FX Rack

Open Performer mode ↗

The FX Rack runs effects over whatever is showing — any visualizer or shader, and your camera, a screen, a video or an image if you put one under them. Switch effects on, put them in the order you want, and play them: every control can follow the music, and in Performer mode be learned to a MIDI knob or driven by an OSC message.

1. In Visualizer mode, open EFFECTS at the bottom of the settings column. In Performer mode, click the FX Rack button (the sparkle) in the control bar.
2. Under ADD AN EFFECT (A to Z), click an effect to add it. It joins the bottom of the list and its controls open below. Press the star beside an effect to keep it at the top of the grid, so the ones you use most are always in the same place. LOOKS and ADD AN EFFECT fold away with their headers; starred effects stay visible even when the grid is folded.
3. Drag an effect by its handle to change the order (or focus the handle and press the up and down arrow keys). Effects run from the top of the list to the bottom, so Kaleido before Gradient Map recolors the kaleidoscope, while the reverse folds an already recolored picture.
4. Click an effect's name to jump to its controls; they open and are outlined, and the other effects' controls fold so the selected one sits right under the list. HIDE takes an effect out of the picture but keeps it in the list with its place and settings; press it again to bring it back. HIT punches an effect for a moment: it jumps and then settles back. The small activity icon beside each of them puts it on the music, from the same Modulate with list the sliders use: HIDE takes the effect out while the signal is above half (assign Beat pulse and it blinks out on every kick), and HIT fires each time the signal rises past half. Click the icon again to change the source, shape the route or clear it.
5. The × removes an effect from the list. The lock stops an effect from being removed or dragged by accident during a set.
6. ON at the top switches the whole rack on or off, bypassing every effect at once without losing your settings.

With no effect switched on, the rack does nothing and the visualizer is shown as it is.

Which effects are there?

How do I put my camera, a video or an image under the effects?

SOURCE at the top of the rack is the one place to change the picture: press CAMERA, SCREEN or VIDEO · IMAGE, or try an example (TRINA, TRINA · HANDS to see TRACK and HAND FRAME follow her hands, or VAN GOGH). Picking one puts VISUAL SOURCE at the head of the list, so it shows under whatever look is on. The first time you open Performer mode, a hint points there.

VISUAL SOURCE puts a picture on the canvas under every effect below it: your camera, a shared screen or window, or a video or image file. It always sits first in the list.

1. Add VISUAL SOURCE from ADD AN EFFECT, then press CAMERA, SCREEN or VIDEO · IMAGE at the top of its controls. The browser asks for the camera or the screen the first time; allow it. With more than one camera connected, WHICH CAMERA picks one (a capture card works too). A video loops (SPEED plays it from a quarter speed to four times faster); an image drifts slowly so the effects have something to move with.
2. PICTURE at 1 covers the visualizer; lower it to blend the picture over whatever is playing underneath. HIT punches it up for a moment, so a beat assigned to it flashes the camera in on the kick.
3. MIRROR shows you as in a mirror, which is easier to perform with. CAMERA ONLY (the default) mirrors a camera and nothing else; turn it off for a camera that faces the crowd.
4. STOP switches the picture off and releases the camera or the screen. Removing VISUAL SOURCE from the list does the same, so nothing keeps recording out of sight. TRACK and HAND FRAME follow whatever is on screen: they read the camera only while VISUAL SOURCE is in the list.

VISUALIZER: OVER turns the layers round: the visualizer flies over your picture wherever its own background is transparent, so with a visualizer's Background Opacity at 0 only its subject sits on your camera (try Birds, whose flock can follow your hand). The first time these controls appear, a few tips walk you through the camera; skip them with Skip all tips and bring them back under Settings → Display → Tips. The source is live only: a rendered video doesn't include it. To keep a performance with your camera in it, press RECORD (Record a live take).

How do I draw tracking lines on a face, hands or a body?

TRACK watches the visual source, or the picture itself when there is none, and draws over what it finds. Its looks stack, so a face can carry tiles, links and a scan at once, and they move with the music on their own.

