Elemental Alchemist: A Generative Interface for Semantic Control of Particle Systems Across Dynamic Levels of Abstraction

TL;DR

Elemental Alchemist is a generative interface that helps users control particle systems semantically by translating high-level creative goals into contextualized technical parameters, improving usability for VFX editing.

Contribution

It introduces a novel interface with contextual brushes and generative control panels that map user intent to particle system parameters across abstraction levels.

Findings

Supported users in translating creative goals into particle parameters.

Improved control and understanding of particle effects for novices and experts.

Facilitated semantic editing of complex particle systems.

Abstract

Editing particle-system visual effects (VFX) is vital for digital storytelling, but achieving controllable, art-directable results remains challenging due to their multi-dimensional nature. Given a large collection of parameters, users must find the ones relevant to their creative goals -- a task that requires a systematic understanding of the particle system and how parameters map to high-level intents, such as making a fire look angry. Elemental Alchemist is a generative interface that transforms user intent into contextualized controls for semantic editing of particle systems. The system introduces two components: a contextual brush palette that generates tools based on scene context, and a generative control panel that surfaces relevant technical parameters and abstracts them to generate mid-level semantic attributes and high-level conceptual controls. An evaluation with 10 novice and 5 expert VFX practitioners shows the system supported users in translating high-level creative goals into particle system parameters.