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The visual effects system relies on a modular ow design where processing is described through states.
Systems are composed by chaining Contexts which contains dedicated behavior Blocks. Every context type
has its own speci c properties and using a block in one state or another can be used to achieve different
results.

Systems
Systems are generally composed of a top-to-bottom chain of contexts that follows this order :

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Contexts
Contexts represent states of processing through Visual Effect Systems, they have their own behavior
depending on their type, and most of them can hold one or many blocks.

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They are connected vertically by ow connections, from top to bottom. Here is a list of commonly used
contexts, for more information see the Contexts () section.

Context
Name Description Input Output

Event Event exposed to the Component, can be triggered by C# SpawnEvent

GPU Event caught by other systems SpawnEvent

Event

Spawn Toggleable machine that outputs SpawnEvents over time using SpawnEvent SpawnEvent
speci c behavior.

Initialize Generate N new particles with attributes from a SpawnEvent (CPU SpawnEvent Particles
or GPU) and injects them into simulation

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Context
Name Description Input Output

Update Update loop of a particle simulation, takes input of new generated Particles Particles
particles.

Output Renders particles with a speci c renderer and shader. Particles

Static Renders a static mesh with a shader and transform, with shader
Mesh properties exposed to the expression Graph

Blocks
Blocks are one of the modular processing power of the visual effect editor : they are small chunks of
features that can be added to contexts to process a speci c task. They are held in a library that can be
extended by writing new blocks.

Manipulating Blocks

Blocks can be added to a context by right clicking the context then selecting Create Block from the
menu or pressing the Spacebar while having the cursor over the context.
The block creation menu can be navigated through categories and/or ltered using the search eld.
Blocks can be dragged and reordered among one context, or dragged to another compatible context.
Blocks can be duplicated, copied, pasted and deleted.

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Block overview
Blocks are composed of a Header, a Settings area and a property area.

Header is the area where you can click to drag around the block. It contains the following:
Block title (corresponding to the current con guration)
Toggle checkbox to disable the block.
UI Collapse button
Settings area is where you can staticly con gure the block. (please note that not all settings are
necessarily in this area, some can be accessible in the inspector)
Properties area is where you can enter values or connect operators to con gure the block's values.

There is a large number of blocks you can add and a even larger amount of combinations you can achieve
using these. For more details about blocks and the library contents : see the Blocks () section of the help.

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