Canvas transform controls:

Drag the selected emitter crosshair to move it
Drag the blue box corner handles to scale
Hold Shift while scaling to force a 1:1 square scale
Drag the round handle above the box to rotate
Hold Shift while rotating to snap in 15-degree steps
Locked emitters cannot be edited on the canvas

Scene panel:

Layers can be shown/hidden with the eye icon
Hiding a layer hides its emitters without changing the emitters' own visibility flags
Drag layers to reorder layer compositing
Drag emitters to reorder them or move them between layers
Duplicating a layer duplicates its emitters too

Emitter Parameters

Emitter

• Name: Emitter label shown in the Scene panel
• Blend Mode: How particles from this emitter blend with pixels behind them
  • Normal: Standard alpha blending
  • Additive: Brightens the image using particle colour and alpha
  • Multiply: Darkens/tints pixels behind the particle
  • Screen: Brightens while preserving more colour than additive
  • Subtract: Subtracts particle colour from pixels behind it
• Particle Sort: Draw order for particles inside this emitter
  • Oldest First: Older particles draw behind newer particles
  • Newest First: Newer particles draw behind older particles
• Simulation Rotation: Rotates the entire emitter simulation, including particles, motion, gravity, noise, and directional forces
• Simulation Scale: Scales the entire emitter simulation
  • X and Y can be different
  • Non-uniform scale squashes or stretches particles as well as their motion
• Seamless Looping: Makes the emitter use deterministic loop timing so start/end frames can match for seamless exports

General

• Amount (per second): Continuous spawn rate in particles per second
• Amount Curve: Multiplies spawn rate over the emitter duration
• Burst: Compresses emission time
  • 0 emits over the full emission duration
  • 1 emits all particles at once
  • 0.5 emits over roughly half the emission duration
• Lifetime (seconds): How long each particle lives, up to 30 seconds
• Lifetime Randomise: Random variation of particle lifetime, from 0% to 100%
• Emission Duration (seconds): How long the emitter actively emits particles, up to 30 seconds
• Emission Delay (seconds): Wait time before the emitter starts emitting
• Timescale: Simulation speed multiplier. 1.0 is normal, 0.5 is half speed, 2.0 is double speed
• Gravity (X/Y): Constant force applied to particles over time. Gravity is part of the emitter simulation, so it rotates with Simulation Rotation
• Random Seed: Changes the emitter's random pattern. Larger offsets produce more noticeable differences

Shape

• Shape: Spawn region type
  • Point: Particles spawn from the emitter position
  • Circle: Particles spawn between minimum and maximum radius
  • Box: Particles spawn inside a rectangle
  • Line: Particles spawn along an editable polyline

Circle

• Circle Min Radius: Inner spawn radius
• Circle Max Radius: Outer spawn radius

Box

• Box Width: Spawn rectangle width
• Box Height: Spawn rectangle height

Line

• Line Spawn Mode:
  • Random: Random points along the active line span
  • Uniform: Evenly spaced emission points along the active line span
  • Single Point: One animated emission point along the line
• Spread Count: Uniform mode only. Amount of evenly spaced emission points on the line
• Emit Start Curve: Random/Uniform modes. Animated start of active line span, from 0 to 1
• Emit End Curve: Random/Uniform modes. Animated end of active line span, from 0 to 1
• Emit Point Curve: Single Point mode. Animated emission position on the line, from 0 to 1
• Reset Line: Resets the polyline to two default points

Line editing in Source preview:

• Drag a point to move it
• Click a segment to insert a point
• Right-click a point to delete it
• A line always keeps at least two points

Velocity

• Speed: Initial particle speed. 0 is valid for stationary particles such as flashes
• Speed Randomise: Random variation of speed, from 0% to 100%
• Speed Curve: Multiplier applied to speed over particle lifetime
• Damping: Drag/friction applied to particle velocity over time
• Damping Randomise: Random variation of damping, from 0% to 100%
• Linear Acceleration: Curve-controlled acceleration along the particle's movement direction over lifetime
• Linear Acceleration Randomise: Random variation of linear acceleration, from 0% to 100%
• Radial Velocity: Curve-controlled push away from or pull toward the emitter centre over lifetime
• Radial Velocity Randomise: Random variation of radial velocity, from 0% to 100%
• Orbital Velocity: Tangential movement around the emitter centre. Positive and negative values orbit in opposite directions
• Orbital Velocity Randomise: Random variation of orbital velocity, from 0% to 100%
• Orbital Velocity Curve: Multiplier applied to orbital velocity over particle lifetime

