Asset - Project Geon FX — Particle Editor

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NeutralD

Guest

Itch: https://nod.itch.io/geon-fx
Marketplace: https://marketplace.yoyogames.com/assets/4574/geon-fx-particle-editor

Demo for Windows: http://www.steampanic.com/geonfx/builds/geonfx_lite_win.zip
Demo for macOS: http://www.steampanic.com/geonfx/builds/geonfx_lite_mac.zip

Discord: https://discord.gg/JJpnRuv

Geon FX is the newest and the most advanced Particle Editor for GameMaker. It allows you to create stunning particle effects on Windows and Mac quickly.
Geon FX is developed by professionals with more than 15 years of experience. It comes with a set of scripts to import and play complex particle effects easily.

Features
  • For Windows and macOS
  • Modern UI: angle picker, alpha slider, and other handy tools
  • Supports all GameMaker: Studio particle functions including part_type_death() and part_type_step()
  • Infinite number of emitters and change their depth by swapping tabs
  • Resize emitters and move altogether or one by one
  • Load animated external sprites from strips or folders. Set origins and animation properties.
  • Load background, move and tile it
  • Resize or maximize editor window freely
  • Undo and Redo your actions (Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y)
  • Export to GML, PNG, GIF
  • Add and play complex effects easily: geon_effect_add(), geon_effect_burst() and other functions included
  • Free support and Updates
More information and Geon FX showcase: http://www.steampanic.com/geonfx/

7.jpg 1.jpg 2.jpg 3.jpg 4.jpg
 
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G

Galladhan

Guest
I've just started using this editor and i'm already loving it. Thank you for sharing it (at a good price) :)
On a side note: i've noticed that the asset doesn't show in the "latest assets" section. You might want to let YYG know about this, cause if someone doesn't check the GMC (and they only look at the latest assets page), will probably miss your asset.

Edit: Not very much, it just moved in the 4th row and i didn't notice it. I guess you published it some days ago and i missed it then.
 
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Joshua Allen

Guest
This is an amazing tool but I have one wish:
Can you please make it so that there is a json importer and exporter.
 
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NeutralD

Guest
Joshua, thanks!
Could you please give a use-case for JSON import and export?
Why do you need it and why GML + simple ini-like import-export are not enough?
 
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Joshua Allen

Guest
We believe that having external particle files would be a huge advantage so that the artists are not required to mess with any code. It allows me to just loud and build the particles at startup.

I prefer a json over an ini export because it would speed things up a lot. All that I would have to do is use json_decode and read the created map. I believe that would be much more difficult to do with an ini file.
 
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NeutralD

Guest
Right now I can suggest you use the scripts in Geon FX example: geon_effect_add(), geon_effect_burst(). They parse and load .geon files. So your artists won't have to look in the code.
We'll add JSON as an export option in the future.
 

kburkhart84

Firehammer Games
I've looked at this asset a bit...I feel like the whole GMS2 hype is hurting your sales. People might not want to buy considering it may be made obsolete with the new GMS2. I for one, am waiting for GMS2 somewhat. If it gets to the point that it never seems to come out, I may just go ahead and buy if I get to that point in a project where it would be useful. I for one love particle effects, and in fact if GMS2 doesn't have a more next-gen particle system I may code one myself. It would have things that the current system is not, and actually be more like what Unity has, with gradient for colors(instead of limiting to 3 points), among other features, like various forces, attractors, deflectors, colliders, etc.. I know many of those things can hurt performance, but for a 2d game on a modern PC(or even phone for that matter at this point) I'd say it can be handled if done right.
 
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NeutralD

Guest
Geon FX will support GMS2 particle system. Homebrew particle system is not in our plans for now.

By the way, Happy Halloween, guys!

Geon FX has reached 100 downloads on the MarketPlace. Thank you!
 
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RizbIT

Member
Looks very well made and useful. Id be using it for explosions but how many examples or pre-defined effects included?
 
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NeutralD

Guest
Looks very well made and useful. Id be using it for explosions but how many examples or pre-defined effects included?
Thank you! Right now there are 11 examples coming with Geon FX Pro. But we're working on new effect packs. All packs will be released as free updates for those who bought Geon FX Pro.
 
