`	`enum`	Opaque mode Solid: Fully opaque, ignores the texture & color alpha channel Masked: When the final pixel’s alpha value is lower than `MaskThreshold`, the pixel is not drawn
`MaskThreshold`	`float`	Opacity mask threshold value. If the alpha value is below this value, the pixel is discarded.
+ all common renderer properties
Input pins
`Position`	`float3`	Mesh position in world coordinates
`Scale`	`float3`	Mesh scale
`Orientation`	`orientation`	Mesh orientation
`Mesh`	`String`	Mesh resource
`DiffuseMap`	`String`	Texture map used for the diffuse lighting component.
`Color`	`float4`	Diffuse color, multiplied with the diffuse map color.

Material: Transparent_Mesh

Property	Type	Description
`DoubleSided`	`bool`	If disabled, enables back face culling.
`SoftParticles`	`bool`	Enables the Soft Particles rendering feature: Particles fade away when becoming too close to solid scene geometry, preventing a hard clipping effect where they intersect the scene.
`AlphaRemap`	`bool`	Enables the Alpha Remap rendering feature: Allows remapping the alpha using a 2D grayscale texture looked up with the particle alpha along its U coordinate, and a custom per-particle `Cursor` along its V coordinate.
`Atlas`	`bool`	Enables the Atlas rendering feature: Allows to use a sprite-sheet as the diffuse texture, and control which subset of the texture is used using a per-particle `TextureID` input.
`MeshAtlas`	`bool`	Enables the MeshAtlas rendering feature: Allows to use an ID to choose which sub-mesh of the specified mesh asset should be displayed.
`Emissive`	`bool`	Enables the Emissive rendering feature: Exposes an emissive map to use as a purely emissive color in addition to the regular diffuse component.
`DiffuseRamp`	`bool`	Enables the Diffuse Ramp rendering feature: Uses the red channel of the diffuse texture (can be grayscale) to lookup a 1D color ramp to get the final RGB diffuse color.
`TransformUVs`	`bool`	Enables the Transform UVs rendering feature: Exposes more control on the UV coordinates of the mesh corners.
`EmissiveRamp`	`bool`	Enables the Emissive Ramp rendering feature: Uses the red channel of the emissive texture (can be grayscale) to lookup a 1D color ramp to get the final RGB emissive color.
`UseVertexColors`	`bool`	When enabled, the mesh vertex colors will be multiplied with the diffuse component.
`MeshLOD`	`bool`	Enables the Mesh LOD rendering feature: If the mesh has builtin LODs, allows to control per-particle which LOD level gets drawn.
`Type`	`enum`	Transparent blending mode. Additive AdditiveNoAlpha AlphaBlend PremultipliedAlpha
`SortMode`	`enum`	Allows to specify a custom sorting key. CameraDistance: Sorts from back to front based on the particle distance to the camera (default) ByCustomValue: When selected, uses the per-particle `SortKey` input as the value to sort based on, from largest first to smallest last, like if it was a distance value.
`GlobalSortOverride`	`int`	Global sort order of the draw calls. Different values for 2 renderers will break batching and separate their drawcall. Smaller values are drawn first (visually behind higher values). The value can be negative.
`CameraSortOffset`	`float`	Used as a depth bias to allow offseting the draw call bbox along the camera axis (in world units). Different values for 2 renderers will break batching and separate their drawcall.
+ all common renderer properties
Input pins
`Position`	`float3`	Mesh position in world coordinates
`Scale`	`float3`	Mesh scale
`Orientation`	`orientation`	Mesh orientation
`Mesh`	`String`	Mesh resource
`DiffuseMap`	`String`	Texture map used for the diffuse lighting component.
`Color`	`float4`	Diffuse color, multiplied with the diffuse map color.

Lit

Lights the particle with the scene lights.

