Cloners and Effectors

Introduction

Motion Design has its own unique integration of the established Niagara particle system. You can use Motion Design to create lively motion graphics by way of creating clones or multiple instances of existing geometry. You can influence a variety of actor properties either as a group or on a granular level.

The core features are powered by Niagara, but working with Cloners and Effectors simplifies that process significantly through streamlined tooling. You can use cloners and effectors for scaling, rotation, and positioning and for procedural noise, so you can randomize and colorize your actors to create unique visual effects.

Where to Find the Tools

First, either enable the ClonerEffector plugin, or enable the Motion Design mode (which was covered in the Quick Start guide).

When you enter Motion Design mode, click on Actors in the palette to see the two main tools:

• the Cloner Actor

• the Effector Actor

You can also use the Place Actors tab, and search for Motion Design Cloner and Effector.

You can find the Cloner and Effector actors in the Place Actors panel here:

Cloner Actors

Double-clicking on the Cloner Actor from the toolbar in the Motion Design mode places the actor in the middle of your level with a default mesh applied to it. You can also click on the Cloner Actor button and click in your viewport to place it. In this case, it uses the DefaultCube, but you can apply any mesh that you want. For example, you can select another shape from the Motion Design 3D Shapes palette (also seen in the above screenshot).

Here is an example of mixing and matching the shapes, using sphere and torus meshes instead of the default cube mesh:

Your Details panel has the following categories:

• General

• Cloner

• Effector

• Emission

• Physics

• Rendering

• Utilities

General

The General category contains common transforms for positioning your cloner actors. These transforms do not directly affect layouts.

Cloner

The Cloner category handles the majority of how your system sorts and presents your clones. This includes how you assign a Layout for your cloner, tint them a specific color, and force the cloner to update if changing your settings isn’t resulting in an instant change. It also contains the ability to disable the cloner completely with the Enabled toggle.

Force Update Cloner

In the event that your cloner system fails to update, this acts as a fallback to ensure proper generation.

Seed

The Seed property, when used together with the Range property enabled, gives variations when changing the value.

In the example below, we modified the OffsetMax property to adjust the position of the shapes. Changing the Seed randomizes those positions.

Seed value of 0:

Seed value of 1:

Color

You can set the color of your clones using an RGBA value. You can use the Color Picker, or just input your values directly.

Advanced

In this sub-category you can set how often your tree refreshes using the Tree Update Interval. To reduce system overload, the default value of 0.2 means that your tree does not update every tick. Instead, it updates every 5 ticks, approximately.

The Visualizer Sprite Visible toggle shows or hides the cloner widget in your viewport:

Layouts

The most important option in this category is the Layout. Layouts share similar options like range, step, effectors, lifetime, rendering, and progress. They also have specific options depending on the layout selected.

Setting the Layout changes how the clones arrange themselves. By setting the other properties in the image above, you can spread out the clones with Spacing and adjust the number of clones with the Count properties.

The available options for arranging the clones using the Layout dropdown are:

• Grid

• Line

• Circle

• Cylinder

• Sphere Uniform

• Honeycomb

• Mesh

• Spline

• Sphere Random

Each Layout has different settings and options.

Grid

The Grid layout sorts the clones into a 3-dimensional grid. You can set parameters for how many clones display on each axis (X, Y, Z), and the clones' spacing. This layout also provides you the option to limit your clones to a constraint, which is a specific shape profile, and to invert the constraint.

Here is an example using the Constraint to take on the shape of a sphere:

Each of those Grid Layout options also gives you the ability to Invert Constraint.

You also have the option to use a texture to constrain your clones:

Line

The Line layout arranges the cloner actors into a straight line. You can control the number of clones using the Count property, and the space between those clones using the Spacing property. You can use the Axis property to control which direction the clones flow, and the Rotation property to cause the clones to curl along a combination of the X,Y, and Z axes.