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WindStrike

Guest
Been usin' this recently, really awesome stuff. A few things I wish it had:
  • Option to add delay to the time between frames. Some animations I have aren't meant to go uber fast, and it's not working well in here.
  • Option to add delay to "On step". Ie, right now when you do "On step", it fires the particle something like 20 times a second, which can be a little too much. If that could be altered, that'd be awesome.
  • Not sure whether to call this a bug or not, but if you have more than 5 effects, for all the remaining ones, it's impossible to change their depth or rename them.
 
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NeutralD

Guest
Been usin' this recently, really awesome stuff. A few things I wish it had:
  • Option to add delay to the time between frames. Some animations I have aren't meant to go uber fast, and it's not working well in here.
  • Option to add delay to "On step". Ie, right now when you do "On step", it fires the particle something like 20 times a second, which can be a little too much. If that could be altered, that'd be awesome.
  • Not sure whether to call this a bug or not, but if you have more than 5 effects, for all the remaining ones, it's impossible to change their depth or rename them.
Hi! Thanks =)
  • You can delay the time between frames by setting Stretch checkbox and changing particle lifetime. There's no other way to do it in GMS:
  • You can add delay to "On step" by setting negative Count value to the right of "On Step" field:
  • We are aware of this, thank you. We will fix it.
 
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WindStrike

Guest
Ah, that's what Stretch does, couldn't figure it out, lol. Thanks!

By the way, could you by chance add an option to tweak the cap FPS? We run our game at 30 FPS, and currently, our way to preview that is to run Stretch, and then double a bunch of values, due to Geon running at 60 FPS.
 
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NeutralD

Guest
Ah, that's what Stretch does, couldn't figure it out, lol. Thanks!

By the way, could you by chance add an option to tweak the cap FPS? We run our game at 30 FPS, and currently, our way to preview that is to run Stretch, and then double a bunch of values, due to Geon running at 60 FPS.
There is a video tutorial about Geon FX less intuitive features:

We'll add FPS Limit in the next Geon FX update. Thanks for the feedback!
 
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Fisshy

Guest
I have a problem, I can't get this to work while using YYC compiler.
As soon as the obj_geonfx_con is loaded it crashes.
I added an effect to it like so: global.EffectDeflectBlue1 = geon_effect_add('Effects/Blue/Blue-1.geon',-1); in obj_geonfx_con object's create event and then it crashes. If I remove all my effects it works fine, If I have 1 effect it doesn't work either.

I tried to call a new object from obj_geonfx_con's create event, called obj_load_effects. The create event of this contains the loading of all my effects, even now then it crashes. I comment out the creation of obj_load_effects in obj_geonfx_con and it works again.

If i switch to normal Windows (not Windows YYC), it also works.
It would be great if you could look over this and see if you can get it to work with YYC, especially since GMS2 is coming up, only allowing YYC compiles (if I've understood it correctly).

My guess would be some compatibility problems with the actual .geon files and YYC, since YYC is more strict when it comes to compiling the code, something might be messed up.

Thanks ! :)
 

csanyk

Member
Features
  • For Windows and macOS
Clarification: this is an application which creates particle systems... the application runs on Windows and Mac OS X; but are the particle systems it generates compatible with other build targets, or can you only build games with your particles to Windows and OS X?
 

csanyk

Member
That still leaves my question open for what platforms I can use the particles that I build with the editor on. I'll prefer to hear what the author says, thanks.
 
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Fisshy

Guest
That still leaves my question open for what platforms I can use the particles that I build with the editor on. I'll prefer to hear what the author says, thanks.
It creates files that contains the different settings you make for a particle, I don't see a problem using this on any other target, as long as it can read text files, but don't take my word for it :p
 
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NeutralD

Guest
I have a problem, I can't get this to work while using YYC compiler.
As soon as the obj_geonfx_con is loaded it crashes.
I added an effect to it like so: global.EffectDeflectBlue1 = geon_effect_add('Effects/Blue/Blue-1.geon',-1); in obj_geonfx_con object's create event and then it crashes. If I remove all my effects it works fine, If I have 1 effect it doesn't work either.

I tried to call a new object from obj_geonfx_con's create event, called obj_load_effects. The create event of this contains the loading of all my effects, even now then it crashes. I comment out the creation of obj_load_effects in obj_geonfx_con and it works again.

