PewPew - Sci-fi Laser FX Addon for Blender

PewPew - A Blender Addon for generating Sci-fi Laser FX

• with automatic collision detection, producing sparks, smoke, impact flashes, and scorch marks upon impact
• included are several "Star Wars-style" laser effect objects and shaders (optimized for Cycles! Eevee technically works too, but not as nice looking)
• using your own custom effect assets instead of the ones provided is also possible
• latest version is compatible with Blender 3.6 and above

I initially wrote this addon because I needed a way to quickly generate lots of laser effects for my stylized Star Wars fan film project "Tukk Tales: The Rescue".
Unfortunately Blender's outdated particle system wasn't up to the task and Geometry Nodes wasn't in a usable enough state at that point. But even if it was, I was rather looking for a solution that let's me go in afterwards and easily tweak every single fx element as needed, instead of a fully procedural approach or baked simulation.

So PewPew was born! As a custom tool I made for my own projects, but since I'm not the only crazy Star Wars or sci-fi geek out there, I figured more people could put it to good use. 🙂

PewPew is FREE to use in any of your projects, doesn't matter if they're commercial or not!
(But if you want to donate anyway then that's greatly appreciated of course!)

The user interface should be relatively self-explanatory, but I'll try to get a tutorial done soon!
If you have questions or find any bugs, feel free to reach out on any of these plattforms:

Check out the teaser trailer for Tukk Tales: The Rescue if you want to see the addon in action:

Limitations

• This addon is designed as a solution for small to mid-sized fight scenes where you want to be able to go in and easily tweak every single element if needed. To achieve this it generates a lot of keyframed objects, which can be too resource intensive for large scale battles.
• I advise against altering the names or collection hierarchies created by the addon since that can break some of the addons functionality. Of course you can move the main "LaserFX" collection wherever you need it, but it's not recommended to change the contents of it by hand.
• If you want to shoot at an object that has been linked into the scene, make sure it has library overrides enabled, otherwise the collision detection won't work.
• In Blender 4.2.0 to 4.2.2 the scorch mark, spark & smoke emitter elements don't stick to mesh deformations or characters that were skinned using vertex groups, due to a bug with vertex parenting on Blender's side in those versions.

Updates

[V 1.34.0]

• New feature - Velocity Mode: added the option to chose between two modes for calculating the laser velocity: 'Distance per frame' and a new mode called 'Frames till impact', which lets you set a number of frames for the laser to fly until it reaches its target (or the max distance when there is no obstacle).
• New feature - Precision Mode: activate for more accurate collision detection when shooting at moving targets. Disabled by default due to increasing generation time, while bringing no benefits when shooting stationary targets.

[V 1.33.0]

• Smoke Particles: added the option to switch between two different particle types: "Cards (shaded)" and "Volume Spheres (shadeless)". For the cards particles, make sure Max Transparent Bounces are set high enough to avoid artefacts!
• Smoke Particles: added the option to change the smoke color
• Spark / Smoke Particles: physics have been slightly improved

[V 1.32.0]

• Now compatible with Blender 3.6 / 4.0 / 4.1 / 4.2 / 4.3 (including EEVEE Next)
• Spark Particles: physics have been slightly improved
• Misc: slight UI improvements
• Misc: several code rewrites & bug fixes

[V 1.31.1]

• Fixed compatibility issues with Blender 4.1

[V 1.31.0]

• Fixed compatibility issues with Blender 4.0
• All FX elements went through slight overhauls
• New feature - Update / Delete Single Laser: updates / deletes the currently selected laser + all its FX, or the currently fired one when the Emitter is selected
• New feature - Copy Emitter Settings to Selected: copies settings of the active emitter to all selected ones
• New feature - Automatic fixing of broken FX library link: if you opened a blend file that utilized the addon on a different device with a different path to Blender's addon folder, the link to the addon's FX library broke. This gets detected & fixed by the addon automatically now
• Muzzle Flash: the way the Muzzle Flash gets animated has been completely rewritten, making it more reliable when shooting in rapid succession
• Hit Flash: added feature to give the Hit Flash a stylized spikes effect
• Hit Flash: added feature to toggle between making the Hit Flash shrink or grow over time
• Spark Emitter: added feature to toggle Sparklers on / off
• Emitter: "Update / Delete all Lasers of Emitter" feature now also works when any of the Emitter's FX elements is selected
• Misc: UI improvements to make it nicer to use, more intuitive for new users & to keep it more in line with Blender's UI
• Misc: several code rewrites & smaller bug fixes / improvements

[V 1.15.1]

• Bugfix: laser emitters that were linked into the scene as part of a collection (e.g. when linking a character that has an emitter into the scene) were throwing an error in Blender 3.3 when generating lasers. This is fixed now
• Laser: slight adjustments on the shader of the laser fx object, making their direction slightly more readable & making them illuminate the environment a bit more

[V 1.15.0]

• Scorch Mark: now sticks to deforming meshes & characters that were skinned using vertex groups
• Scorch Mark: default shrinkwrap method has been changed to "Nearest Surface Point" due to having significantly less impact on viewport performance than the previous method, while still giving good enough results in most cases
• Spark / Smoke Emitter: now sticks to deforming meshes & characters that were skinned using vertex groups

[V 1.10.2]

• Bugfix: lasers are no longer drifting off their path slightly when the emitter has been parented to an object & the object has been moved
• Bugfix: lasers are no longer moving at the wrong speed when the emitter object has been scaled
  

[V 1.10.1]

• New feature - Aiming Aid: displays/toggles a red "laser sight" to help with aiming the emitter object

• Emitter: most fx settings are now stored in their respective emitter object, allowing for differently configured emitters in the same scene
• Emitter: firing laser & updating / resetting emitter now works with several emitter objects selected at the same time
• Emitter: now works properly when linked into scene (e.g. as part of a character), including library overrides for its settings
• Spark / Smoke Particles: are now emitted at an angle of reflection, depending on the angle at which the laser hits a surface, resulting in more dynamic & realistic bursts
• Spark / Smoke Particles: added settings for velocity & emission length
• Scorch Mark: burn effect fades out more smoothly & looks more consistent between Cycles & Eevee
• Misc: several code rewrites & smaller bug fixes / improvements
  

[V 1.0.1]

• first public release