• Two more looks build a printed composition around the subject. GRID breaks the frame into modules, large where the subject is and smaller in the background: MEASURE draws them as a drafting grid, EDITORIAL leaves blank blocks (NEGATIVE SPACE), FRAGMENT refills each module with the picture from a shifted spot, and DATA labels them; MODULE COUNT, CELL VARIATION, SOURCE ADHERENCE, GUTTER and GRID MOTION shape it. SHAPES puts marks on the most important points (circle, square, diamond, cross, bracket or mixed), a few large and many small (SIZE HIERARCHY), turned along the outline. In PLEXUS, LINKS picks how points join: proximity, a DELAUNAY triangle mesh, an EDGE CHAIN along the outline, radial stars, right-angle ORTHOGONAL elbows or a hybrid, or BANDS, where the music wires it: fans of links from a few points, long ones for the bass, medium for the mids and short quick ones for the highs, each band rewiring on its own hits, with more of the web showing the busier the mids get and only the dots left when the music stops. LINE CONFIDENCE drops the weak links and LINE WEIGHT thickens them. SCAN's curtain takes a CURTAIN DIRECTION, CURTAIN DENSITY and EXTRUSION LENGTH.
• MOTION steadies or shakes what TRACK draws. SMOOTH glides the points between detections so lines stop twitching on a live camera; a still face holds still and a moving hand still follows, and the edges CONTOURS anchors on stop popping in and out. 0 shows the detections as they come, higher glides more (and trails fast moves a little). JITTER does the opposite on purpose: it knocks the points and whole subjects off position, re-dealt JITTER RATE times a second, for a glitch. Put Beat pulse on JITTER and the lines glitch on every kick.
• Every look has its own OPACITY and GLOW in its group, both assignable to the music or a knob: fade the boxes while the scan stays bright, or let only the constellation bloom on the beat. They start at full opacity and no glow, so a look is unchanged until you move them. CONSTELLATION's ring and SCAN's locks label their size as a diameter (Ø).
• TRACK's controls fold into one group per look (BOXES, PLEXUS, CONSTELLATION, MOSAIC, SCAN, LABELS) plus STYLE for intensity, line size, color and RANDOMIZE; a look that is on starts open, so every slider sits under the look it changes.
• LABEL TEXT sets what the labels say: NAMES (what TRACK found and the landmark numbers), HUD WORDS (technical terms such as TRACKING, PROCESSING, CONTOURS, DEPTH and ROTATION, plus the names of the effects you have on, flashing from label to label) or CUSTOM (your own words, typed under CUSTOM WORDS and separated by commas). LABEL RATE sets how fast the words change; with no music playing they slow down. The % beside a box or ring is its size in the frame, so it grows as the subject comes closer, and the DEPTH and ROTATION readouts follow the subject's size and tilt.
• SCAN's parts each have an amount, 0 switching that part off and every one of them assignable to the music or a MIDI knob: SCAN LINE, CURTAIN (with CURTAIN SPECTRUM for how far the hairlines follow the spectrum), TARGETS and SCAN LABELS. SWEEP runs the line ON THE BEAT or STEADY at SWEEP SPEED. A target is born on the scan line, closes in on its point while shrinking onto it and locks there, leaving ECHO trails behind it; TARGET SHAPE picks a HUD TARGET, a circle, triangle, square, diamond or hexagon, or RANDOM for a different one each time. With no music playing the looks slow down and hold still instead of flickering.
• Effects below TRACK in the list process its picture too: FILM GRAIN underneath turns the lines into part of the print. Put EDGES above TRACK, or it traces the lines as well.
• Assign the beat to INTENSITY to flash the lines on every kick, or the bass to LINE SIZE. Above 1, INTENSITY makes the lines glow.
• TRACK is live only: a rendered video doesn't include it.

How do I open a color window between my hands?

Add HAND FRAME from ADD AN EFFECT, or recall the HAND FRAME look (9 in Performer mode), which brings your camera, the window and a thin trace over your face and hands in one press. Hold both hands up with the thumbs and index fingers spread, like framing a shot: a window opens between the four fingertips, and inside it the picture turns to moving color. Move your hands to stretch, tilt and close it; it closes when a hand leaves the view.

