ParticleFX Pro — a modern particle system for Blender

Blender's legacy particle system is on its way out, and its replacement is a box of low-level simulation nodes that expects you to build a particle system from scratch. ParticleFX Pro is that system, already built: emitters, forces, collision and instanced rendering, exposed as ordinary sliders on a modifier.

What it solves

The old particle system is frozen and being retired. Geometry Nodes simulation zones can do far more, but "far more" starts at an empty node tree and a blank stare. Every effect an artist actually wants — sparks off a grinder, smoke from a chimney, rain, debris from an impact — means wiring the same twenty nodes again from memory.

This is that graph, written once and tested properly. Drop it on any mesh and the object becomes an emitter.

What's in it

• Emission by rate. Particles per second, not per frame — the same settings look identical at 24 and 60 fps. The rate is also divided by the emitter's measured area, so scaling the emitter does not silently change the output.
• Burst mode. Release a set number of particles on one frame for an explosion or an impact, instead of faking it by squeezing the emission window shut. It works on the first frame of the shot too, where a rate-based emitter cannot produce anything at all.
• Emit from a surface, from vertices, or from a single point. A curve, a scattering of vertices or one object origin can be the emitter — not just a face to scatter over.
• Velocity alignment. Every copy turns to face the way it is travelling, which is the difference between a spark and a floating bead.
• Stretch by speed. Draw each particle as a streak that grows longer the faster it moves, the way fast sparks and rain are actually drawn.
• An age value your material can read. Every particle carries a 0 to 1 value counting from birth to death, so a shader can fade a spark from white to dark over its own life without knowing anything about lifetimes.
• Lifetime with variation, so particles do not all vanish on the same frame.
• Forces: gravity, wind, drag, a 4D turbulence field that churns over time, and a vortex that spins the whole cloud around the axis.
• Collision. Point at any object and particles bounce off it, with a bounce amount you control. They come to rest on the surface rather than sinking through it.
• Instanced rendering. Place any object on every particle, with random size and rotation, scaling in at birth and out at death so nothing pops.
• Direction and spread blended with the emitter's own surface normals, so a curved emitter throws particles the way its shape suggests.

Thirteen presets that actually work

Sparks, Smoke, Rain, Snow, Debris, Magic Dust, Fire Embers, Confetti, Bubbles, Falling Leaves, Explosion, Impact Sparks and Waterfall. Each one is only a set of values for the same sliders you can reach yourself — there is no hidden configuration and nothing a preset can do that you cannot undo. Every one is verified by simulation to emit particles and move them, because a preset that quietly produces nothing is worse than no preset at all.

It is a modifier, so it behaves like one

Every setting can be keyframed and driven. Stack it with other modifiers. Bake the simulation for smooth playback, or reset it and try again. The result is real geometry that exports like anything else.

Tested, not assumed

95 automated checks run in a clean Blender against every release, each one stepping the simulation frame by frame from the start and measuring the result. Gravity is verified to pull particles down and to leave them exactly where they were when it is switched off. Drag is verified to shorten a throw, turbulence to move particles further as it rises, vortex to push them around the axis, and collision to stop them at the surface rather than merely slowing them. A burst is verified to put its particles out on its own frame and not one frame more. Aligned particles are measured turning to follow their motion, pointing up while they rise and flipping over once they start to fall, and stretch is measured growing with speed along the direction of travel. The same seed is verified to give the same result twice, and a different seed a different one.

Requirements

Blender 4.2 LTS or newer, since it is built on Geometry Nodes simulation zones. Windows, macOS (Intel and Apple Silicon) and Linux. No dependencies, no downloads, works offline.