Animation Studio

Animation Studio is a full-featured timeline editor for building laser animations. Compose layers, animate properties with keyframes, sync to audio, and export complete ILDA animation sequences.

Interface Layout

Ctrl+[ toggles the left panel, Ctrl+] the right, and Ctrl+\ both — handy for a bigger canvas.

Layer Types

Every element in your animation is a layer. Layers stack and can be independently animated.

• SVG layer — Import any SVG file up to 10 MB (or drag-and-drop onto the canvas)
• Text layer — Live text with a choice of 5 fonts: Bebas Neue, Roboto, Pacifico, Inter, or Arial. Double-click a text layer on the canvas to edit it in place — an inline caret appears and the on-canvas preview matches the exported laser output exactly (same font, size, and position)
• Icon layers — search the ICON LIBRARY by name. An imported icon becomes an ordinary SVG layer, so tracing, Split to Paths, and Merge all apply to it
• Quick tool layers — drawn or generated directly from the QUICK TOOLS grid: Circle, Square, Triangle, Line, Sine Wave, Triangle Wave, Bezier, Freehand, Lissajous, Spirograph, and Oscilloscope (the grid also holds the Text Layer tool)

The generator tools have deep parameter panels: Sine Wave (32–256 points), Lissajous (frequency ratios and phase), Spirograph (hypotrochoid/epitrochoid curves with a 200–2000 point resolution slider), and Oscilloscope, which opens its own OSCILLOSCOPE → LAYER converter: it turns a stereo XY WAV (left channel is X, right is Y) into laser geometry and adds it as a layer, which is a different job from the AUDIO tab and does not react to music — see the Oscilloscope Music to ILDA recipe.

Oscilloscope and Lissajous Stereo layers preserve decoded XY samples. The converter shows XY Point Rate and groups samples at 30 FPS or 60 FPS. Position, size, and rotation are supported; unsupported modifiers and overlapping XY/vector exports show an error. Continuous XY hardware output is currently unavailable in Animation Studio. ILDA export adds beam-off travel and dwell points, so it does not guarantee the original audio timing. See Oscilloscope Music for the limits and workflow.

To draw a Line, switch the editor to Edit, choose Line in QUICK TOOLS, and drag from its center toward an endpoint. The line extends equally in the opposite direction. Drag vertically, horizontally, or diagonally; use Rotate to adjust its direction afterward. With snapping enabled, the starting center follows the grid.

Multi-Layer Generator Presets

The Spirograph and Lissajous panels include multi-layer preset pickers that build a complete animated composition from the current layer (the new layers count against the 10-layer limit, and the source layer is kept but hidden):

• Spirograph: Rainbow Center, Triangle Breathe, Draw Cascade, Audio Spectrum, Morph Dance — see Spirograph
• Lissajous: Harmonic Morph, Phase Dance, Draw Cascade, Breathing — see Lissajous

Layer Management

Each timeline layer row carries its own controls — lock, show/hide, clone, sound assignment (when sounds are loaded), and delete — and rows can be dragged up or down by the grip handle to reorder layers.

• Clone — duplicate a layer with all its settings, including the audio reactions scoped to it. Cmd+Click the clone button to clone in place
• Multi-select — Cmd/Ctrl+Click layers to select several at once for merging
• Split to Paths — break an SVG layer into one layer per path, so each path can be animated independently (great for logos — see the Audio-Reactive Logo recipe). The source layer is kept, hidden, marked "(original)"
• Merge Layers — MERGE N LAYERS combines the selected SVG layers back into one. The merged layer keeps every audio reaction that drove its parts, so an audio-reactive logo stays reactive after a merge
• LOCK SHAPE / UNLOCK SHAPE — protect a layer from accidental edits

When an SVG layer is selected, its TRACE section uses the same Simplify range as SVG to Laser: 0.5–6.0, default 2.0. Raise it to remove redundant samples or lower it for a detailed curve. Smooth curves offers OFF, NORMAL, and STRONG without rounding straight edges or right-angle corners. Locked layers keep both controls disabled.