• PALETTE picks the colors: RAINBOW, or one of the palettes GRADIENT MAP uses. BANDS sets how many times the palette repeats from dark to light, and SPEED how fast it cycles.
• OUTLINE draws a line round the window in OUTLINE COLOR (0 for none), and SOFT EDGE blurs the window's edge.
• SMOOTHING sets how gently the window follows your fingers: 0 jumps to each new position, higher glides.
• Like TRACK, it follows the visual source, or the picture itself when there is none, and it is live only.

How do I play a shader with my preset?

Open the Shader Library with the </> button in the Performer control bar and click a shader. It plays on a layer with the preset instead of replacing it, and it stays when you change presets.

• BEHIND puts the shader under the visualizer and blends the visualizer over it: SCREEN or LIGHTEN lets the shader glow through the visualizer's dark areas.
• IN FRONT puts the shader over the visualizer and blends it in with the BLEND you pick (Normal, Multiply, Screen, Overlay, Soft Light, Darken, Lighten, Color Dodge).
• OPACITY fades the shader. REMOVE, or clicking the lit shader again, takes the layer away.
• The FX Rack processes the shader and the visualizer together. The shader layer is live only: remove it to render a video.

How do I print a window around a face?

Add PORTRAIT WINDOW. A window WINDOW WIDTH by WINDOW HEIGHT of the frame follows the face and prints the picture inside as a HALFTONE (dots grow with the dark, PITCH sets how many) or an ENGRAVEing (lines thicken with the dark, LINES sets how many), in INK on PAPER, or leaves it untouched with NONE. BACKDROP BLUR softens everything outside it and OUTLINE frames it. FOLLOW: CENTER holds it in the middle. Like TRACK, it follows the visual source or the picture itself, and it is live only.

How do I play an effect only inside my face or between my hands?

Add MASK and put the effects you want confined below it in the rack: everything under it plays only inside the traced shape, and everything above it still covers the whole frame. SHAPE: FACE follows the outline of your face, HANDS the window between your thumbs and index fingers, the way HAND FRAME opens it, so you can stretch, tilt and twist the window and the effect inside goes with it. PERSON cuts out your whole body, hair and hands included, so AREA: INSIDE plays ASCII or a thermal look only on you and OUTSIDE only behind you (a kaleidoscope around you while you stay yourself); GROW pushes the edge out or pulls it in, and SMOOTHING steadies it. BOXES uses TRACK's boxes, following whatever TRACK's FOLLOW picks; on CONTOURS that is up to BOX COUNT boxes BOX SIZE across, the way blob trackers box what they find. DEAL: EACH gives every box its own effect from the ones below the MASK, EACH · BEAT re-deals them on every beat, REGION shapes each box as a RECTANGLE, CIRCLE, DIAMOND, HEXAGON, RING or HEART (the soft edge, outline and glow follow it), and BLINK drops boxes out at random. Below a MASK on BOXES, ZOOM magnifies each box about its own middle (CENTER: BOX), so a box can show a close-up while its neighbors show X-RAY, INVERT, BLUR or a thermal print. AREA: OUTSIDE turns it round, leaving your face or the window clean while the rest of the frame changes. GROW takes in more around the shape (hair and neck on a face), SOFT EDGE feathers it, OUTLINE draws its edge in OUTLINE COLOR, GLOW blooms that color out around it (GLOW SIZE sets how far), and SMOOTHING steadies it. When the face or a hand leaves, INSIDE fades the effects out and OUTSIDE spreads them over the whole frame. Like TRACK, it follows the visual source or the picture itself, and it is live only.

How do I make the picture look like a thermal camera?

Add THERMAL and pick a PALETTE: WHITE HOT and BLACK HOT (hot as white or as black), RED HOT (white hot with the hottest areas in red), FUSION, IRONBOW, ARCTIC, RAINBOW HC, OUTDOOR ALERT (black hot with the hottest areas in orange and yellow) and SEPIA. ALERT sets where RED HOT and OUTDOOR ALERT start coloring. Heat comes from the picture, the way a thermal camera would see it: under HEAT, BODY HEAT makes the people it tracks run hot against a cooler room, SKIN HEAT warms faces and hands, and COLD SKY turns a bright blue sky cold. Under CAMERA, LEVEL and GAIN set the contrast, DETAIL sharpens edges on the soft heat picture as a real thermal camera does, SOFTNESS sets how soft the sensor is and NOISE adds its grain. Under STYLE, TRAIL leaves heat behind whatever moves, SHIMMER wobbles the picture like heat haze and TEXTURE lays a paper grain over the colors. BODY HEAT follows the visual source or the picture itself, and it is live only.

