2.0.0 - Major Update: Performance & New Features

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FxChain V2 brings significant performance improvements, two powerful new components, enhanced animation controls, and expanded external scripting capabilities. This update focuses on optimization, workflow improvements, and giving you more creative tools to build sophisticated animations.

Centralized Processing System

The entire animation system has been restructured with centralized processing through the Chain Root script. This architectural improvement brings substantial performance gains:

Optimized Object Management: Object creation and destruction have been completely reworked for efficiency.
On-Demand Spawning: Repeater spawns are now created as needed during animation playback, rather than all at once when the Repeater component is called. This eliminates initial performance spikes and reduces memory allocation.
Staggered Destruction System: A new staggered destruction system prevents frame rate dips when destroying many objects. Objects are destroyed in controlled batches per frame, significantly reducing garbage collection (GC ALLOC) spikes. You can adjust the batch size in the component's "Other" section.

Result: Smoother playback, especially with complex nested Repeater setups and large numbers of spawns.

New Component: Trail

Create dynamic trail effects that follow object movement. A more powerful alternative to Unity’s native Trail component that works with the FxChain timing system. Key features include:

Two Length Modes:

Time-based: Removes trail points after a specified duration.
Distance-based: Maintains trail within a specified maximum length.

Advanced Trail Behavior:

Trail Shrinking: Optional shrinking behavior that reduces trail length as the animation progresses or when the object stops moving.
Velocity-Based Shrink: Trail can shrink based on the object's movement speed for more natural effects.
Automatic Cleanup: Trail points are automatically cleared on animation start/stop.
Extended Duration: Animation duration automatically extends until movement completely stops.

Customizable Appearance:

Width control using animation curve and base multiplier.
Color and transparency gradients along trail length.
Optional width scaling based on trail length/fullness.
Emission gradient support with power multiplier.

Performance Optimized:

Configurable update frequency (Hz).
Minimum distance threshold to prevent unnecessary point creation.
Efficient point management and removal.

Perfect for motion trails, speed lines, magical effects, and any scenario where you need visual trails following animated objects.

New Component: Material Properties

Dynamically animate material properties over time using Unity's Material Property Block system for efficient, non-destructive material changes. Key features include:

Multi-Renderer Support:

MeshRenderer (with MeshFilter)
SkinnedMeshRenderer
SpriteRenderer

Built-in Property Animation:

Base Color: Customizable gradient with alpha support for fades and color transitions.
Emission: Separate gradient with power multiplier for glow effects. Option to inherit from color gradient.
Shadow Casting: Optional shadow casting control for SpriteRenderers.

Custom Property Animation:

Float Properties: Animate using custom animation curves (e.g., metallic, smoothness, dissolve).
Color Properties: Animate using gradients (e.g., custom color properties).
Vector Properties: Linear interpolation to target values (e.g., tiling, offset).

Material Targeting:

Target specific material slots on multi-material renderers.
Option to apply changes to all materials on a renderer simultaneously.

Non-Destructive: All material changes are temporary and automatically revert when the animation completes. Your original materials remain untouched.

Ideal for material transitions, dissolve effects, glow animations, and any scenario requiring dynamic material property changes without modifying source materials.

Spring-Like Animations (Animate Component)

The Animate component's easing system now includes an Easing -/+ toggle that shifts the curve range from [0 - 1] to [-1 to 1]. This enables spring-like animations with overshoot and bounce effects directly through easing curves, without needing additional components.

Loop with Offset Transform

All components now support looping with an Offset Transform option. When enabled, each loop of the animation continues from where the last loop ended, rather than resetting to the original start position. This creates seamless, continuous animations perfect for rotating elements, pulsing effects, and progressive transformations.

Component-Level Proximity Override

A new Proximity Override option in the Timings section allows individual components within a chain to trigger based on proximity to a specified object. This is separate from the Chain Root's Proximity trigger mode, while the root controls when the entire chain starts, Proximity Override controls when specific components start within an already-running chain.

External Control: Dynamic Data Injection

The "Use Data" toggle has been added to key parameters, allowing you to pass dynamic values when triggering chains externally:

Animate Component: Position, Rotation, and Scale (and their random equivalents) can now be set dynamically via external calls.
Repeater Component: Birth Count can now be set dynamically (e.g., spawn count based on damage dealt, items collected, etc.).

This enables context-aware animations that adapt to game state, player actions, or runtime conditions.

Playback Control Methods (Pause, Resume, Reset)

New external methods provide full playback control to Pause, Resume or Reset the animation.These methods integrate seamlessly with the existing external trigger system, giving you complete programmatic control over FxChain sequences.

Advanced Trigger System

The trigger system has been significantly expanded with comprehensive examples and improved editor visualization:

Custom Condition Triggers: Set complex boolean functions to control when animations trigger. Perfect for multi-variable game state checks.
Variable Watch Triggers: Continuously monitor variables with comparison operators (LessThan, GreaterThan, Equal, etc.) and configurable polling rates for performance optimization.
Editor Visualization: Real-time display of trigger status, variable values, and condition states during Play mode.
Example Scripts: Multiple comprehensive example scripts demonstrating various trigger patterns and best practices.

Learning Resources

7 New Demo Scenes have been added to the package, each focusing on specific features and use cases. These smaller, focused examples help you learn FxChain's capabilities more efficiently.

Additional Improvements

Improved Chain Root Processing: Better handling of complex chain hierarchies.
Enhanced Editor Feedback: More informative timing summaries and behavior descriptions.
Optimized Gizmo Rendering: Better performance when visualizing spawn locations and animation paths.
Refined UI Organization: Continued improvements to inspector layout and clarity.

Migration Notes

V2 is mostly backward compatible with V1 projects. We recommend backing up your project before updating and proceeding with caution. While existing FxChain setups should continue to function, you may notice some behavioral differences due to significant system changes.

Notable Change: The Repeater component's Random Scale default values have been changed from 1 to 0 to align with other scale-related controls. If you have existing Repeaters using random scale, you may need to adjust these values manually.

1.0.1 - Small update

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Fixed a bug relating to orientation when using the "Own Trajectory" option

FxChain v2: Procedural Animation Sequencing for Unity