Angle

• Direction Mode: Only shown for Line shape
  • Fixed Angle: Uses Emission Direction and Directional Spread directly
  • Line Direction: Launches along the local line segment direction
  • Line Outward: Launches perpendicular to the local line segment
• Emission Direction: Base direction for particle velocity
• Directional Spread: Random +/- angle range around Emission Direction
• Radial Spawn Offset: Offset in the emission direction where particles spawn
• Initial Particle Rotation: Starting texture rotation for each particle
• Particle Rotation Randomise: Random variation of initial particle rotation
• Particle Rotation Speed: Spin speed over time
• Particle Rotation Speed Randomise: Random variation of spin speed
• Rotation Curve: Multiplier applied to particle rotation speed over lifetime
• Align To Velocity: Rotates each particle so it faces its movement direction
• Velocity Angle Offset: Extra angle offset when Align To Velocity is enabled
• Random Flip X / Random Flip Y: Randomly mirrors particle texture horizontally or vertically

Texture

• Particle Texture: Image drawn for each particle. Click the preview to open the texture browser
• Center Pivot: Pivot point used for rotation and scaling. Drag the crosshair in the preview to edit it
• Reset: Resets the pivot to the centre
• Texture Rotation Offset: Rotates the texture orientation without changing particle motion

Flipbook

• Enable Flipbook: Uses a sprite sheet as an animated particle texture
• Edit Slices: Opens the slice preview/editor
• Columns / Rows: Sprite sheet grid layout
• Frame Count: Number of frames used from the sheet
• Loop: If enabled, frame playback wraps. If disabled, playback holds on the final frame
• Start Frame: Starting frame offset
• Speed Curve: Multiplier applied to flipbook playback over particle lifetime

Flipbook frame order is row-major: left to right, top to bottom

When flipbook is enabled, particle size is based on the individual frame size, not the full sprite sheet size

Size

• Scale: Particle scale over lifetime. A value of 1 means texture-size scale
• Scale Randomise: Random variation of scale, from 0% to 100%
• Width: Width multiplier over particle lifetime
• Height: Height multiplier over particle lifetime

Colour

• Colour Gradient: Particle colour and alpha over particle lifetime

Gradient editing:

• Drag handles to move them
• Double-click empty space to add a new colour
• Double-click a handle to edit its colour
• Right-click a handle to remove it

Trail

• Enabled: Turns trails on or off
• Draw Order: Draws trails behind or in front of parent particles
• Rate: Trail sample spawn rate
• Lifetime (seconds): How long each trail sample lives, up to 30 seconds
• Size Curve: Trail sample size over trail lifetime
• Trail Colour: Trail colour and alpha over trail lifetime

Trails use their own size and colour curves. They do not use the parent particle colour/size curves

Turbulence

• Turbulence: How strongly particles are pushed around by turbulent motion. Range: 0 to 500
• Turbulence Size: Size of the turbulence pattern. Lower values create broad sweeping movement; higher values create tighter detail
• Turbulence Motion: How quickly the turbulence pattern moves over time
• Turbulence Curve: Controls how much turbulence affects particles over their lifetime
• Drift (X/Y): A steady directional push added to the turbulence

General usage & tips

Build Layered Effects

• Use the Scene panel to manage Master Effects, render layers, and emitters
• Render layers contain emitters. Selecting a layer edits that layer's effects and properties
• Selecting Master Effects edits the final effect chain applied after all layers are composited
• Selecting an emitter edits that emitter's properties
• Use Add Layer, Add Emitter, Duplicate, and Remove to manage the scene
• Double-click a layer or emitter name to rename it
• Use the eye icon to toggle layer or emitter visibility
• Use the lock icon to prevent emitter canvas interaction
• Drag layers in the Scene panel to reorder layer compositing
• Drag emitters to reorder them or move them between layers
• Duplicating a layer also duplicates the emitters inside that layer
• Layer visibility acts like parent visibility. Child emitters keep their own visibility state, but hidden layers hide their emitters in the preview/output