Circle

The Circle layout arranges the cloner actors into a circle. You can set the clone count with the Count property, and the Radius of the circle of clones. You can also use the Angle Ratio to determine how spaced out the clones will be along the circle. 0 means no spacing between cloners at all, and 1 means clones are spread out evenly along the shape. You can use the Plane dropdown to define the plane (XY, YZ, XZ) on which the clones spawn. The Orient Mesh toggle forces all clones to face the center of the circle.

You can set the rotation angle of your circle using the Angle Start property.

Adjusting the Angle Ratio spreads the clones along the circle. If you want the clones to only spread across half of the circle, then here is what a .5 value would look like:

Scaling on a single axis property, as opposed to fully linked, results in an oval:

Cylinder

The Cylinder layout arranges the cloner actors into a cylinder. It has mostly the same properties as the Circle layout, with the addition of the Height and Height Count properties.

Sphere Uniform

You can set the total Count of the clones in the sphere, and the Radius of the sphere, which spreads the clones apart evenly.

The Rotation property rotates the entire sphere along the X, Y, or Z axis:

The Ratio property sets how much of the sphere will be covered by your clones. A .5 value produces a result like the image below:

The Orient Mesh toggle forces all clones to face the center of the sphere.

If you set the Scale property unevenly for the X, Y, and Z axes, the result is an elliptical spheroid, like the image below:

Honeycomb

You can set the axis that the elements clone along using the Plane setting. You can control the number of clones using the Width Count and Height Count, and use the Width Offset and Height Offset properties to control the clones' positional offset. To space out the clones, use the Width Spacing and Height Spacing properties.

You can twist your Honeycomb using the Twist Factor setting, and decide which axis to twist along using the Twist Axis property. The value is measured in percentage, with 100% representing a full 180 degree twist.

Twisting along the Y-axis:

Twisting along the Z-axis:

Twisting along the X-axis:

Mesh

The Mesh layout gives you a way to populate clones along a static mesh or skeletal mesh. You can select these under the Asset property. The example below shows the selected number of clones populating evenly over each of the static mesh’s vertices.

You are able to sample the mesh in a variety of ways:

Here is an example sampling triangles:

Here is an example using a skeletal mesh:

Spline

When using the Spline Layout, you can use a spline actor created using the Motion Design toolbox as the Sample Actor, and clone that actor repeatedly along the path of the spline. You can orient the clones to rotate along with the curve using a combination of the Orient Mesh toggle, which causes the clones to follow the spline's tangent, and rotating the individual static mesh 90 degrees on the Y axis. The image below shows the result of using such a combination.

The image below shows the same actor without the Orient Mesh toggle enabled and default transforms.

Sphere Random

The Sphere Random layout spreads out your mesh clones around the surface of the sphere in a random, chaotic manner. This is controlled by the Distribution, Latitude, and Longitude settings. Enabling Orient Mesh causes all the clones to direct themselves around the surface of the sphere along the forward vector. In the example below, the forward vector comes from the center of the sphere.

Without Orient Mesh enabled, you will end up with a result like the image below, where all clones will follow the forward vector (the X axis in this example):

A .5 value for both Longitude and Latitude forces the clones to cover a quarter of the sphere. You can increase your clone count to a large value (800 in the example shown) to demonstrate this more effectively.

Increasing the Scale setting reduces the density of your clones by expanding the total area that they cover.

Small Scale value:

Larger Scale Value:

Changing the Rotation value rotates the group of clones.

Range

Since every clone is a particle, you can use the Offset, Rotation, and Scale settings to manipulate the initial transforms for the clone. This manipulation can be uniform or non-uniform. You can also randomize the initial placement from the current layout. The image below shows an example of just modifying the ScaleMin and ScaleMax properties to scale the sphere clones between 0.001 and 2.613.

You can disable the ScaleUniformEnabled property to cause the clones to have more random shapes.

Step (Cloner)

With the Step property, you can set the scale and rotation of your clones in an offset manner. To use the effect, the clone count must be higher than 1. The scale and rotation accumulate per clone.

Emission

The Emission category properties provide ways for you to spawn new clones, and then have them despawn, controlling the clone spawn rate, number, and duration.

