RDPE Editor

Visual editor for designing GPU-accelerated particle simulations. Design, preview, and export RDPE simulations without writing code.

Features

• Live Preview — Embedded GPU simulation viewport with real-time updates
• Auto-Rebuild — Changes automatically rebuild the simulation after a short debounce
• 100+ Rules — Full access to all RDPE rules through dropdown menus
• Visual Configuration — Adjust particle shapes, colors, blend modes, trails, and effects
• Custom WGSL — Write custom compute and render shader code with live validation
• 3D Fields — Configure spatial fields for pheromones, density, and flow effects
• Volume Rendering — Visualize scalar fields with ray-marched volume rendering
• Particle Inspector — Click particles to inspect and edit their properties live
• Code Export — Generate standalone Rust code from your configuration
• 18 Presets — Start from pre-built simulations like Boids, Galaxy, Slime Mold

Installation

# Build and run the editor
cargo run --release --package rdpe-editor

Usage

Editor

Launch the visual editor:

cargo run --package rdpe-editor

The editor window contains:

• Central Viewport — Live simulation preview with orbit camera (drag to rotate, scroll to zoom)
• Right Panel — Tabbed configuration panels (Spawn, Rules, Particle, Fields, Visuals, Custom)
• Menu Bar — File operations, presets, pause/play, reset
• Bottom Panel — Particle inspector (when a particle is selected)

Runner

Execute saved configurations without the editor UI:

cargo run --package rdpe-editor --bin rdpe-runner -- config.json

The runner opens a fullscreen simulation window with particle and rule inspectors.

Configuration Panels

Spawn

Configure how particles are spawned:

• Particle Count — Number of particles (1 to 500,000)
• Bounds — Simulation boundary size
• Particle Size — Render size of each particle
• Shape — Cube, Sphere, Shell, Ring, Point, Line, Plane
• Velocity — Zero, Random, Outward, Inward, Swirl, Directional
• Color Mode — Uniform, RandomHue, ByPosition, ByVelocity, Gradient
• Spatial Hashing — Cell size and resolution for neighbor queries

Rules

Stack rules to define particle behavior. Categories include:

• Forces — Gravity, Drag, Acceleration
• Boundaries — BounceWalls, WrapWalls
• Point Forces — AttractTo, RepelFrom, PointGravity, Orbit, Spring, Radial, Vortex, Pulse
• Noise — Turbulence, Curl, Wind, PositionNoise
• Steering — Seek, Flee, Arrive, Avoid, Wander
• Flocking — Separate, Cohere, Align, Flock
• Collisions — Collide, NBodyGravity, LennardJones, Viscosity, Pressure
• Types — Chase, Evade, Convert, TypedNeighbor
• State — State, Agent (state machines)
• Lifecycle — Age, Lifetime, FadeOut, ShrinkOut, ColorOverLife
• Custom — Custom WGSL, NeighborCustom, OnCollision
• Events — OnSpawn, OnDeath, OnCondition, OnInterval
• Fields — Deposit, Sense, Consume, Signal, Absorb
• Math/Logic — Lerp, Threshold, Gate, Noise, Remap, And, Or, Not

Particle

Define custom particle fields beyond the built-in position, velocity, color:

• Add fields of type f32, u32, i32, Vec2, Vec3, Vec4
• Fields are accessible in custom WGSL code

Fields

Configure 3D spatial fields:

• Resolution — Grid size (16, 32, 64, 128)
• Extent — World-space coverage
• Decay — Per-frame fade factor
• Blur — Diffusion strength and iterations
• Type — Scalar or Vector

Enable volume rendering to visualize fields with configurable palettes.

Visuals

• Blend Mode — Alpha, Additive, Multiply
• Shape — Circle, Square, Triangle, Star, Hexagon, etc.
• Palette — 12 color schemes (Viridis, Plasma, Fire, Neon, etc.)
• Color Mapping — Index, Speed, Age, Distance, Random
• Trails — Motion blur length
• Connections — Lines between nearby particles
• Velocity Stretch — Elongate particles in motion direction
• Wireframe — Debug mesh overlay

Custom

• Uniforms — Add custom f32, Vec2, Vec3, Vec4 values accessible in shaders
• Vertex Shader — Custom WGSL for vertex processing
• Fragment Shader — Custom WGSL for fragment coloring
• Export — Generate standalone Rust code

Presets

Keyboard Shortcuts

Dependencies

• rdpe — Core particle simulation library
• eframe/egui — Immediate-mode GUI
• wgpu — GPU rendering
• serde — JSON serialization
• naga — WGSL shader validation
• rfd — Native file dialogs

License

MIT