Layer Motion

Animation Studio separates three different jobs so controls do not overlap:

• Morph changes the layer's source geometry into a target shape (Circle, Square, Triangle, Star, or Heart) and can ping-pong back, with its own duration and easing.
• Modifiers apply reusable path motion and appearance: writing, tracer tails, glitch, sparkle, pulse, color, masking, and generators.
• Keyframes and Motion Paths move, scale, rotate, or route the complete layer over the timeline.

There are no separate Draw-In, Tracer, Glitch, Sparkle, or Flicker layer modes. Add the matching modifier instead, then stack or audio-bind it like any other path effect.

Timeline & Keyframes

Select a layer and press K (or F6) to insert a keyframe of its current property values at the playhead. F7 inserts a blank keyframe that resets properties to defaults, and F5 extends the layer's lifespan to the playhead. Once a property has at least one keyframe, auto-keyframing kicks in: moving, scaling, or rotating the layer on the canvas records a new keyframe at the current time automatically.

Keyframe-able properties:

• Position (X, Y)
• Size (animated as one uniform scale)
• Rotation

Color, morph settings, modifiers, and audio mappings are per-layer settings, not keyframe tracks; opacity is driven from the AUDIO tab rather than keyframed.

Reusable Modifiers

Open Modifiers in the Animation tab to stack the same path effects used by SVG to Laser, Text to Laser, and Video to Laser: Trace Reveal, Color Flow, Color Ramps, Ink Settle, Glitch, Sparkle, Soft Pulse, Beam Runners, Sweep, Contact FX, Spotlights, Laser Cannon, Trace Bars, and Grid — on any layer type. Trace Reveal defaults to a moving leading dot; turn on Keep laser trace when you want the completed outline to remain in the laser layer. Most numeric controls can follow low, mid, high, level, or beat audio features. The layer preview and export render the same chain in the same order, including modifier changes made after a layer was first rendered.

Each modifier card has Play to rebuild the preview, return to the beginning, and play the chain, plus Reset to restore that modifier's defaults and clear its audio bindings, an enable/disable dot, and a remove button.

The panel opens with the same Quick Starts as the other laser workspaces — Write, Tracer, Glitch, Sparkle, Pulse, and Neon Ink, each an ordinary editable chain — with CLEAR to empty the chain and preset save/load to write and restore it as a shareable file.

A timed modifier automatically sizes its layer so the effect is not clipped. Entering Layer Duration switches that layer to manual timing: the layer may end before or after the modifier without changing the modifier's own duration.

Drag a keyframe diamond horizontally in the timeline to retime it — a diamond moves every property keyframed at that moment together. Press Delete/Backspace or right-click for Delete Keyframe to remove it. You can also drag a whole layer bar to shift it (keyframes move with it), trim its start and end edges, and use the timeline's Zoom In / Fit to View / Zoom Out controls to navigate long sessions.

Easing

Each keyframe stores an easing curve to the next keyframe. Choose from a large preset library — linear, ease in/out/in-out (quad through expo), back, bounce, and elastic — or pick custom to define your own curve.

Bezier Curve Editor

For precise easing control, select a keyframe and open the Bezier editor in the Animation tab of the Properties panel. Drag the control points to define the exact velocity curve.

Timeline Settings & Onion Skin

Two widgets in the Properties panel:

• TIMELINE (Properties tab) — session duration (up to 60 seconds), FPS, whether times read out in seconds or frames, and TRIM TO LAYERS to snap the session length to its content
• Onion skin (Animation tab) — ghost past and future frames on the canvas, with separate frame counts and opacities for past and future plus a frame step

Motion Paths

Assign a motion path to any layer to control movement over time. Pick a preset in the Motion Path panel:

• Linear — straight-line movement
• Arc — curved movement through a midpoint
• Circle — full circular orbit
• Figure 8 — infinity loop
• Wave — sinusoidal travel path
• Bounce — physics-style bounce with gravity

Each path has auto-orient (with a degree offset), loop with an optional Ping-Pong reverse, and the same easing family as keyframes — including back, bounce, and elastic. A live preview shows the path's shape and point count. Motion paths are configured from presets — they are not editable by dragging points on the canvas.

Transform Origin & Pivot Point

The Transform Origin selector in the Properties panel is a 9-position grid (corners, edge midpoints, center). It controls what point the layer rotates and scales around.

Common use: set the origin to the bottom edge of a VU meter needle layer so it rotates like a real meter. See the VU Meter Needle recipe for a step-by-step example.

