Energy Construct — Documentation

Install

Edit › Preferences › Get Extensions › ⌄ › Install from Disk… › pick energy_construct-1.1.1.zip (or drag the zip into the window). It enables itself.

Quick start (30 seconds)

1. Select the mesh you want to conjure. (Optional: shift-select a ring, hand or empty to pour from.)
2. Sidebar (N) › Construct tab › Create Construct › pick a preset.
3. Click Glow Render Setup for a dark world + bloom.
4. Press play. The construct builds from the current frame, holds, then dissolves.

Your original mesh is hidden, not changed. The construct is a new object named EC_ plus the mesh name (e.g. EC_Suzanne), with one Geometry Nodes modifier. Edit or animate the original and the construct follows.

Main panel

Sections

• Timing: Start Frame, Build Duration, Travel Time, Dissolve on/off, Dissolve Frame / Duration, Dust Life, Lifecycle (One Shot / Endless Build / Endless Dissolve / Endless Flow) with Looping Share (fraction of grains that keep cycling) and Loop Length (frames per cycle). Turn Dissolve off for a loop that never ends.
• Motion: Flow Type (Curl Grid / Curl / Noise), Motion Curve (+ custom curve), Ease In, Overshoot, Bounces, Travel / Curve Variation, Arc, Charge, Front Noise.
• Layers: Hot Color + Heat, Impact Flash, Mist, Sustain (keep feeding energy into the held construct), Trails (taper, width/glow variation, head glow, breakup, wiggle), Liquid ribbons.
• Image Card: settings used by Add Image Card.
• Imperfection: Clumping, Thickness, Settle Tighten (crisp finish), Chunks.
• Life & Wind: Alive, Wind, Gust, Flicker, Breath, Shed.
• Formation: Build Pattern, Swirl, Snap, Turbulence, Strands, Air Spread / Direction, Build Flake, Vortex Mode (Column / Swirl) with Turns, Funnel and Lift.
• Grains: Size, Variation, Streaks, Grain Shape pieces (Shards / Chunks / Custom + Grain Collection, Piece Size, Spin, Align to Velocity), Override Material, Shimmer, Write Velocity, Surface Hug, settled look.
• Inner Energy: flowing light inside the body + inner sparks.
• Dissolve Style: Pattern, Drift, Flake, Ash Color / Amount, Dust Weight, Size Drag, Turbulence, Amount, Scatter, Burst, Dust Vortex / Inflow / Vortex Object, Dissolve Mask (vertex group name: only painted areas dissolve).
• Collision: Floor, Floor Height, Bounce, Friction, Keep Debris, Debris Glow. Pieces and dust land, skid and pile up; no cache needed.
• Front Object (Formation): with Build / Dissolve Pattern = From Object, the front spreads out from this object.
• Shell: glass body opacity, reveal lag/fade, edge lines.

All distances and sizes are relative to the object's size, so a preset looks the same on a ring-sized prop and on a building.

Image cards

Panel › Add Image Card › pick a PNG or JPG. A card with the image's aspect ratio is created at the 3D cursor, facing the camera, and a construct is built from it. Transparent pixels get no grains.

Rendering and speed

• EEVEE: use Glow Render Setup (AgX + bloom). Cycles works too.
• Motion blur works in Points mode (velocity is written). Switch Write Velocity off if you don't use motion blur (about 45 % faster).
• Heavy shots: Bake first. A bake is disk-heavy (about 1 GB per 190 frames at 150k grains); Free it when you're done.
• More grains = brighter: when you raise Grain Count, lower Glow or Grain Size.
• Render farms / several machines: Bake first and render from the bake. Two separate Blender sessions can scatter a tiny fraction of the grains differently (about 0.05 %), so frames rendered on different machines without a bake may not match exactly.

Files it creates, and uninstalling

• The only files it writes are bake caches, in an ec_bake folder next to your .blend (or Blender's temp folder for an unsaved file). Free Bake deletes them; you can also delete the folder.
• Nothing else is written: no downloads, no network, no system changes. Constructs live inside your .blend file.
• Uninstall: Edit › Preferences › Get Extensions › Energy Construct › Uninstall. Saved files keep their constructs (Geometry Nodes groups EC ...), they just lose the sidebar panel.

Known limits

• Grains sit on the surface (no interior volume fill).
• Curl Grid needs 5.0+; on 4.4 it falls back to per-grain curl automatically.
• Experimental features (Energy Beam) are hidden: Preferences › Add-ons › Energy Construct › Experimental Features.

Changelog

1.1.1

• Lifecycle (Timing): One Shot, Endless Build, Endless Dissolve, Endless Flow, with Looping Share and Loop Length. A share of the grains keeps pouring in and/or peeling off in a loop while the construct stays whole: idle loops, backgrounds, game VFX. Still scrubbable, no cache; Dissolve still ends the shot.
• Every setting now has a tooltip.
• Smaller download; constructs from 1.1.0 show the Upgrade button and keep their settings and keyframes.

1.1.0

• Grain Shape: Shards, Chunks and Custom (objects from a collection) with Spin, Align to Velocity and Piece Size.
• Collision: Floor, Bounce, Friction, Keep Debris (piles), Debris Glow. Closed form, scrubbable.
• Dust forces: Burst, Dust Vortex + Vortex Inflow (optional Vortex Object).
• Dissolve Mask (vertex group), Pattern "From Object" (controller empty), Override / Debris Material.
• New Dissolve Styles: Crumble, Ember Shatter, Vortex.
• Upgrade Construct: one click moves a construct made with an older version onto the new features, keeping its settings.

1.0.0 — first release

• Create Construct from any mesh: grains pour from an emitter, condense from the air or burst from the centre, lock into a glass "hard-light" body, then dissolve into dust.
• 7 presets, 6 build styles, 4 dissolve styles, 9 color palettes.
• Motion: curl flow (cached on a voxel grid on 5.0+), 6 motion curves + custom curve, anticipation charge, per-strand timing and arcs.
• Layers: mist, tapered leader trails, hot-to-cool color, impact flash, sustain stream, liquid ribbons, edge lines, inner energy and sparks.
• Disintegration with weight: flakes, ash color, dust weight, size drag, wind and gusts.
• Add Image Card: build and dissolve any PNG/JPG as a camera-facing card.
• Bake / Free Bake for fast final renders.
• Tested on 4.4 and 5.2 LTS.