Emitter Guide presets

Every property group of the Emitter Guide (Generation, Color, Size, Texture and the rest) can be saved as a named preset and re-applied to any emitter later — a quick way to reuse a configuration you like, keep a library of building blocks, or share a team style across effects.

Presets are managed from the "⋮" menu in the header of each Emitter Guide group, in its Presets submenu.

What a preset contains

A preset is a snapshot of one group of one emitter — exactly what group Copy/Paste transfers. Applying a preset replaces the whole group's configuration (its mode, values, curves and expressions) and can be undone with a regular Undo.

Presets are saved per group type: a Color preset can only be applied to the Color group, a Generation preset to Generation, and so on.

Applying a preset

Open the group's ⋮ → Presets menu and click a preset. Folders appear as submenus, so a larger library stays organized. The menu always shows the current on-disk state — anything added or changed outside the editor (for example by a git pull into a shared folder) appears the next time you open the menu.

Saving a preset — Add…

⋮ → Presets → Add… saves the group's current state as a new preset:

• type the name,
• pick the destination folder in the tree — your local collection or the shared one — or create a new folder on the spot,
• press Save.

The dialog remembers the last folder you saved into for each group. Names that would clash with an existing preset or folder (including case-insensitive matches) are flagged immediately.

Updating a preset — Update…

⋮ → Presets → Update… overwrites an existing preset with the group's current state — useful when you refine a look and want the preset to follow. Pick the preset in the tree and confirm; the operation cannot be undone, so the editor always asks first.

Organizing presets — Manage…

⋮ → Presets → Manage… opens the management dialog with both preset trees (Local and Shared):

• Rename — double-click a preset or folder (or press F2).
• Delete — removes a preset, or a folder together with the presets inside it (after a confirmation that lists how much it contains). Press Del as a shortcut. Files the editor does not manage (for example a README in a shared git repo) are never touched.
• Duplicate — copies a preset next to the original (name copy), handy as a starting point for a variation.
• New Folder — creates a folder under the current selection.
• Drag & drop — moves presets between folders, and between Local and Shared. Folders can be dragged within one collection; to move a folder's presets across collections, move the presets themselves.

Presets and folders are always listed alphabetically, folders first.

Local and shared collections

Your local presets live in your user profile (~/.neutrinoeditor/presets) and are private to your machine.

The shared collection is optional: point Windows → Editor Settings → Emitter Guide Presets at any folder and it appears as the Shared section in every Presets menu. The intended workflow is to make that folder a git repository (or a folder on a synced drive):

1. one teammate saves or updates a preset into Shared from the editor,
2. commits and pushes the changed files,
3. everyone else pulls — the new presets show up in their menus right away, no editor restart needed.

Preset files are self-contained (.negp files organized in plain directories), so the repository stays easy to review and merge. If the configured folder is temporarily unavailable — not pulled yet, drive not mounted — the Shared section is shown disabled with the reason in its tooltip and comes back as soon as the folder is reachable.

Copying and pasting a single value

Besides whole-group presets, you can copy and paste an individual value in the Emitter Guide — one Size, one Color channel, one Rotation input and so on. Open the value's type menu (the small button you use to switch it between Fixed, Random, Random from graph and the other types); at the bottom, after a separator, you will find Copy and Paste.

• Copy puts the value on the clipboard — its type and all of its data.
• Paste drops that value onto another one. It works across sections too: you can copy a value in Size and paste it into a Color channel, as long as the target can hold that type.

Paste follows one rule about dimension (how many components the value has — 1, 2 or 3, plus the R rotation value):

• On a normal single value, Paste is available only when the dimensions match — a 3-component value pastes onto a 3-component value.
• Inside a multi-value row, the row adjusts its dimension automatically to whatever you paste, so a copied 3-component value can be dropped onto a row that was 1-component.

Pasting a value is a regular edit — it can be undone with Undo. If the clipboard does not hold a compatible value, Paste is shown disabled with the reason in its tooltip.

Notes

• Presets saved by an older editor open fine in newer versions. A preset saved by a newer editor than yours is left untouched and reported when you try to apply it.
• A file that is damaged or is not really a preset shows up only in the Manage dialog, marked (unreadable), where you can delete or rename it — the editor never deletes such files on its own.
• Presets from editor versions before the file-based storage are migrated automatically the first time you use the Presets menu.