Spawn

You can use the Spawn feature when you want to create dynamic simulations by having your clones respawn after their lifetime expires. If you want your clones to respawn continuously, change the Emission Mode from Once to Infinite, then enable the Lifetime feature. You can edit the aesthetic by changing the Emission Style property from Instant to Rate. The Emission Rate property determines how many clones appear per second.

If you only want to spawn a fixed number of clones rather than an unlimited number, you can change the value of the Emission Mode property from Infinite to Multiple and set the Emission Count value to whatever you want.

Lifetime

When enabled, the Lifetime options provide a way for you to despawn clones after a period of time.

The image below depicts the beginning of the clones' lifetime.

Clones begin to disappear as time passes.

The Min and Max properties control the minimum and maximum time that a clone is active. Modifying either property restarts the timer.

The ScaleEnabled toggle gives you access to the list of prescribed curve Templates.

Progress

You can use the Progress settings to hide or reveal clones. It can reveal clones from top to bottom, or bottom to top when the Invert Progress option is enabled.

Clones at .5 Progress Value:

Clones at .5 Progress Value with Invert Progress enabled.

Physics

Because each clone is also a particle, particle physics provides a way for you to have your clones collide with both surfaces and each other.

Surface Collision Enabled

By enabling the Surface Collision Enabled property, you can have your clones collide with surfaces in your level (in the example below, the floor). The images below provide examples of each case.

Before enabling collision:

After enabling the Surface Collision Enabled checkbox, and moving the position of the cloner actor toward the floor:

Because in the example we used only the Surface Collision Enabled property, moving the clones up again does not cause them to change relative position any further, because they don't collide with each other. The image below shows this effect:

Particle Collision Enabled

You can also use the Particle Collision Enabled property to have your cloners collide with each other:

You can use the Surface Collision Enabled and Particle Collision Enabled properties together. When you do so, clones react both to colliding with the floor and each other, resulting in a clump like the following image:

Collision Velocity Enabled / Collision Iterations

When you want to calculate the physics after the collision has occurred, you can take particle interaction even further using the Collision Velocity Enabled property.

You can enhance the precision of the interaction with the Collision Iterations property, which determines how frequently the collision solver process repeats; higher values mean more precise collisions, but impacts system performance.

Collision Grid Size / Collision Grid Resolution

The Collision Grid Size and Collision Grid Resolution properties directly impact how many of the clones are affected by the collision. A large value, relative to the size of the area you are trying to cover, will affect a higher number of your clones. A low value produces a result similar to the image below. In this example, any clone that falls outside of a 200, 200, 200 grid volume does not have collision physics:

Adjusting the Collision Grid Size to a higher value provides more volume in which particles collide, resulting in something like the image below:

A low Collision Grid Resolution value results in collision physics applied to large chunks of your clones collectively, rather than as individual particles. A higher Collision Grid Resolution results in collision physics calculations applied properly to individual clones.

Collision Radius Mode

The Collision Radius Mode property determines how the overall radius is calculated for each attached actor. In the example in the image above, there are two actors - the torus and the sphere.

• Extent Length: Calculates from the center of the mesh to the furthest point. This is useful for unevenly sized shapes.

• Manual: Provides a way to define the size of each mesh regardless of the actual size of the mesh. This is useful when you want some padding, or to reduce the calculated size regardless of its actual size.

• Min Extent: Calculates the shortest side of the referenced mesh.

• Max Extent: Calculates the longest side of the referenced mesh.

Mass Min / Mass Max

Mass Min and Mass Max define the overall weight of the particle, in kilograms (kg).

Rendering

You can use the cloners’ Rendering settings to control the clones' general visibility and orientation after you set all the other details in the other Cloner settings, depending on the values you choose for several additional properties in this category.

Mesh Render Mode

There are several different mesh render modes to choose from.

Iterate

Iterates through each of the attached meshes.

Random

Arranges the attached meshes randomly.

Blend

Blends meshes based on the total count and the attached meshes.

Mesh Facing Mode

You can determine the direction the clones face using the Mesh Facing Mode.