Canvas Tools

Saved projects keep guide positions. Opening a project or applying a template replaces the guides on your canvas with that project’s guides.

The canvas toolbar also has rulers (toggleable) with draggable guides — drag a guide off the canvas to remove it, or use the clear-all-guides button — a snap-to-grid magnet toggle, a canvas background cycle (Off → Gray → White), and an alignment toolbar that aligns the selected layer to the canvas: left/center/right, top/middle/bottom, and Center. For the complete list, see Keyboard Shortcuts.

Templates and saving

TEMPLATES and SAVE sit at the right of the header, in the same place Audio Visualizers' Studio puts them.

TEMPLATES opens a searchable grid of starting points, each card listing its length, frame rate, and what it demonstrates. Applying one replaces the layers, timeline, and any loaded sounds and reactions; your projector settings stay as they are.

SAVE names the animation and keeps it in this browser. The preview on the save panel is taken from the frame with the most drawn content rather than from the first frame, so a project that writes itself on over several seconds shows its finished artwork instead of an empty canvas. With a saved project open, the panel offers OVERWRITE or SAVE AS NEW.

Saved animations are listed under Settings → YOUR PROJECTS, each with its own preview. Opening one replaces the layers and timeline; DELETE removes it. Use EXPORT on a saved animation to download a project backup. The file keeps your artwork, timeline, guides, and audio assignments, but does not include the audio files or your projector settings. Choose IMPORT in YOUR PROJECTS to add a backup as a new saved animation, then open its card when you are ready. Importing keeps your current canvas open. Load the matching audio files again to restore their assignments.

Your projector profile and points-per-second limit are not part of a saved project. They describe your hardware rather than the artwork, so opening someone else's animation — or your own on a different rig — never changes what your safety checks measure against.

Settings

The settings gear in the header opens the LASER SETTINGS panel with six tabs, landing on DISPLAY. Ctrl+K (Cmd+K on Mac) toggles it, Esc closes it, and ? jumps straight to the SHORTCUTS tab.

Grid color, opacity, and size have no other home — the canvas toolbar covers rulers, background, grid cycling, snapping, and guides, but the grid's look is set here.

Your Device choice is what every safety check measures against, so it is worth setting before you build: pick the profile that matches your projector, or Custom to enter its exact rated speed. Frame rate and time display are remembered between sessions.

The audio chain

The AUDIO tab reads top to bottom as a signal chain, the same way a mixer strip or a synth voice does. Each stage is numbered, and each one only appears when it has something to show.

1 SOURCE

Five demo tracks — Music, Bass, Saw, Sine, Talk — or drop your own (MP3, WAV, OGG, or M4A up to 50 MB). The drop target is a button, so you can reach it from the keyboard.

You can load more than one sound. Each appears in the list with its name, length, frame count, a stereo tag where it applies, what it drives, and REMOVE. Removing a sound leaves your layers and reactions alone.

The first sound in the list is the TIMELINE sound: it owns the beat grid, AUDIO TRIM, the waveform behind the layer rows, and the playhead. MAKE TIMELINE on any other sound moves it to the front and hands it that job.

Layers with no sound decides what an unassigned layer does — FOLLOW the timeline sound (the default, so a one-track project needs no setup at all), or STAY STILL until you give it a sound. Under FOLLOW, a layer whose sound is removed goes back to following rather than freezing.

2 ANALYSIS

VU METERS (with their own ON/OFF switch) show each channel's level as a bar and as a number, with a CLIP readout when a channel is peaking. BEAT GRID shows the detected tempo, beat and bar counts, and the first beat's offset; ÷2 and ×2 correct a detector that locked onto half or double time, and if nothing is detected you can type a BPM in directly. MATCH LAYER TO TRACK stretches the selected layer to the full length of the track, extending the timeline if it has to.