If i switch to normal Windows (not Windows YYC), it also works.
It would be great if you could look over this and see if you can get it to work with YYC, especially since GMS2 is coming up, only allowing YYC compiles (if I've understood it correctly).

My guess would be some compatibility problems with the actual .geon files and YYC, since YYC is more strict when it comes to compiling the code, something might be messed up.

Thanks ! :)
Thanks for the report! This issue will be fixed in next update.
 
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NeutralD

Guest
That still leaves my question open for what platforms I can use the particles that I build with the editor on. I'll prefer to hear what the author says, thanks.
Particles that you create in Geon FX are compatible with all GMS and GMS 2 build targets (platforms) including iOS, Android, HTML5, etc.
Geon FX generates GML code that is being compiled nicely on all platforms and has been tested in GameMaker: Studio and GameMaker Studio 2 projects.
The editor itself works on Windows and Mac. Both executables are included in the .gmez package.
 

csanyk

Member
Particles that you create in Geon FX are compatible with all GMS and GMS 2 build targets (platforms) including iOS, Android, HTML5, etc.
Geon FX generates GML code that is being compiled nicely on all platforms and has been tested in GameMaker: Studio and GameMaker Studio 2 projects.
The editor itself works on Windows and Mac. Both executables are included in the .gmez package.
Excellent; thanks for the response. I've already purchased, since I have Windows :) but wanted to make sure I understood the capabiltiy of the particle systems that I could create with it.
 

Tim

Member
Got a copy of this today and love it. Great stuff and was able to put it to use immediately with superior results.

One thing about this editor (and any good editor really) is you can immediately see what the various functions are doing and then tweak those functions easily. Learned alot in the first few hours and did so at a much faster rate than just diddling in GameMaker and restarting a test project.

I do miss the ability to TAB cycle to entry boxes. That's pretty much my go-to way to edit numbers quickly in near any program. Is it possible this is on the list of features to add?

Example - TAB jumping



Example - Mouse selecting. Sometimes the mouse selection seems finicky and inconsistent.



Overall though - REALLY good stuff. Look forward to the future developments.

-Tim
 
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NeutralD

Guest
Got a copy of this today and love it. Great stuff and was able to put it to use immediately with superior results.

One thing about this editor (and any good editor really) is you can immediately see what the various functions are doing and then tweak those functions easily. Learned alot in the first few hours and did so at a much faster rate than just diddling in GameMaker and restarting a test project.

I do miss the ability to TAB cycle to entry boxes. That's pretty much my go-to way to edit numbers quickly in near any program. Is it possible this is on the list of features to add?

Example - TAB jumping



Example - Mouse selecting. Sometimes the mouse selection seems finicky and inconsistent.



Overall though - REALLY good stuff. Look forward to the future developments.

-Tim
Hi Tim,
Thanks for supporting us and your comments. I'm aware of the selection inconsistency. I'll fix it in the next update. Tabs — good idea, thought about it. Will do.
 

Tim

Member
Hi Tim,
Thanks for supporting us and your comments. I'm aware of the selection inconsistency. I'll fix it in the next update. Tabs — good idea, thought about it. Will do.
Appreciate it. Either of those two would be pretty helpful in the day to day work of editing. Getting both though would be AWESOME!

Loving the program and have indirectly learned more about GM particles in 8 hours than I knew in the last 2 years!

-Tim
 
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NeutralD

Guest
Appreciate it. Either of those two would be pretty helpful in the day to day work of editing. Getting both though would be AWESOME!

Loving the program and have indirectly learned more about GM particles in 8 hours than I knew in the last 2 years!

-Tim
Both features are now in Geon FX v0.9. Please update.
 
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NeutralD

Guest
Thanks for the report! This issue will be fixed in next update.
I have a problem, I can't get this to work while using YYC compiler.
As soon as the obj_geonfx_con is loaded it crashes.
I added an effect to it like so: global.EffectDeflectBlue1 = geon_effect_add('Effects/Blue/Blue-1.geon',-1); in obj_geonfx_con object's create event and then it crashes. If I remove all my effects it works fine, If I have 1 effect it doesn't work either.