Default

The Default option uses the forward vector as seen in the example image below. The arrows are all facing the forward vector and will not rotate.

Velocity

Orients the clones based on their velocity direction. As they rotate around the sphere, they maintain orientation in the direction of their rotation.

Camera Position

Orients all clones to face the camera. For example, the arrows in the GIF below only show the front and none of the tail because they fully face the camera at all times.

Camera Plane

Orients all clones to point toward the plane where the camera is, rather than directly at the camera itself.

Meshes Cast Shadows

You can make meshes cast shadows by enabling the Meshes Cast Shadows property.

Default Meshes

If there is no mesh attached below the cloner actor in the Details panel, you can set the default meshes that appear instead. You can do this by using the Default Meshes option. In this example, we set it to SM_Ball_01.

Visualize Effectors

The Visualize Effectors property toggles using a default material for all clones, so that you can evaluate the results of using effectors more clearly by temporarily removing any confounding colors and patterns added by your material.

Use Override Material

You can define a custom material for all clones by enabling the User Override Material property.

Override Material

Use this property to select your override material. You can select any material from your Content Browser.

Edit with Material Designer

When you have selected an override material, you can edit it by clicking Edit with Material Designer. This opens your material in the Motion Design Material Designer in a separate panel.

Set Translucent Priority

You can enable this property to use the Set Translucent Priority feature.

Utilities

There will be occasions where you don’t want a cloner to remain in a "live" state, and only need it to exist with the settings that you’ve established. Several of the utilities described below are useful in that use-case.

For example, if you create something with the cloner and you want actual actors in the scene instead of particles, you can export your cloner creation by converting them into static meshes or dynamic meshes. You can then use those meshes (including instances) like any other mesh, with all the advantages of those asset types. It's like taking a snapshot of the particles, and transforming the results into actors in your level.

Create Default Actor Attached

If you deleted the default actor that spawns when you create a cloner, clicking this utility respawns that actor using the actor currently set as the default. If you didn’t change the current default actor, this utility spawns a standard cube static mesh.

If you do not have a mesh attached below the cloner, you can set the default meshes that appear instead, using the Default Meshes option under the Rendering tab. In the example in the image below, we set it to SM_Ball_01.

Convert to Static Meshes

Clicking this utility requires you to specify a save location for the static mesh output.

Instances of each clone are saved as a static mesh and placed where they originated.

Convert to Static Mesh

This utility condenses all clones into a single static mesh.

The image below shows an example of a cloner and clones before converting to a static mesh:

After using the Convert to Static Mesh utility, this static mesh output appears in your Content Drawer:

The newly-created static mesh is given an auto-generated name, using the format SM_{ClonerName}_{MeshUniqueId}. You can rename the static mesh in the Content Drawer.

Convert to Instanced Static Mesh

Converts all children of the cloner into an Instanced Static Mesh. This might result in performance improvements.

Convert to Dynamic Mesh / Convert to Dynamic Meshes

These utilities are similar to the utilities for converting to static meshes described previously, but convert the clones to dynamic meshes instead. Dynamic Meshes are described in the documentation for Modifiers.

Create Cloner Sequencer Tracks

You can use this to link a cloner to Sequencer, which helps you to scrub your colliding, cloned animations linearly. To accomplish this, the animation is cached.

The Effector Collision Velocity Physics property is a good way to experiment with this feature. Enable the property first, then set up your clones before creating the track for Sequencer, as shown in the following images:

When you create the Sequencer track, the result should be similar to the following example:

Effector Actors

You can use effectors to modify the various transform values of your clones. You can set this to be done from multiple points of engagement by using multiple effectors all linked to your cloner system. Examples of results you can achieve using effectors include:

• Moving clones in different directions.

• Randomizing clone positions with noise patterns.

• Manipulating clone transforms by offsetting, rotating, and scaling them.

The main requirement is that the clones must be within the effector’s area of influence.

Creating an Effector

There are two ways to create an effector:

• Select an existing cloner, then click the Spawn Linked Effector button in the Details panel.

  

• Place an effector directly by double-clicking Effector Actor on your Motion Design toolbar, or by using the Place Actors tab and searching for the Motion Design Effector Actor.