3 MODULATION

This is what the tab is for: driving a parameter from the music. + ADD REACTION creates a row, and each row connects:

• Source — RMS (overall level), Bass, Mid, High, or Beat
• Target — Scale, Scale X, Scale Y, Rotation, Position X, Position Y, or Opacity. Scale X and Scale Y stretch one axis only, along the layer's own axes, so a rotated shape stretches with itself rather than shearing. Opacity dims the beam toward black: a laser has no transparency, so fading it means turning the light down. The position targets are marked (!) — audio-driven position throws deserve extra safety attention
• Drives — which layer this reaction moves. All layers is the default; pick one layer to scope the reaction to it alone
• Min / Max — the output range the audio value maps into. Changing the target brings its own sensible range, because rotation is in degrees and scale is around 1.0
• Smoothing — averages the track over a short trailing window before it drives the parameter. At 0 it follows every frame, which strobes on percussive material; higher values turn a kick into a swell
• Curve — Linear, Exponential, or Logarithmic response

Drives is how one track moves several shapes differently: add three reactions from the same track, set them to Bass, Mid and High, and point each at a different layer with Drives. A reaction left on All layers moves everything, which is what a single reaction does by default.

If a reaction's layer is deleted, the row reads Deleted layer — drives nothing and asks you to pick another layer or remove the reaction — the reaction is never thrown away with the layer. Duplicating or merging layers copies the reactions scoped to them, so the result behaves like the original.

4 GEOMETRY · your layer

Per-layer, and covered under Audio Visualizer Layers below.

Audio Visualizer Layers

Beyond reactions, any layer can host a visualizer — stage 4 GEOMETRY on the AUDIO tab: Edge Deform, Radial Bars, Waveform, Loop Wire, or Lip Sync (or None to leave the shape as drawn). The first four have a Frequency Band selector (Full Spectrum / Bass / Mid / High) and a direction (Outward / Inward / Both); Lip Sync instead has attack, release, and vowel-threshold controls. See Audio-Reactive Features and the Spectrum Analyzer Bars recipe.

Giving layers different sounds

With more than one sound loaded — or a single sound with STAY STILL — each timeline layer row gains a numbered button next to lock, visibility, duplicate and delete: it names which sound that layer listens to. A dash means the layer has no sound of its own and is following whatever Layers with no sound says.

This is how two mouths lip-sync to two different voices.

There is a second route that needs no second file at all: if both voices are in ONE stereo file, load it and use the LR button that appears on each layer row when a file's two channels genuinely differ, and send one layer to LEFT CHANNEL and the other to RIGHT CHANNEL (or back to BOTH CHANNELS). No sound assignment is involved, so this works with a single file loaded. Prefer it when the timing between the voices matters — one file is one playhead, so the two can never drift apart.

Every loaded sound plays together on one playhead, and the exported video contains all of them mixed.

What a saved project remembers

Saved projects do not include audio files. Add the matching files again after reopening a project. The project keeps your audio assignments: your reactions, the Layers with no sound setting, and which sound each layer was listening to, by filename.

So reopening a project shows the canvas without its audio and names the files it is waiting for. Add them back and every layer returns to the sound it had — you re-supply the files, never the setup.

Beat Grid Snapping

When audio is loaded, snap keyframes to detected beats:

1. Load a track under 1 SOURCE on the AUDIO tab
2. Confirm the tempo under 2 ANALYSIS — use the ÷2 / ×2 buttons if the detector locked onto half or double time
3. Enable the Snap checkbox in the timeline controls and pick a subdivision: Beat, 1/2, 1/4, or 1/8
4. Keyframes snap to the beat grid when dragging, and a beat overlay appears on the timeline

Live laser output

The Convert / Live switch floating at the top of the workspace streams vector animations to a laser. Continuous XY layers from the Oscilloscope converter or Lissajous Stereo mode currently show an output-unavailable message instead. In Live, the Laser Output panel appears at the top of the Properties sidebar (the sidebar opens itself on the switch): choose Preview or a supported DAC — Helios directly, Ether Dream and LaserCube through the Bridge app — confirm the two-step Arm, then press Start. The playing frame goes to the projector at your Device profile's point rate. Connected hardware brings up the bottom-edge safety dock with Power, Arm, Blackout, and Start. The panel's Frame rate slider drives the same frame rate as the Playback settings tab, snapping to its 24 / 25 / 30 / 48 / 60 fps set — lower it for more points per frame, raise it for less flicker — and Galvo speed, Power limit, Corner brightness (Advanced), and Color delay (Advanced) are documented in full under Laser DAC Output, and the color delay is remembered per DAC. The Convert/Live choice is remembered with your session.