I tried to call a new object from obj_geonfx_con's create event, called obj_load_effects. The create event of this contains the loading of all my effects, even now then it crashes. I comment out the creation of obj_load_effects in obj_geonfx_con and it works again.

If i switch to normal Windows (not Windows YYC), it also works.
It would be great if you could look over this and see if you can get it to work with YYC, especially since GMS2 is coming up, only allowing YYC compiles (if I've understood it correctly).

My guess would be some compatibility problems with the actual .geon files and YYC, since YYC is more strict when it comes to compiling the code, something might be messed up.

Thanks ! :)
Fixed. Please update your project to Geon FX v0.9
 
N

NeutralD

Guest
Ah, that's what Stretch does, couldn't figure it out, lol. Thanks!

By the way, could you by chance add an option to tweak the cap FPS? We run our game at 30 FPS, and currently, our way to preview that is to run Stretch, and then double a bunch of values, due to Geon running at 60 FPS.
Now you can run the editor at 30 FPS. Press on Settings button at the top-right corner of the Geon FX window. FPS Limit is what will help you:
 
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NeutralD

Guest
Been usin' this recently, really awesome stuff. A few things I wish it had:
  • Option to add delay to the time between frames. Some animations I have aren't meant to go uber fast, and it's not working well in here.
  • Option to add delay to "On step". Ie, right now when you do "On step", it fires the particle something like 20 times a second, which can be a little too much. If that could be altered, that'd be awesome.
  • Not sure whether to call this a bug or not, but if you have more than 5 effects, for all the remaining ones, it's impossible to change their depth or rename them.
Now you can rename effects and change their depth by pressing Ctrl + R and Ctrl + D keyboard. We're working on better UI for 5+ effects.
 

Tim

Member
Side note - had a callout to your product in all our dev logs today (Steam Store, here, a few others). Great stuff and hopefully can turn some more people onto it.

-Tim
 
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NeutralD

Guest
Side note - had a callout to your product in all our dev logs today (Steam Store, here, a few others). Great stuff and hopefully can turn some more people onto it.

-Tim
Thank you very much! We're so happy to have such a cool community =)
Thumbs up for your awesome game. Subscribed and added to Wish List.
 
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Fyce

Guest
Hi!

Quite a neat tool indeed. I just bought my copy yesterday, thanks to the GMS2 beta newsletter #2 (which is quite weird since you can't currently import Extensions in GMS2... but whatever), and I'm very happy with it.
I love playing with particle systems. My interest started back then when I tried Trapcode Particular for Adobe After Effects quite some years ago.

Anyway...

I wanted to hop in just to give a heads up about an issue I faced. So, if anyone experience the same issue, here it is:
  • When trying to launch the .exe file (on Windows 10), you'd be prompted with a little error popup window saying "cannot read the game file", which prevents you from launching Geon FX Pro.
  • If this is happening, go to your Windows control panel, under the Printers section. In there, check to see if you have a default printer set up or not.
  • If it's not the case, right-click on something and make it your default printer (it could be a PDF printer for example).
Doing this should solve the issue. (If you already have a default printer set up, then I'm sorry but your problem is different from the one I encountered.)
It's probaby due to some libraby going nuts if it cannot detect a default printer for some of its functions, even if Geon FX's code doesn't use anything related to printers.

And now, I'll just go back playing with fire!
 
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NeutralD

Guest
Hi!

Quite a neat tool indeed. I just bought my copy yesterday, thanks to the GMS2 beta newsletter #2 (which is quite weird since you can't currently import Extensions in GMS2... but whatever), and I'm very happy with it.
I love playing with particle systems. My interest started back then when I tried Trapcode Particular for Adobe After Effects quite some years ago.

Anyway...

I wanted to hop in just to give a heads up about an issue I faced. So, if anyone experience the same issue, here it is:
  • When trying to launch the .exe file (on Windows 10), you'd be prompted with a little error popup window saying "cannot read the game file", which prevents you from launching Geon FX Pro.
  • If this is happening, go to your Windows control panel, under the Printers section. In there, check to see if you have a default printer set up or not.
  • If it's not the case, right-click on something and make it your default printer (it could be a PDF printer for example).
Doing this should solve the issue. (If you already have a default printer set up, then I'm sorry but your problem is different from the one I encountered.)
It's probaby due to some libraby going nuts if it cannot detect a default printer for some of its functions, even if Geon FX's code doesn't use anything related to printers.