  

If you only have a single cloner, we recommend the first method.

If you want to use multiple effectors, then you need to create an Effector actor, name it, and add it to the Effectors array on your cloner.

After adding and assigning the new effector, you can set up your project to resemble the following example. The red area shows the original effector, and the new effector is blue.

General

The General category shows standard settings for transforms applied to the Effector actor.

Effector

In the Effector category, the Enabled checkbox determines whether you want to use the tool. To use effectors, make sure the checkbox has a check.

The Magnitude property determines the strength of the effector's impact on the clones within its range.

You can use the Color property to colorize the clones your effector is affecting. If you don’t want to colorize them, you can set this property to white. You can use the Unreal Engine color picker to select the color, or just enter RGBA values directly.

Under the Advanced section, you can:

• Control the visibility of your effector's inner and outer boundaries in the viewport using the Visualizer Sprite Visible property

• Control the visibility of the visualizer component under the Effector actor in the Details panel using the Visualizer Component Visible property.

Visualizer Sprite Visible enabled:

Visualizer Sprite Visible disabled:

The Channel Data Identifier property is an advanced feature that provides a way for you to use effectors with custom projects outside Motion Design. For example, advanced users could build their own custom systems using Niagara modules that can be affected by Motion Design effectors using the effector's data channel. The values are transient, and can be different every time the world is reloaded.

Forces

You can use Forces to animate your clones without the need for keyframes, instead relying on Niagara physics. There are several methods to animate within the Effector system, which you can combine as desired. The settings for the various Forces options are only accessible when the associated Force is enabled.

Orientation Force

This Forces option influences the orientation of the clones at a constant rate, and spins them faster depending on how close they are to the center of the Inner Radius.

In this example, the darker green area that the effector is reaching is twirling the shapes at a faster rate than the greyer shapes based on their intersection with the inner radius of the effector. If the clones are outside of the inner and outer boundaries, they will not spin at all.

You can combine the Orientation Force Rate, Orientation Force Min, and Orientation Force Max properties to manipulate where the affected clones are facing and how often they cycle. The Orientation Rate changes the speed of rotation, while the Orientation Force Min and Max regulate the cycle speed.

Vortex Force

Early in the process, the clones will begin to drift after increasing the force along the X axis.

This rotates the clones according to Vortex Force Amount and around a Vortex Force Axis. The values in the GIF above combined with the size of the effector result in a relatively slow reaction that sends the clones offscreen.

Curl Noise Force

The two properties here are Curl Noise Force Strength and Curl Noise Force Frequency.

• Increasing Curl Noise Force Strength increases the acceleration affecting the clones.

• Curl Noise Force Frequency sends the clones in different directions. The higher the value, the more time it will take the clones to disperse, because there is more randomness in the direction of the force applied to the clones.

The results are deterministic, not random, and depend on the cloner's seed. When the same seed value repeats for the same arrangement of layout and cloners, it always has the same effect.

The image below shows the effect of a Curl Noise Force Frequency value of 1 after 2 seconds:

Here is the same setup except with a Curl Noise Force Frequency value of 50 after 2 seconds:

Attraction Force

Thia Force option causes your clones to flow toward the effector’s location. They will flow faster the closer they are to the inner radius of the effector. In the example below, the green area is the inner radius.

The Attraction Force Falloff property decreases the speed of the particles as it gets closer to the outer boundary. In the example below, the outer boundary is represented by the red outer area.

Gravity Force

Using this forces clones to fall gradually depending on the inner/outer radius set in the Shape property.

The image below shows an example setup of clones before enabling Gravity Force.

This image shows the same setup shortly after enabling Gravity Force:

Combining Gravity Force and Orientation Force produces an effect like in the image below:

Drag Force

You can use this to add drag and decrease the speed of your forces. If you use it in conjunction with another force like Vortex Force, increasing the Drag Force Linear property makes everything move slower.

The GIF below shows an example of what occurs when an effector with drag force moves off to the left, allowing the Vortex Force to take over.