Exporting

When your session has content, an export bar appears with three buttons: Download ILDA, Projection Mapping, and Open in ILDA Viewer →.

Download ILDA

Downloads the complete animation as a Format 5 (true color) .ild file immediately — there is no export dialog on this path.

Export for Projection Mapping

The Projection Mapping button opens the EXPORT FOR PROJECTION MAPPING modal, which renders a synchronized video + laser package for hybrid shows:

The purple VIDEO OUTPUT SETTINGS and green LASER OUTPUT LAYERS lists are independent. A layer can appear in the video reference, the laser-projector pass, both, or neither. Each row shows the layer name and color; the laser list also shows its animation type. Hidden layers are never exported.

Video output settings

The package renders at the frame rate set in Settings → Playback (24–60 fps); the same rate drives the synchronized video and laser timeline.

When Glow Effect is enabled, choose Oscilloglow, Neon Intense, Subtle Glow, Laser Simulation, or Custom from Style Preset and inspect the result in Live Preview. Advanced Settings exposes:

• Glow Radius — spread around each line;
• Intensity — glow brightness;
• Falloff — sharp or gradual fading;
• Glow Color and Core Color;
• Show Grid and, when enabled, Grid Size.

Free accounts see the made with BeamTracer.com video-watermark notice before export. The burned-in mark slowly bounces so it cannot sit in one corner.

Laser and ILDA output

Check each layer that should become a separate frame-locked .ild file. The ILDA FILES TO DOWNLOAD panel previews those filenames before export. With two or more laser layers selected, enable ALSO EXPORT COMBINED.ILD when you also need one file containing all of them.

The allowance badge shows how many of the three clean monthly ILDA exports remain below Studio. When the allowance is exhausted, selecting a laser layer shows the Studio upgrade prompt and changes the main action to UPGRADE TO EXPORT. Studio has unlimited clean ILDA exports. You can still make a video-only export by deselecting every laser layer — video exports draw on their own monthly allowance, and the modal says so when that one needs a sign-in or has been used up.

Timing and projection workflow

The modal's HOW TO USE panel summarizes the venue workflow:

1. Map the video and laser to the same surface.
2. Synchronize the playback timelines.
3. Assign each separate .ild file to its mapped laser layer.

The package uses one timeline for every output. Video frame 1 matches ILDA frame 1, video frame 2 matches ILDA frame 2, and so on; the audio starts from the same zero timestamp. Complex frames can take longer to export. Match playback rates in your players and verify alignment and timing on the actual video projector and laser equipment; matching file timelines does not guarantee synchronized physical output.

If project audio is loaded, it is included in the video automatically. A project with no audio produces a video-only reference.

Safety, actions, and results

Before export, the safety panel shows Content is safe for export or lists warning/danger details with the number of affected frames. Dangerous content requires the Expert Mode responsibility acknowledgement before the main action becomes available.

• CANCEL closes the dialog before an export starts; closing the dialog mid-export aborts the run.
• EXPORT FILES begins a safe, entitled package.
• A blocked safety acknowledgement changes the action to ACKNOWLEDGE TO EXPORT.
• An exhausted monthly ILDA allowance with laser layers selected changes it to UPGRADE TO EXPORT.

During export, the dialog reports the current step, frame number, total frames, and percentage. On completion the files download automatically, and the EXPORT COMPLETE screen lists the video reference, every per-layer ILDA file, and the optional combined.ild, each with its size and its own download button, plus DONE to close. If export fails, the error view shows the reason and TRY AGAIN.

Open in ILDA Viewer

Hands the current animation straight to the ILDA Viewer — useful for the 3D beam preview, safety analysis, or converting to other ILDA formats via the Viewer's export dialog.

Safety Lane

The SAFETY LANE sits under the timeline whenever the safety report has per-frame data — no switch to find. Each frame is colored green (safe), yellow (near your scanner limits), or red (dangerous) against the device profile from Settings → Device, alongside live points-per-second and point-count readouts.

When problems exist, the Fix Issues button lists targeted fixes — Reduce Detail, Cap Jump Distance, Add Corner Dwell, Optimize Blanking, and Slow Dangerous Segments — each with its estimated improvement. The SAFETY tab in the Properties panel holds the full report.

Further Reading