How do I turn the picture into ASCII art?

Add ASCII. With MATCH: SHAPE every cell takes the character whose shape fits that patch of the picture best, so the edge of a jaw becomes a slash or a bracket and outlines read as drawn lines; SHARPEN crisps those edges. TONE picks by brightness alone, the classic look, and DITHER spreads the in-between tones. CHARACTERS chooses the set: STANDARD (ten levels, the steadiest on moving footage), DETAILED (seventy), LETTERS, TERMINAL, MINIMAL, BINARY, SYMBOLS, your own on CUSTOM, BRAILLE dots, or drawn marks (BLOCKS, DOTS, LINES, DIAGONAL, CROSS, DIAMOND). CELL SIZE is the character height and FONT the typeface: TERMINAL, JETBRAINS (the app's own) or TYPEWRITER. Under FIELD, the characters can draw a pattern instead of the picture: falling RAIN, spreading WAVES or flowing NOISE, shaped by FIELD SPEED and FIELD SCALE; FIELD MIX blends it with the picture, and with COLOR on SOURCE the picture's colors show through the rain. Under COLOR, keep the picture's colors, snap them to the 16 or 256 terminal colors, or print in a PALETTE: PHOSPHOR, AMBER, NEWSPRINT, POCKET CAMERA and more, or your own INK on PAPER. A light paper prints dark text on the shadows by itself; INVERT flips it either way. FILL colors each cell's ground, BACKDROP lets the picture show between the characters, STEADY averages the last few frames so camera noise stops flipping characters back and forth while real movement still comes through, and FLICKER keeps the characters re-dealing while the tones hold.

How do I save a stack of effects as a look?

A look is the whole rack saved in one press: which effects are on, their order, every setting, and every control you assigned to the music. Recalling a look brings all of it back over whatever visualizer is showing, still moving with the music, and every slider stays live to tweak or assign afterwards.

1. Switch on and shape the effects you want.
2. Under LOOKS, type a name and press SAVE LOOK.
3. Tick KEEP VISUALIZER first if the look belongs to the visualizer under it: recalling the look then switches to that visualizer too. These looks show VIZ after their name.
4. Press a look to recall it, or PREV and NEXT to step through them. While a look is lit, UPDATE saves the rack over it instead of adding a new one (type a name first to rename it); this works on the eight looks that come with the rack too. An overwritten default look shows a reset arrow: press it, then RESET, to bring the original back. Performer Settings → DISPLAY → FX LOOKS lists every overwritten default look with RESET, and RESET ALL brings all eight back; your own saved looks stay. Press the lit look again to turn it off: every effect switches off. Press × and then DELETE to remove one of yours; the eight looks that come with the rack cannot be deleted.

Ten looks come with the rack: INFINITE TUNNEL (Droste and Feedback, traveling faster with the bass), BABY TRACK (your camera with TRACK's boxes and plexus lines on the contours, each box showing its own effect, thermal, ASCII, a dither or a halftone, re-dealt on every beat), TIME SMEAR (Slit-scan stretching with the bass, an RGB Shift on the beat), SCREEN PRINT (a gray photograph with glowing contour lines, and TRACK's print over the face: picture tiles, hairline links, a ring and a scan, re-dealt on every beat, over grain; it switches to the Studio Portrait preset), RISO (Posterize, Duotone and Film Grain), HIVE MIND (Kaleido, Hex Tile and Gradient Map), SIGNAL LOSS (Row Tear on the beat over RGB Shift and Film Grain) PRISM GLOW (Glow and Lens Streaks with a Beat Flash on the kick), HAND FRAME (your camera with a color window between your hands and a thin trace over your face and hands) and POP FRAME (your camera, with the window between your thumbs and index fingers printed in magenta, cyan and yellow inside a glowing magenta outline, swelling on the beat).

The number keys play looks: 1 to 9 recall looks 1 to 9 and 0 recalls look 10, and pressing the lit look's number again turns it off. Looks are numbered in the order shown. LOOK 1 to LOOK 12, NEXT LOOK and PREVIOUS LOOK can each be learned to a MIDI pad, and /beamtracer/viz/fx/look/<n> recalls look n over OSC (1 is the first).

