Elemental FX Pro

Blender Procedural in Modeling

DOCUMENTATION  ·  VERSION 1.0.1

Elemental FX Pro Guide

Everything you need, from install to the final render.

01  ·  INSTALLATION

Install in under a minute

1 Download elemental_fx_pro-1.0.1.zip. Do not unzip it.
2 Drag and drop the zip into the window and confirm Install.
Alternative: Edit ▸ Preferences ▸ Get Extensions ▸ ▾ (top right) ▸ Install from Disk… and pick the zip.
3 Open the 3D Viewport sidebar (N) and click the Elemental FX tab.
Updating?  Install the new zip the same way. Your scenes keep their settings.
02  ·  QUICK START

Footprints in 60 seconds

1
PICK
In the Elemental FX tab, click the big preview and choose a medium, e.g. Snow.
2
DEMO
Click Runner Demo. A surface, a sky, a light, a camera and a running mannequin are created.
3
PLAY
Press Space. Footprints appear as the runner crosses the surface.
4
RENDER
Open the Bake panel, click Bake, then render the animation as usual.
Want a finished scene?  Open Demo Scenes: build Sand + Water Mountain, Snowy Hills, Lava Volcano or Fog Over Town, or a showcase scene for any medium.
03  ·  YOUR OWN SCENE

Three ways to use it

FASTEST · MOST DETAIL
A flat surface
1  Pick a medium and click Add … Surface. It appears at the 3D cursor.
2  Select your animated objects (characters, wheels, boats…) and click Colliders ▸ Add Selected as Colliders.
3  Play the timeline, or click Interactive Mode and move objects with G.
TERRAIN · STREETS · SETS
On your own meshes
1  Select the ground meshes (any number), pick a medium and click On Selected.
2  A layer is created on top of everything you selected. Snow and sand cover the ground; water and fog fill the low areas (Fill Level).
3  Add colliders, emitters and forces. Moved or edited the ground? Click Rebuild Layer.
RIGGED · DEFORMING
Characters
Mark the character mesh — or just its feet / shoes — as a collider with Shape: Mesh. Deforming meshes are sampled every frame.

Best footprints: surface resolution of at least 256, and let the feet go 5–10 cm below the surface.
Pour & push
The Emitter, Force and Runner buttons in the main panel add an emitter (pick what it pours), a force field or a running test mannequin. Pour sand onto a mountain top, drop lava into a valley, blow fog through a street.
04  ·  THE PANELS

Every setting, explained

All panels live in the Elemental FX tab of the 3D Viewport sidebar. Panels for flat surfaces and scene layers appear when the matching object is active.