And now, I'll just go back playing with fire!
Thanks a lot for mentioning that! I'll add the issue to our FAQ. Btw, your fire looks gorgeous!
 
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NeutralD

Guest
Hi guys,

We launched Geon FX over a month ago. And we are very happy to see the result. More than 200 GameMaker developers are using it already. I want to thank everyone. You're very helpful and forgiving my mistakes community. It's a great honor to work with you. I'd like to tell you more about the features Geon FX acquired since the launch and near future plans.

* GameMaker Studio 2 support: you can choose between GMS1 and GMS2 built-in particle shapes. Geon FX scripts are also edited and tested in GMS2. Effects designed for GMS1 will look exactly the same in GMS2. All you have to do is choose GMS2 as an export target. There are still some issues that we'll fix in the next update (like .gmez incompatibility with GMS2 disallowing to directly import the gmez);
* Settings tab. It's already there. We plan to add more settings like FPS Real value and choosing default particle shapes (GMS1 / GMS2);
* Zoom. We will add it in the next update. We understand how important the zoom is for pixel art effects;
* Pixel art effects pack and tutorials. Again we feel that there's a lack of them. We'll do you best to make more of them.

There are more features coming in the future:

* Online collection of particle effects on Geon FX website. It would help us to update effects and you to share your creations with others.
* Export to images (png strips, gifs) and social network sharing. This will take some time since we want it to be as natural and easy as possible.
* Porting Geon FX to GMS2. We realize that that GMS2 is the future. Porting Geon FX to GMS2 now requires a lot of work from our side: libraries for macOS, rewriting GUI to GUI layer, fixing window behavior and more. So it takes time;
* Animated objects on a scene. Scripts to attach the effect to an object and change effect angle, scale, color settings on the fly.
* Shaders.
Your support helps us to add new features to Geon FX. Geon FX is on sale now with -50% discount. The sale ends tomorrow:
https://marketplace.yoyogames.com/assets/4574/geon-fx-particle-editor

Please tell us what else would you like to see. I will be happy to answer any of your questions.
 
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Tim

Member
I don't know if this is easy or even possible with Geon but I would love to do vortex effects with particles spawning along some sort of ring and getting pulled into a center. Something like this (minus the character)



What I would really like to do is cool vortex stuff with particles and stuff being pulled into a central point. I know this might not be really possible with the current GameMaker base system but I wanted to put it out there. HAAAAAAAA!!!

-Tim
 
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Fyce

Guest
I don't know if this is easy or even possible with Geon but I would love to do vortex effects with particles spawning along some sort of ring and getting pulled into a center. Something like this (minus the character)

[...]

What I would really like to do is cool vortex stuff with particles and stuff being pulled into a central point. I know this might not be really possible with the current GameMaker base system but I wanted to put it out there. HAAAAAAAA!!!

-Tim
GMS doesn't have a function to drag the particles towards a single point. The part_type_gravity function of GMS only takes an amount (gravity's force), and a direction (gravity's angle).

So, to do the effect in your gif, you'd need multiple emitters all around your scene with particle direction (or gravity (or both)) to be set individualy for each emitter to make the particles go "towards the center".
Quite a busy and time consuming work.

-----

Question for NeutralD: Regarding Geon's UI, would it be possible to add a horizontal scrolling bar, or something similar, to navigate between our different particles emitters? This and making their name's box fit to the name we gave them (instead of cutting them with "...").
Like this:

The reason behind this request is that when you have to set more that 5 effects, going through the [•••] list is a bit tedious, especially if you need to do quick changes between two effects. It would also solve the problem where you cannot change the depth of the 6+ effect, as well as the inability to rename them.
Regarding the trimmed names, if the name gets cut with "...", the benefit of renaming them is pretty much lost as the full name only appears in the [•••] list, making the tabs useless.
 

Tim

Member
GMS doesn't have a function to drag the particles towards a single point. The part_type_gravity function of GMS only takes an amount (gravity's force), and a direction (gravity's angle).

So, to do the effect in your gif, you'd need multiple emitters all around your scene with particle direction (or gravity (or both)) to be set individualy for each emitter to make the particles go "towards the center".
Yeah, I think I should make it clear this is a feature request on my part.
Quite a busy and time consuming work.
And this would be exactly why I would prefer to have some sort of editor handle it than doing it manually.

