Falloff Lens is a Blender 4.2+ add-on that provides a visual preview of proportional editing influence before geometry or objects are transformed.

It displays a viewport overlay showing which vertices, edges, faces, or object origins are affected by Blender’s proportional editing radius. The overlay uses a cold-to-hot gradient to represent influence strength and can also draw a clear boundary around the active falloff radius.

Falloff Lens is non-destructive. It does not modify mesh data or object data; it only draws a visual guide in the 3D Viewport.

Requirements

• Blender 4.2 or newer
• Mesh Edit Mode or Object Mode
• Proportional editing enabled for falloff preview behavior

Installation

1. Open Blender.
2. Go to Edit > Preferences > Add-ons.
3. Click Install....
4. Select the Falloff Lens ZIP file.
5. Enable Falloff Lens in the add-on list.
6. Open the 3D Viewport sidebar with N.
7. Go to the Falloff Lens tab.

The overlay can also be accessed from:

View > Falloff Lens Overlay

Basic Usage

Mesh Edit Mode

1. Select a mesh object.
2. Enter Edit Mode.
3. Select one or more vertices, edges, or faces.
4. Enable Blender’s proportional editing.
5. Adjust the proportional editing radius and falloff type.
6. Enable Falloff Lens Overlay.

Falloff Lens will display the affected mesh area using weighted viewport colors.

Object Mode

1. Enter Object Mode.
2. Select one or more objects.
3. Enable proportional editing.
4. Enable Object Mode Overlay in the Falloff Lens panel.
5. The overlay will preview proportional influence across visible object origins.

When Object Bounds is enabled, affected objects can also display weighted bounding boxes.

Panel Controls

Enable Overlay

Turns the Falloff Lens viewport overlay on or off.

Auto Proportional Only

When enabled, Falloff Lens only draws the overlay while Blender proportional editing is active.

Object Mode Overlay

Enables proportional editing visualization in Object Mode.

Object Bounds

Draws weighted bounding boxes around affected objects in Object Mode.

Show Gradient

Displays the cold-to-hot color gradient that represents influence strength.

Show Face Tint

Adds a semi-transparent weighted fill over affected faces in Mesh Edit Mode.

Disable this option if you only want vertex and edge visualization.

Show Boundary

Draws a clear radius boundary around the proportional editing influence area.

Always Visible

Draws the overlay on top of hidden or occluded geometry using transparency.

Opacity

Controls the visibility strength of the main overlay.

Face Opacity

Controls the opacity of the face tint overlay.

Object Bounds Opacity

Controls the opacity of object bounding-box visualization.

Point Size

Controls the display size of overlay points.

Refresh Interval

Sets the minimum time between expensive overlay rebuilds.

This is useful for improving performance in heavy scenes.

Max Vertices

Limits overlay generation for very dense meshes.

If a mesh exceeds this limit, Falloff Lens may skip the preview to protect viewport performance.

Max Objects

Limits Object Mode overlay generation for large scenes.

Adjusting Radius

Falloff Lens includes an interactive radius adjustment tool.

Use:

View > Adjust Falloff Radius

Default shortcut:

Ctrl + Alt + R

During radius adjustment:

• Drag horizontally to change the proportional radius.
• Hold Shift for finer adjustments.
• Hold Ctrl to round the radius value.

The tool modifies Blender’s proportional editing radius directly.

Projected Proportional Editing

When Blender’s projected proportional editing is enabled, Falloff Lens uses a screen-space approximation based on the active 3D View.

Because projected influence depends on the current viewport angle, the preview updates when the view changes.

Add-on Preferences

Falloff Lens stores default overlay behavior in:

Edit > Preferences > Add-ons > Falloff Lens

Use Apply Falloff Lens Defaults to copy the add-on preference defaults into the current scene.

Performance Notes

Falloff Lens automatically refreshes its overlay cache when relevant scene data changes, including:

• Proportional editing settings
• Mesh updates
• Object updates
• Dependency graph changes
• Manual refresh actions

For large scenes, use these settings to keep performance stable:

• Increase Refresh Interval
• Lower Max Vertices
• Lower Max Objects
• Disable Show Face Tint
• Disable Object Bounds when not needed

Limitations

• Falloff curves are visual approximations.
• Projected proportional editing is approximated in screen space.
• The overlay is intended for previewing influence range and relative strength, not for exact numerical measurement.
• Very large meshes or scenes may be skipped depending on performance limits.

Recommended Workflow

1. Enable proportional editing.
2. Turn on Falloff Lens Overlay.
3. Adjust the radius until the boundary matches the intended edit area.
4. Choose the desired Blender falloff type.
5. Check the gradient for influence strength.
6. Perform the transformation.
7. Disable the overlay when it is no longer needed.

Troubleshooting

The overlay does not appear

Check that:

• Falloff Lens is enabled in Blender preferences.
• Enable Overlay is turned on.
• You are in Mesh Edit Mode or Object Mode.
• Proportional editing is enabled if Auto Proportional Only is active.
• A valid mesh or object selection exists.

The overlay feels slow

Try:

• Increasing Refresh Interval
• Reducing Max Vertices
• Reducing Max Objects
• Disabling Show Face Tint
• Disabling Object Bounds

The projected preview changes when rotating the view

This is expected. Projected proportional editing depends on screen-space distance, so the preview changes with the viewport projection.