Elemental FX Pro  MAIN PANEL
Medium gallery Click the big preview to choose what you create: Snow, Sand, Mud, Water, Fog, Lava or Magic Ground.
Add … Surface Creates a flat simulation surface at the 3D cursor.
On Selected Lays a scene layer of the medium over the selected meshes.
Runner Demo Builds a complete demo with a running mannequin for the selected medium.
Emitter / Force / Runner Add an emitter, a force field or a test runner to the active simulation.
Change Medium The menu next to the active simulation switches it to another medium.
Interactive Mode Simulates without playing the timeline — move objects with G or the gizmo. Click Stop Interactive to end. ↻ resets the simulation.
Simulate on Playback Runs the simulation while the timeline plays.
Demo Scenes  READY-MADE SCENES
Scene gallery + Build Media flowing over real meshes: Sand + Water Mountain, Snowy Hills, Lava Volcano, Fog Over Town.
Showcase per medium One button per medium creates a ready-to-play showcase scene.
Simulation  FLAT SURFACES
Max Depth Deepest an object can press into the surface. Its name follows the medium.
Rim Volume · Rim Width · Plow How much pushed-away material piles up around trails, how wide the rim is, and how much more piles up in front of moving objects. Water calls the first one Wave Push.
Wave Speed · Damping · Strength Water waves and magic rings: how fast they travel, how quickly they die out, how strongly objects make them.
Flow Strength · Viscosity How strongly objects drag the material along, and how quickly it stops flowing.
Stiffness · Swirl · Turbulence Stiff material only flows right next to objects, soft material further out. Swirl adds swirling patterns, Turbulence random variation.
Slope Limit · Fluidity · Slump Steepest slope piles hold (0 disables sliding), how much piles keep spreading under their own weight, and how much disturbed material smooths out.
Healing / Refill Trails slowly fill back in — snow refills, fog closes. 0 keeps trails permanent.
Wetting · Spread · Drying The state trail: wet mud, packed snow, foam, lava heat or glow. How strong it is, how far from objects it reaches, how fast it fades. Names follow the medium.
Surface & Solver  FLAT SURFACES
Size · Resolution Width of the surface and simulation cells per side (higher = more detail, slower). After a change, click Apply Size / Resolution.
Edge Fade A soft border where the surface calms back to rest, so material flows out instead of piling up at the edges. Also thins fog banks out.
Surface Lumps · Seed Height and seed of the initial lumpy relief.
Speed · Max Substeps Simulation time multiplier, and the upper limit of automatic substeps for fast objects.
Pressure Iterations Flow solver accuracy (lower = faster).
Layers  SCENE LAYERS
Granular · Fluid · Magic Glow What the layer carries: sand, snow or mud; water, lava or fog; and glowing rings where objects touch the scene. They can be combined.
Cover Initial granular layer over everything (snow cover, sand).
Fill / Fog Blanket · Level Fills everything with fluid up to this height above the lowest ground point — lakes, fog in streets and valleys.
Ground list Use Selected as Ground replaces the meshes under the layer; ↻ Rebuild Layer re-reads them after you move or edit them.
Resolution Cells per side over the selected meshes. After a change, click Apply Resolution.
Layer Physics  SCENE LAYERS
Slope Limit · Wet Grip Steepest slope sand / snow / mud holds before it slides, and how much steeper it can stand when wet.
Slide · Friction How fast sliding material runs downhill, and how quickly it stops.
Flow Gravity · Viscosity · Object Push Water, lava and fog: strength of downhill flow, fluid thickness, and how strongly moving objects push it.
Cooling · Dissipation How fast lava cools and stiffens; how quickly fog slowly disappears.
Erosion · Deposition · Drying Sand + water together: how strongly running water carves sand, how quickly carried sand settles, how fast wet sand dries.
Colliders  WHAT TOUCHES THE GROUND
Add Selected as Colliders Turns the selected objects into colliders. Each one then gets its own row.
Pusher / Obstacle A pusher presses in, pushes material and makes waves. An obstacle is static: flow and fog go around it and waves bounce off.
Shape Mesh, Sphere or Box. Sphere and Box are fastest; Mesh follows deforming characters.
Flow How much this pusher's motion drags the material.
Emitters  POUR MATERIAL
Pours What the emitter adds: Auto (the main material it falls on), Sand / Snow / Mud or Water / Lava / Fog.
Rate Material poured per second (m³/s). Keyframe it to start and stop.
Radius · Exit Speed Size of the pour, and its initial speed along the emitter's −Z axis.
Pour Stream On: material falls as particles and lands below. Off: it appears directly on the ground under the emitter.
Forces  PUSH IT AROUND
Type Wind (blows along the arrow), Vortex, Attract / Repel, Turbulence.
Strength · Radius Acceleration in m/s² (a negative strength on Attract / Repel pushes away), and the reach of the force (0 = everywhere).
Gust Size · Particles Size of turbulence swirls, and whether the force also pushes particles.
Particles · Bake · Look
Particles Toggle in the panel header. Amount, Size, Lifetime and Max Particles (the cap that keeps it real-time) for grains, splashes, spray, embers and sparkles.
Bake Cache Folder (next to the .blend by default), Bake and Free Bake. Select the simulation object first. Rendering uses the bake when there is one.
Look One-click presets for the active medium, plus every material control: colors, glow, foam, bump, fog density… Fog also has Fog Slices and Slice Height.
05  ·  TIPS

Get the best out of it

Speed vs detail
Resolution is the main cost: 192–256 for previews, 320–512 for close-ups.
Fast objects
Raise Max Substeps so fast colliders leave continuous trails.
Rendering
Always bake before final renders — render farms and command-line renders read the bake from disk.
Fog
Renders with stacked slices, very fast in EEVEE. More Fog Slices = smoother.
Large terrains
A scene layer covers everything you select. Keep resolution moderate (256) and use several layers for very large worlds.
Performance
Only active areas are processed, so a quiet surface costs almost nothing. Desktop CPU: flat surfaces 5–25 ms per frame (256–384), scene layers 25–50 ms (256).
06  ·  TROUBLESHOOTING

If something looks off

▸  Nothing happens when I press Play
Check that Simulate on Playback is on and that your moving objects are listed in Colliders.
▸  Footprints are too faint
Let the feet go 5–10 cm below the surface, raise Max Depth, and use a resolution of at least 256.
▸  Fast objects leave dotted trails
Raise Max Substeps in Surface & Solver (or Layer Physics).
▸  I changed Size or Resolution and nothing changed
Click Apply Size / Resolution (flat surfaces) or Apply Resolution (scene layers).
▸  I moved the ground and the layer no longer fits
Click ↻ Rebuild Layer in the Layers panel.
▸  The bake went to a temp folder
Save the .blend file first — the cache folder is relative to it.
SUPPORT
Stuck? We're here to help.

Use the Support button on this page. Please include your Blender version, your operating system and, if possible, a small .blend file that shows the problem.

$14$9.80

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Details
Blender Extension Compatible Yes
Dev Fund Contributor
Published about 5 hours ago
Blender Version 5.0 - 5.2
Extension Type Add-on
Render Engine Used Cycles, Eevee
License GPL

Blender Procedural

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