Agree that GameMaker and Geon likely can't do this easily but in the realm of particle engines things like 'attractors' and the like are fairly common effects. Maybe this isn't the direction Geon wants to take their editor at the moment but we won't know until we ask. Right now I am just putting it out there.

Best,

-Tim
 
N

NeutralD

Guest
GMS doesn't have a function to drag the particles towards a single point. The part_type_gravity function of GMS only takes an amount (gravity's force), and a direction (gravity's angle).

So, to do the effect in your gif, you'd need multiple emitters all around your scene with particle direction (or gravity (or both)) to be set individualy for each emitter to make the particles go "towards the center".
Quite a busy and time consuming work.

-----

Question for NeutralD: Regarding Geon's UI, would it be possible to add a horizontal scrolling bar, or something similar, to navigate between our different particles emitters? This and making their name's box fit to the name we gave them (instead of cutting them with "...").
Like this:

The reason behind this request is that when you have to set more that 5 effects, going through the [•••] list is a bit tedious, especially if you need to do quick changes between two effects. It would also solve the problem where you cannot change the depth of the 6+ effect, as well as the inability to rename them.
Regarding the trimmed names, if the name gets cut with "...", the benefit of renaming them is pretty much lost as the full name only appears in the [•••] list, making the tabs useless.
Yes, we're working on it. Right now there's a small hack: you can change the depth and the name of 6+ effect by selecting it in the drop-down menu and press Ctrl + D (change depth) or Ctrl + R (change name). But we will definitely implement the scroll, thanks!
 
N

NeutralD

Guest
Yeah, I think I should make it clear this is a feature request on my part.


And this would be exactly why I would prefer to have some sort of editor handle it than doing it manually.

Agree that GameMaker and Geon likely can't do this easily but in the realm of particle engines things like 'attractors' and the like are fairly common effects. Maybe this isn't the direction Geon wants to take their editor at the moment but we won't know until we ask. Right now I am just putting it out there.

Best,

-Tim
We will think about. I'll tell you how we can solve your case after the discussion with our UI designer.
 

Tim

Member
We will think about. I'll tell you how we can solve your case after the discussion with our UI designer.
I spoke a little more with our programmer and we will probably end up doing something like taking an emitter and rotating it around a point. From there we can fire the particles along a line towards the center point. If we have enough emitters it will probably do the trick. At least that's how we can imagine it happening with the current state of GameMaker.
 
W

WindStrike

Guest
Change of depth bypass is nice, but can be buggy, especially when it stacks two effects on top of each other, and even if I get them unsorted, it bumps one all the way to the back again, thus preventing me from actually getting it fixed. Works sometimes, just not... always. >_<

Anywho, any chance next version, settings can set the default color appearance? Usually, I like working w/ a default appearance of white across the board, so currently when I have to tinker, I have to manually alter the colors of every new particle effect. It's a minor inconvenience right now, but I figure the feature could be helpful.


Also, happy new year, here's to hopin' more people use the awesomeness of Geon, which honestly should just be default use for Gamemaker, lol.
 
N

NeutralD

Guest
Change of depth bypass is nice, but can be buggy, especially when it stacks two effects on top of each other, and even if I get them unsorted, it bumps one all the way to the back again, thus preventing me from actually getting it fixed. Works sometimes, just not... always. >_<

Anywho, any chance next version, settings can set the default color appearance? Usually, I like working w/ a default appearance of white across the board, so currently when I have to tinker, I have to manually alter the colors of every new particle effect. It's a minor inconvenience right now, but I figure the feature could be helpful.


Also, happy new year, here's to hopin' more people use the awesomeness of Geon, which honestly should just be default use for Gamemaker, lol.
Thank you very much! We'll add default colors and check for the depth in the next Geon FX versions.
 
I have been using another particle effects program, and wish to replicate some effects from that program in Geon FX because of the automatic export to GML function.
However, by comparison there is a level of customizable 'complexity' missing from Geon FX--aside from the fact that Geon FX is in relatively early development, I am under the impression that the limitations are more to do with the Gamemaker software rather than Geon FX.
What's the story?
 
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