Vector Noise Force

This Forces option shifts particles in all directions with speed depending on the Vector Noise Force Amount property.

The results are deterministic, not random, and depend on the cloner's seed, so the same seed value repeated for the same arrangement of layout and cloners will always have the same effect.

Mode

There are four modes that you can use to influence an individual clone’s transforms. The effects of the Mode you choose depend on the shape of the effector and the proximity of the clone.

Offset

Offset applies standard transformation properties like Location, Rotation, and Scale to the clones within range of the effector. The image below shows an offset of the X axis value and a rotation of 80. This affects some effector Shape options more than others depending on their proximity to the Offset effector.

Target

By default, this mode automatically sets the TargetActor to the effector. All clones rotate to face the effector as long as they are within the inner or outer boundary of the effector type used.

You can also target a specific actor. In the example below, there is a cube mesh present in the level. As long as the clones are within the inner and outer boundaries of the effector, they will face the static mesh. It does not matter if the target static mesh itself is within the effector range. It only matters that the meshes that you want to face the target are within that range.

Noise Field

The Noise Field organizes and animates clones based on a variety of parameters. The example below uses a combination of the various Strength, Pan, and Frequency properties:

Scale Strength

Scale Strength adjusts the scaling of each clone in the affected area along the selected axes according to the easing curve. In the examples below, the Scale Strength is set to affect the Z axis. The clones rise and fall with the noise field passing through the effector area due to the Pan setting value.

This example shows the Scale Strength on the Z axis set to 1.0:

The example below shows the same effector set-up, except with the Scale Strength on the z axis set to 25.0:

Location Strength

Location Strength determines how flat the noise field is. The example below uses a relatively low value:

In the example below, the Location Strength is set to a relatively high value.

Rotation Strength

The Rotation Strength property rotates clones according to how close they are to the center of the effector. In the example shown below, the clones most affected are whiter and more acutely rotated.

Pan

The Pan value determines how quickly the noise curve passes through the effector. When you use a low value, the result should look similar to the example below.

The example below shows Pan set to a high value.

Frequency

Setting the Frequency value determines the overall intensity of the noise, which affects the number of peaks.

The example below shows a relatively low Frequency value.

Here is the same example, except with a higher Frequency value.

Push

You can use the Push mode to push the clones in a variety of directions and with varying levels of Push Strength.

Push Forward

This push option creates a push effect on your clones parallel to the axes defined for the Push Strength.

Push Right

This push option creates a push effect on your clones horizontally perpendicular to the axes defined for the Push Strength.

Push Up

This push option creates a push effect on your clones vertically perpendicular to the axes defined for the Push Strength.

Push Effector

This push option creates a unit vector based on the relative locations of the effector and particle, and pushes based on the Push Strength along that vector.

Push Random

This push option creates a random unit vector based on the cloner seed, and pushes based on the Push Strength along that vector. This effect is deterministic, the same options with the same cloner seed always produce the same result.

Step (Effector)

The Step effector provides a method for you to position, scale, and rotate your clones along a strict before-and-after plane, represented by the floating plane as it moves through the system.

Shape

Using the Effector panel, there are several shaped formations you can set up to control the scope of an effector's influence on your clones, for a variety of effects. Their primary function is to restrain the effector's influence within specific bounds. You can begin by using the Unbound mode to understand the full extent of the effectors on your design when they aren't limited,, but below you will find descriptions for each Shape option in the order that they appear on the menu.

For all Shape options except Unbound, you can set the Easing property, which provides a list of curves you can choose from (linear, sine, cubic, circular, elastic, and so on). These apply an additional intensity effect on the clones in range, based on the shape you selected. See below under Effector Boundaries for more information.

Except when specified otherwise, all examples for demonstrating shapes shown below use the following settings for the Mode.

Property	Value
Mode	Noise Field
Scale Strength X	1.0
Scale Strength Y	1.0
Scale Strength Z	25.0
Frequency	1.0

Values not listed are 0.

