---
title: "Direction"
url: "https://help.maxon.net/c4d/en-us/Content/html/FFORMULA-FIELD_GROUP_DIRECTION.html"
section_path: "Create Menu > Field > Field Objects > Formula Field > Direction"
element_id: "FFORMULA"
group_id: "FIELD_GROUP_DIRECTION"
description: "As fields can also specify directions (vectors), this tab allows you to influence the vectors to a certain extent. This mainly refers to the vector length …"
---

## Direction

As fields can also specify directions (vectors), this tab allows you to influence the vectors to a certain extent. This mainly refers to the vector length and thus its magnitude (or simply put: the 'strength') and less to the direction (although this is exactly what you do with **Invert Direction**)!

To make vectors visible, place a Spherical Field in a [Field Force](https://help.maxon.net/c4d/en-us/Content/html/OFIELDFORCE.html.md), for example.

The settings in this tab are particularly useful when working with the [Target Effector](https://help.maxon.net/c4d/en-us/Content/html/OETARGET.html.md) and the [Field  Force Object](https://help.maxon.net/c4d/en-us/Content/html/OFIELDFORCE.html.md).

![Image: subgroup.gif](https://help.maxon.net/c4d/en-us/Content/Resources/Images/subgroup.gif)\
Directions

### Length

Parameter ID: `FIELD_DIRECTIONMODE`

You have the following options here:

- **No Remap**: Nothing changes in the length of the vectors. However, certain Fields can produce undesirable results - e.g., extremely long vectors - which lead to suboptimal results in "normal" processing (you should then use a different option, e.g., Use Value). However, these can be used for your own XPresso calculations. This is also a frequently-used setting for evaluating the flight speed of particles through a *Particle Field Layer*, for example, in order to adopt the vectors unchanged.
- **Normalize**: The vector lengths are set to 1 (normal). The desired vector length can then be adjusted directly, e.g., by using the **Scale value**.
- **Use Value**: The Value channel defined by the Field is used for the length. A Linear Field, for example, then assigns vector lengths between 0 on the left and 1 on the right.\
  When using a *Particle Field Layer* to transfer particle properties, this allows the particle property read out via the **value source setting** to be multiplied by the normalized vector that you have selected via the **Direction Source menu**.
- **Inverse Square**: This is a special case that can be used in conjunction with Dynamics. The vector magnitudes then behave similarly to the decrease in brightness of a physical light source in a Spherical Field. Extremely strong at maximum (center of sphere) and then decreasing inversely quadratically with distance. This corresponds, for example, to the physically correct behavior of a gravitational source.

### Scale

Parameter ID: `FIELD_DIRECTIONSCALE` · Range: [-∞..+∞%]

This setting is a multiplier that affects the length of all vectors. For example, if a vector has a length of 4, this will be set to 2 if the **Scale** value is set to 50%.

### Invert Direction

Parameter ID: `FIELD_DIRECTIONINVERT`

Contrary to the remaining settings, this option affects the vector orientation and rotates it 180° in the opposite direction.