MOVE THE EMPTY. THE MASK FOLLOWS.

Shape Falloff is a Blender add-on that turns an empty into a soft mask for your mesh. One click, and the surface swells and changes colour wherever you move it, in geometry nodes and in the material at the same time.

Building that mask by hand means a 20-node falloff (Object Info, an inverse rotation, a divide by scale, a length, a Map Range and more), then a Store Named Attribute, then an Attribute node in the material with the same name typed a second time. And every tweak is another trip between the node editor and the viewport.

WHAT IT IS

Select a mesh, press Add Falloff Setup and pick an empty. Its position, rotation and scale become a soft mask that pushes the surface out along its normals and colours it through a ramp in the material, both live. Move or keyframe the empty and everything follows, in EEVEE and Cycles, with nothing to bake. Select the empty and the panel shows the setup it drives, so you tune it where you are already working. Add more empties to the same mask, turn it into a ring or a sweep, or drop the same falloff as a node into any geometry nodes tree.

WHAT THIS DOES THAT BLENDER DOES NOT

Blender has every node needed to build this by hand. Shape Falloff builds it for you, keeps the geometry and material sides in sync, and gives you one panel to steer it from either end.

COMPATIBILITY

FEATURES

1MOVE THE EMPTY, THE MASK FOLLOWS

A glowing orb glides over a field of tiles and they swell and heat up where it passes. One mask drives the geometry and the material at once, frame by frame, in EEVEE and Cycles.

2ONE CLICK, THEN PICK AN EMPTY

Select a mesh, press Add Falloff Setup and pick an empty. You get the geometry nodes modifier, the named attribute and a colour ramp in the material, wired and live.

3TUNE IT FROM THE EMPTY

Select the empty and the panel shows every setup it drives, fully editable. Move it, widen the falloff, push harder, all without switching objects or opening a node editor.

4DISPLACEMENT FOLLOWS THE SURFACE

Points move along their own normals, so a tube swells all the way round and a sphere inflates instead of everything sliding upward. Switch it off to drive only the shading.

5SEVERAL EMPTIES, ONE MASK

Add Driver puts another empty into the same mask. Combine them as Maximum for the union, Minimum or Multiply for the overlap, or Add so overlaps build up.

6RING, SWEEP OR STRETCH

Scale the empty unevenly for an ellipse, give it a hard core, turn it into a ring that expands as you scale it, or a sweep that wipes around the empty. Noise breaks up the edge and stays on the surface.

7THE NODE IN ANY TREE

Shift+A drops the same falloff into any geometry nodes tree. Its Result drives anything that takes a factor: instance scale, Set Position, a Mix or a Switch.

8REAL NODES, NOTHING TO APPLY

Everything is ordinary nodes in your file: save it, append it, edit it by hand, and it renders on machines without the add-on. It leaves wired inputs, tuned ramps and linked data alone, and sets up every selected mesh in one click.

WHAT YOU GET

• Shape Falloff 1.5.1 as a Blender extension: install the .zip from Get Extensions > Install from Disk
• 1 sidebar panel in the 3D Viewport that follows your selection, and an Add Falloff Node button in the Geometry Node editor
• The Shape Falloff node group: 9 inputs and 1 Result output, also on Shift+A in any geometry nodes tree
• 4 ways to combine several drivers: Maximum, Minimum, Add and Multiply
• A heatmap Color Ramp wired into Base Color, or into Color on shaders such as Emission
• Full documentation and a quick-start guide
• Direct email support from the developer

UPDATES AND SUPPORT

Updates install with one click inside Blender through Superhive's extension repository, and every update is free.

• Questions or problems: [email protected]
• Licence: GPL, source included. Use it on anything, commercial or not.

CHANGELOG

BUY ONCE, INSTALL THE .ZIP, AND HAVE YOUR FIRST MASK MOVING IN UNDER A MINUTE: SELECT A MESH, PRESS ADD FALLOFF SETUP, PICK AN EMPTY AND MOVE IT.