Effector Boundaries

Most effector shapes have two wireframe boundaries:

• An inner boundary, inside which clones are fully affected by whatever effect is generated by the effector. By default, the inner boundary area is shown in red.

• An outer boundary, inside which clones are partially affected by whatever effect is generated by the effector. By default, the outer boundary area is shown in blue.

The exception is any effector with the Unbound shape. See below for more information.

The outer boundary interpolates the effect on the clones between the full effect within the inner boundary area, and the default clone behavior outside the effector's area. How much the effector affects the clones within the outer boundary area depends on:

• The position of the clones within the outer boundary, with respect to the edge of the inner boundary and the external region.

• The Easing property curve associated with the effector, which determines how the interpolation is calculated.

  • There are many different curves available, mostly based on various mathematical functions. See the list of curves below along with images which demonstrate each curve.

Curve Name	Image	Curve Name	Image
In Expo		In Out Quint
In Circ		In Out Quart
In Quint		In Out Quad
In Quart		In Out Cubic
In Quad		In Out Sine
In Cubic		Linear
In Sine		In Bounce
Out Expo		In Back
Out Circ		In Elastic
Out Quint		Out Bounce
Out Quart		Out Back
Out Quad		Out Elastic
Out Cubic		In Out Bounce
Out Sine		In Out Back
In Out Expo		In Out Elastic
In Out Circ		Random

Depending on the shape of the effector, the boundary description will differ, either as inner / outer radius, or inner / outer extent. See specific shape options below for details.

You can control the color and transparency of the boundaries in your Project Settings, under Motion Design - Cloner & Effector. You can set the color with the Color Picker, or manually set the RGBA values. The alpha channel (A) controls the transparency of the wireframes, from 0.1 (most transparent) to 1 (least transparent).

Invert Type

An important setting shared across all of the Shape properties is the Invert Type option at the bottom of the list. Enabling this property inverts the affected area.

The example below shows an effector using a sphere shape before inverting. The effect is contained within the boundaries of the effector, attenuating to nothing at the edge of the outer boundary.

After inverting, the example now shows the effects are reversed. The effector's influence is at full strength outside the boundaries, attenuating across the outer boundary volume and having no effect on the inner boundary volume.

Sphere

This shapes the effector into a sphere that has customizable properties for the Inner / Outer boundaries. Any clone that falls outside of the Outer boundary is not influenced by the effector. You can set the Easing property as described previously.

Below is a clearer example of the Sphere shape boundary when the mode is changed from Noise Field to Offset.

The image below shows the Mode settings we used for this change in the example above.

Plane

Passing this effector shape through the cloner will interpolate between minimum and maximum values of the mode selected along the curve selected under the Easing setting. The effector has two handles that represent what happens before and after the effector passes through the space.

Lowering the value of Plane Spacing reduces the space between the two handles, and the effect will have a less gradual curve.

When using the Plane shape, you must select one of the Easing property curve options. The default setting is the Linear curve option.

Box

This shape restrains the effector's influence using the Inner Extent and Outer Extent properties, which use the X, Y, and Z axes to define rectangular cuboid volumes. The Box shape draws a bounding box to indicate where the effect is present. Much like the other Effector Shape options, you can set the Easing property.

Inverting the previous example results in the image below.

Unbound

This option places no shape restraints on the effector. This shape does not have boundaries, nor does it use the Easing property, unlike the other options.

Radial

When using the Radial shape, you can set the Radial Angle, which you can increase up to a full circle with a hollow center. The center is defined by the Radial Min Radius and Radial Max Radius properties. You can use the standard Easing property options to define how the Radial shape changes.

The example below shows the Radial Angle property using the In Out Back curve Easing option. This option makes the Radial shape start low and curve upward.

The following GIF shows an example of manipulating the Radial Min Radius and Radial Max Radius to customize the inner and outer thickness of the ring.

For this example, the Invert Type property instead pushes the shape area down into the floor.

Torus

When using the Torus shape option, you can control the radius of the main torus, as well as the radius of both the inner and outer boundaries.

You can use the Torus Radius property to expand the size of the torus while still remaining an equal thickness. Below is an example.