Emitter Transforms

• In the Source preview, drag the emitter crosshair to position it
• Use the selected-emitter transform box to scale or rotate the whole effect
  • Drag a corner handle to scale
  • Hold Shift while scaling to force a 1:1 square scale
  • Drag the round handle to rotate
  • Hold Shift while rotating to snap in 15-degree steps

Shape Modes

• Point: particles spawn from the emitter position
• Circle: particles spawn between a minimum and maximum radius
• Box: particles spawn within a rectangle
• Line: particles spawn along an editable polyline

Line editing in the Source preview:

• Drag a point to move it
• Click a line segment to insert a point
• Right-click a point to delete it
• At least two points are always kept

Line spawn modes:

• Random: particles spawn randomly along the active span
• Uniform: particles spawn from evenly spaced emission points
• Single Point: particles spawn from one animated point on the line

Texture + Flipbook

• Click the texture preview to choose a texture from the texture browser
• Adjust Center Pivot and Texture Rotation Offset in the Texture section
• Enable Flipbook for sprite sheet animation
  • Set columns, rows, frame count, loop mode, and start frame
  • Use Edit Slices to preview and auto-slice sprite sheets
  • Playback is based on particle lifetime
• Texture previews show a single flipbook frame when flipbook is enabled

Trails

• Enable trails in the Trail section
• Trails have their own lifetime, size curve, and colour gradient
• Trails can draw behind or in front of the parent particles
• Trail force controls are intentionally minimal for now

Effects Chain

• Add post-process effects in the horizontal effects chain
• Effects are applied from left to right
• Drag effect panels to reorder them
• Use each effect checkbox to enable/disable it
• Select a render layer in the Scene panel to edit that layer's effect chain
• Select Master Effects to edit the final effect chain applied to the composited result

Curve Graphs

Curve graphs are used anywhere a value needs to change over time

Basic editing:

• Drag a point to change its time and value
• Double-click an empty part of the graph to add a new point
• Right-click a point to remove it
• The first and last points stay in place so the curve always has a start and end

Handles:

• Drag a handle to shape the curve between points
• Handles are mirrored by default, which keeps the curve smooth
• Hold Ctrl or Shift while dragging a handle to edit it independently
• The first point only has a right handle, and the last point only has a left handle

Min / Max:

• Min and Max control the value range shown by the graph
• Changing these does not move the points in time, it changes how their vertical values are interpreted
• Use a wider range when you need stronger values, such as high speed or larger scale
• Use a tighter range when you need more precision

Timeline + Playback

• Scrub the timeline to inspect the effect frame-by-frame
• The timeline length includes emitter duration, particle lifetime, timescale, burst compression, and trail lifetime where relevant
• The playback loop button is for convenient preview looping
• Seamless Looping is for loop-perfect preview/export. For clean seamless loops, particle lifetime usually needs to match emitter duration
• The yellow marker on the timeline controls the export end time
• Drag the marker to shorten the exported range without changing the effect itself
• The label below the timeline shows the current Export Range
• Double-click the export marker to reset it back to the full timeline length

Export

Export behaviour:

• The yellow Export Area box in the Output preview controls what gets exported
• The yellow timeline Export Range marker controls how much time is exported
• The export dialogs show the final frame size after scale is applied

Save / Load

• Drag a .blastfx file from File Explorer onto the BlastFX window to open it
• If .blastfx files are associated with BlastFX by the installer/operating system, double-clicking a project opens it in BlastFX
• If a project cannot be opened, BlastFX shows a popup explaining the problem
• Save Project With Textures... embeds used texture files directly inside the .blastfx file
• Packed projects can be moved/shared without separate texture files

Property Panel Navigation

• Hover a collapsed section header for a short summary of what that section contains
• Use Collapse All at the top of the Properties panel to quickly close every section

Backgrounds

• Use the View menu to set a preview background colour or image
• Background images display at their native ratio and follow zoom
• Hold B and drag in a preview to move the background image
• Use Clear Background to return to the checkerboard