Property	Type	Description
`CastShadows`	`bool`	Can cast shadows
`Roughness`	`float`	Material roughness (PBR). A roughness of `0.0` represents a mirror, a roughness of `1.0` represents a purely diffuse surface.
`Metalness`	`float`	Material metalness (PBR). A metalness of `0.0` represents a pure nonmetal, a metalness of `1.0` represents a pure metal. Affects the color of the reflections.
`Type`	`enum`	Solid Transparent
Input pins
`NormalMap`	`String`	Texture map representing tangent-space normals to be used for lighting.
`RoughMetalMap`	`String`	Roughness (R) and Metalness (G) packed in an RGBA texture
`LitMaskMap`	`String`

LegacyLit

Lights the particle with the scene lights. (legacy shader)

Property	Type	Description
`NormalWrapFactor`	`float`	Used to fake sub-surface scattering on the particles. Remaps the `N dot L` of the lighting equation from `[-1,1]` to `[-1+factor,1]`
`LightExponent`	`float`	Exponentiation of the lighting term
`LightScale`	`float3`	RGB Multiplier applied to the incoming light
`AmbientLight`	`float3`	Additional uniform light
`CastShadows`	`bool`	Can cast shadows (not implemented in editor)
Input pins
`NormalMap`	`String`	Texture map representing tangent-space normals to be used for lighting.
`SpecularMap`	`String`	Source map used in specular lighting computation

SoftParticles

Particles fade away when becoming too close to solid scene geometry, preventing a hard clipping effect where they intersect the scene.

Property	Type	Description
`SoftnessDistance`	`float`	Fade distance of particles in world units

AlphaRemap

Allows remapping the alpha using a 2D grayscale texture looked up with the particle alpha along its U coordinate, and a custom per-particle Cursor along its V coordinate.

Property	Type	Description
Input pins
`AlphaMap`	`String`	Texture map used as the alpha remap lookup. The `X` lookup coordinate is the diffuse texture alpha. The `Y` lookup coordinate is the `Cursor` value.
`Cursor`	`float`	`Y` coordinate used to sample the `AlphaMap` texture.

TransformUVs

Exposes more control on the UV coordinates of the mesh corners.

Property	Type	Description
`RGBOnly`	`bool`	When enabled, does not transform the UVs used to sample the alpha channel.
Input pins
`UVOffset`	`float2`	UV offset
`UVRotate`	`float2`	UV rotation angle
`UVScale`	`float2`	UV scale

Atlas

Allows to use a sprite-sheet as the diffuse texture, and control which subset of the texture is used using a per-particle TextureID input.

Property	Type	Description
`Source`	`enum`	External: Atlas tiles are defined in an external `.pkat` atlas file. Their topology can be arbitrary. Procedural: The number of tiles along the `U` and `V` axes are specified by the `SubDiv` property.
`SubDiv`	`int2`	Subdivision count
`Blending`	`enum`	Frame blending type None: No interpolation between frames Linear: Linear blending MotionVectors: Use the MotionVectorsMap texture as the interpolation vectors to blend between frames
`DistortionStrength`	`float`	Multiplier over the uv distortion Distortion strength to apply for Houdini exported maps is: `-(1.0 / FPS / ColRow)`.
Input pins
`Definition`	`String`	Atlas definition (.pkat)
`MotionVectorsMap`	`String`	Motion vectors texture, used to blend between frames when `Blending` is set to `MotionVectors`
`TextureID`	`float`	Index of the sub-rect to use inside the atlas

MeshAtlas

Allows to use an ID to choose which sub-mesh of the specified mesh asset should be displayed.

Property	Type	Description
Input pins
`MeshID`	`float`	Index of the sub-mesh to draw when the mesh resource contains multiple sub-meshes.

DiffuseRamp

Uses the red channel of the diffuse texture (can be grayscale) to lookup a 1D color ramp to get the final RGB diffuse color.

Property	Type	Description
Input pins
`RampMap`	`String`	1D texture map used tor for diffuse color remap. Sampled with the `Red` channel of the `DiffuseMap` texture.

Emissive

Exposes an emissive map to use as a purely emissive color in addition to the regular diffuse component.

Property	Type	Description
Input pins
`EmissiveMap`	`String`	Texture map used for the emissive lighting component.
`EmissiveColor`	`float3`	Emissive color, multiplied with the emissive texture

EmissiveRamp

Uses the red channel of the emissive texture (can be grayscale) to lookup a 1D color ramp to get the final RGB emissive color.

Property	Type	Description
Input pins
`EmissiveRamp`	`String`	1D texture map used tor for emissive color remap. Sampled with the `Red channel of the EmissiveMap texture.`

MeshLOD

If the mesh has builtin LODs, allows to control per-particle which LOD level gets drawn.

Property	Type	Description
Input pins
`LOD`	`int`	Index of the level of detail to render.

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PopcornFX v2.18