For those who don’t know the tool: VectorayGen is a specialist utility from JangaFX for real-time VFX artists who need vector fields for particle motion. It sits beside tools like EmberGen, LiquiGen and IlluGen, rather than replacing them.
A useful thing returns
The Good Folk at JangaFX have made VectorayGen available again as a free download. The tool generates vector fields for real-time VFX / Game artists, with workflows for particle motion, object-driven flow, noise, turbulence and node-based control.
This is the good version of old software news: a retired tool comes back without a paywall or licence gate. That should not feel unusual, but here we are, applauding basic software decency like people who have seen too many abandoned installers vanish into the fog. Softimage, anyone?
What VectorayGen makes
A vector field is a uniform grid of vectors that influences particle velocity or acceleration. Larger vectors move particles faster, and the direction of each vector controls the particle motion through the field.
VectorayGen is built around that, and only that. Artists can import objects, compute particle flows around them, create noise and turbulence, and use nodes to build mathematical or artistic movement. That makes it relevant to VFX artists working on stylised fire, energy, magic, smoke-like motion and other GPU-particle effects.
Where it fits
In Unreal Engine, vector fields can influence GPU sprite particles as global or local fields. Global vector fields are placed in the level as actors. Local vector fields live inside a particle system and affect the emitter they are assigned to.
VectorayGen is narrower than EmberGen, LiquiGen or IlluGen. EmberGen targets real-time volumetric fire, smoke and explosions. LiquiGen targets liquid simulation. IlluGen targets procedural 2D and 3D assets for real-time VFX, including tiling noises, flowmaps, VFX meshes, distortions, masks and packed flipbooks. VectorayGen does one older but still useful job: author vector fields.
Free, as it should be
The current release is VectorayGen 1.04. The public download listing gives Windows 10 or 11 support, a quad-core Intel or AMD CPU at 2.5 GHz or faster, and NVIDIA GTX 1060 or AMD RX 580 class GPU requirements.
Price is simple: free. That is the whole point, and frankly the nicest part of the story. Test the installer, export path, engine import and GPU behaviour on a non-production scene before adding VectorayGen to a live project.
https://x.com/JangaFX/status/2018807350652817551
https://jangafx.com/software/vectoraygen
