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Welcome to the VFX Editor User Guide. The plugin is relatively straightforward, but features some powerful tools that aren't obvious at first glance. This guide will help you get the most out of the plugin.
Each tool and feature in the plugin will be shortly explained, per interface.
By default, the default interface features a topbar that contains a list of the current items, a button to add the currently selected item in the Explorer, a button to open the Texture Storage and a button to open the settings.
Below that, a search bar is available. This allows you to search either on instance names or on their properties.
The instance view is visible below the search bar. This view shows, by default, a tree view with all of the descendants of your selected instance. All properties will be visible in the properties view, sorted by category, which are all collapsible, just like the sub-instances.
Right clicking on an instance will open up a context menu, featuring a button to delete the instance, create a new tab for it, select it in the explorer and a button to to collapse it's descendants and properties. On "container" elements, which are Parts, Models and Attachments, there is an additional Insert Object button.
Holding the control key while clicking a property will select it. Selecting another property while holding control will add it to the selection, if the types match. A type is determined based on the following rules:
- Are the properties of a similiar (primitive) type? (e.g. number, string, boolean, Color3, NumberSequence, etc.)
- Do the properties serve a similiar purpose, and function by the same rules (e.g. Size and Transparency are both a NumberSequence, but have different purposes and rules)
If the types match, the property will be highlighted when hovering over it and holding the control key. Selection this way supports an unlimited amount of properties. Changes made to any selected property will replicate to all other selected properties. This way, editing multiple properties at once is made easy.
Right clicking a property will allow you to copy it's value or paste it's value to another property. This follows the same rules as the selection.
Also, something to keep in mind while using the plugin is that changes are recorded automatically and can be reverted through CTRL+Z. This is also the case for changes made to multiple properties at once.
The texture picker contains a simple file system in which textures and folders can be stored up to any depth. This menu can be opened by clicking the Texture Storage button in the topbar, or by clicking a texture property.
Within this view, textures or folders can be created using the plus button in the top right. Alternatively, you can import data through the import button, allowing you to import via instances (allowing you to easily import e.g. VFX baseplates) or JSON, which allows you to share textures with others. You can also export data into JSON through the export button, which allows you to export either your current folder or the entire storage.
When you've got a list of textures, you can hold the control key to select multiple textures. Alternatively, you can hold shift and click to select a range of textures. You can then right click to open up a context menu that allows you to move or delete the textures.
When you right click a texture, you can edit it, move it or delete it. The texture storage has full support for flipbooks and displays them in the editor, but requires HTTP request support to display some textures. If a texture is not displayed, turn on HTTP requests in the Studio settings.
The NumberSequence editor is a carbon copy of the existing Studio editor, with a few added features. Clicking in the graph will place a graph point which is by default linearly interpolated. However, right clicking will open up a context menu in which easing styles and directions can be configured. Selecting "bezier" will show handles that can be dragged in order to customize the bezier curve. These styles will be saved through attributes. If this attribute is lost, all easing data will be reset and a new curve will be generated based on the current points.
Nodes can be dragged around freely and order will be arranged depending on position. The envelope handle can be dragged up and down freely and will limit itself based on the maximum and minimum values set.
Values can also be customized by hand through the text boxes in the bottom of the screen.
The ColorSequence editor is just a visual and functional refresh of the existing editor. As such, there's no new features to be found here and usage should be fairly straightforward.
The settings allow you to customize certain aspects of the plugin. The available options are:
- Lightweight Mode: This feature is further explained below.
- Max Instance Depth: The max depth the instance tree will show. This is useful for performance reasons, as the plugin will have to load all instances and their properties.
- Max Size: "Size" properties have a set upper limit by Roblox. This setting allows you to set a custom limit for these properties, which is useful when you want to make particularly large effects.
- Max Squash:: The exact same as the Max Size setting, but for "Squash" properties.
- Treeview Virtual Scroller: The tree view contains thousands of UI instances and can be slow to scroll. This setting will unload all properties until they are in view. This will reduce lag at the cost of visual fidelity, as properties may take a moment to load in. These properties are however cached, and the initial performance hit will only be present the first time you scroll to a new instance.
- Graph Editor Default Style: The default style for the graph editor when creating new nodes. The default is "Linear".
We recognize that getting used to the plugin may require an initial learning curve. We want to make this plugin as easy to use as possible, and as such, Lightweight Mode was created. It is designed to mimic the existing Studio properties window as closely as possible, while still offering the benefits of the plugin. This mode can be toggled in the settings. We recommend you to place this mode where you'd normally place your properties window.
This mode gets rid of the topbar, search mode dropdown and instance headers (as long as there is only one instance). When multiple instances are selected, each instance will be individually displayed with their headers, allowing modification of multiple properties through holding control. The children are not shown.