Asset Generators

Since v2.22.0, some assets can be generated procedurally using Asset generators. This allows to use PopcornFX graphs to generate textures, meshes, vectorfields or simulation-caches.
Some of these asset types support other generation sources, such as substance files for textures, or python scripts. See the subsection for each asset to see all the currently available generation types. These will be extended in the future on a need by need basis.

The purpose of asset generators in PopcornFX is two-fold:
1- Allow to easily and quickly generate simple assets without having to go through a longer and potentially more complex process through a third-party app & manual export
2- Be "Baking-pipeline friendly" and remove the need for manual re-exporting of assets when dependencies change.

For example, if you use a BAT (Bone animation texture), and an artist updates the source mesh or animations, you would traditionally have to manually re-generate & re-export all BATs that reference those meshes/animations.
Using the BAT texture generator, you don’t have to do anything. Whenever you open an effect that uses a BAT texture that depends on the changed meshes/anims, the PopcornFX editor will automatically rebuild the BAT.
Likewise, when using the asset-baker to bake the assets, everything will be automatically rebaked as needed.

The wider goal is effectively to make it so artists don’t have to do manual exports anymore for most things, which in turn allows to simplify & streamline the pipeline, and removes human error, involuntary misses that will cause wasted time and issues down the line.

Even though we provide nodegraphs to generate those assets, the Goal is NOT to replace tools such as substance designer. Rather to give the option to build a quickly slapped together popcorn graph when it makes sense and doesn’t require the full strength of substance & the overhead of going through a 3rd party app.