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Particle Inspector

Open Particle Inspector in the Pro Particles panel. The inspector opens in its own desktop window. It has a scrollable particle table and does not create a Blender editor or sidebar. Inspect Values beside a List mapping or a connected Node mapping opens the same tool for that parameter.

The inspector reads live simulation particles. It does not advance the simulation or edit the setup. Geometry created by post effects and baked Output Cache playback are not inspected.

Select and inspect particles

  • Group and Emitter filter the selection together. Emitter ownership uses the parent emitter, including its individual Sources.
  • Value selects the attribute shown in the Value column, statistics and optional viewport display.
  • Click a column header to sort. Click again to reverse the order. Use the mouse wheel, touchpad or scrollbars to browse the table. Horizontal scrolling exposes columns outside the window width. Drag column dividers to resize them.
  • Click a particle row, or enter its full Track ID, to follow that particle across frames. A tracked particle is read separately even when it falls outside the table sample. It must match the filters and still exist.
  • Freeze holds the current diagnostic snapshot. The simulation continues. Refresh reads the current live solver state without advancing it, including while Freeze is enabled.

The table includes ID, Group, Emitter, age in seconds, Speed, Mass and the selected Value. Enable Details to show the tracked-particle panel, including Position, Velocity, Radius, Lifetime and user attributes. Drag its divider to resize it. Copy copies the sample or tracked particle as tab-separated values.

Window size, position, column widths and display layout are remembered when the inspector closes. Opening Particle Inspector again brings the existing window forward. Opening it from another scene changes the inspected scene. File loading and add-on shutdown close the inspector.

Fluid Density reports the most recently stored density. It is zero when unavailable and can retain its last value when no fluid effect updates it.

Inspect a mapping

Choose a layer in Mapping, then run the next simulation step to record it. Changing the selected layer or Vector Component requires another simulation step. Refresh cannot reconstruct an evaluation that was not recorded.

  • Input is the selected layer's source value when the effect evaluated it.
  • Result is the combined mapped parameter value after all its mapping layers. For vector targets, Vector Component selects X, Y, Z or Length.
  • For collider Weight Maps, Input is the interpolated surface weight at the particle contact. Result includes that weight and the collider parameter's range limit.
  • -- indicates an absent or nonfinite evaluation. For example, a particle without collider contact has no contact mapping value. An effect skipped by its selection or disabled strength can also have no evaluation.

Values are recorded at the last evaluation in the simulated frame. They may differ from attributes changed later by another effect. Time-based mapping inputs are shown in seconds, even when the mapping's Unit is Frames. The mapped value is the effect's parameter value; it does not measure the resulting force or motion.

The inspector reads mappings from the active mode: the effect's mapping list in Lists, or its connected Field chain in Nodes. These setups keep separate settings. When a Physics Group creates several instances of a mapped effect, select the intended instance in Mapping.

Viewport values

In Settings, enable Show Values in Viewport to draw the inspected sample in the scene's 3D Viewports. Blue indicates the low end of the range; red indicates the high end. Missing values are grey. A tracked particle is highlighted in white.

Automatic Range uses finite sample minimum and maximum. Disable it to set a fixed Minimum and Maximum when comparing frames. Point Size controls the diagnostic markers. X-Ray shows them through scene surfaces. Blender's Overlays toggle also hides the diagnostic display.

The legend identifies the value range, frame and sample count. This is a separate diagnostic overlay. Particle colors, materials and exported color attributes remain unchanged. Closing the inspector removes the overlay. A live overlay is hidden when the timeline shows a different frame; Freeze retains its recorded frame.

Sampling and cost

In Settings, Sample Limit defaults to 2,048 and permits up to 8,192 particles. Small selections are complete. Larger selections use a bounded sample distributed by particle ID; its size can be below the limit. The matching particle count is exact, while statistics and the histogram describe the sample. A sample can miss rare values or contacts.

Refresh Interval defaults to 0.2 seconds and sets how often the inspector updates during simulation. Increase it if inspection slows a large scene. Mapping inspection can also use additional GPU memory. Unused user or Pyro attributes show their default values.