Can I render a video with my effects?

Yes. Click RENDER in the header. The video includes every effect that is switched on in the rack except VISUAL SOURCE, TRACK and HAND FRAME (they are live only), in its order, with its settings, and anything you assigned to the music still follows the track. HIT presses are live only, so trigger those while performing or recording live. To keep the live parts too, press RECORD beside RENDER: it records what the Performer shows as you play, with the music. Render to video

How do I make birds (or sparks, or hearts) fly out of my mouth?

Add EMIT with your camera on under VISUAL SOURCE. FROM: MOUTH pours particles out of your mouth while it is open (WHEN: OPEN / POINTING); HAND pours them from an open hand and FINGERTIP while you point; CENTER sprays from the middle of the frame and works without a camera.

• SHAPE picks flapping BIRDS, SPARKS, HEARTS, BUBBLES, CONFETTI or STARS; COLORS: RAINBOW gives each its own color.
• RATE is how many start each second, SPEED and DIRECTION where they head, SPREAD how wide the cone opens (1 sprays every way), GRAVITY makes them fall or rise, and GROW makes them get bigger as they fly, as if coming toward you.
• HIT (a MIDI pad, a key or OSC) bursts a flock at once, even with WHEN: HIT ONLY. Every slider takes the music or a MIDI knob.
• For birds that keep flocking after they leave your mouth, use the Birds visualizer's own MOUTH EMITTER instead: its real flock pours out and flies on.
• EMIT from your mouth, hand or fingertip is live only: a rendered video doesn't include it. Record it with RECORD.

How do I move a slider with my hands or face?

Any slider can follow the camera instead of the music. Open its source picker and choose from Camera tracking: Hand in view and Face in view (1 while one is tracked), Hand X and Hand Y, Fingertip X and Fingertip Y, Pointing, Mouth X and Mouth Y (where your hand is in the picture), Pinch (thumb and index finger together), Hand open (fist to open palm), Hand near and Face near (how close to the camera), Hand depth (your hand held toward the camera or back, against your face), Mouth open, Head turn, Body speed and Object count. The rack starts tracking what that source needs on its own; TRACK doesn't have to be on.

Some visualizers also move with your hands. Under their own Hand Tracking settings, Follow brings them to your raised hand and as near as you hold it to the camera, Scatter sends them away, and Draw Path lets you trace a loop in the air with one finger for them to run. Put your camera under them with Visual Source and set its Visualizer to Over:

• Biojelly: follows your hand or flees it, and runs a path you draw
• Birds: follows your hand or flees it, and runs a path you draw; new birds pour out of your open mouth
• Fluidic Balls: follows your hand or flees it, and runs a path you draw
• Man In White: follows your hand or flees it, and runs a path you draw
• Particle Man: follows your hand or flees it, and runs a path you draw
• Strange Attractors: follows your hand or flees it, and runs a path you draw
• Tube Trails: follows your hand or flees it, and runs a path you draw

• Put your camera (or a video) under the effects with VISUAL SOURCE first: the sources read what the picture shows, so Hand X follows the hand you see, mirrored with the camera.
• Assign Hand open to Blur → Amount to soften the picture as you open your hand, or Hand X to Zoom → Amount to zoom in as your hand moves right.
• This works on the visualizer's own sliders too, while you play in Performer.
• A source holds its last value while your hand or face is out of view. Camera tracking is live only: a rendered video doesn't include it.

How do I make an effect follow the music?

Every slider in the rack has Assign modulation. Open its source picker and choose bass, mids, highs, volume, the beat, or one of the LFO generators. The slider then moves with that source on top of where you set it. Assign bass to Barrel → Amount for a fisheye that bulges on every kick, or mids to Kaleido → Spin for a kaleidoscope that turns faster as the music fills in.

How do I play the rack from a MIDI controller?

The MIDI / OSC strip at the bottom of the rack shows whether a MIDI controller (MIDI) and the OSC bridge (OSC) are connected; hover a light for details. Press LEARN there, click any slider, effect, HIDE or HIT button, then move a knob, press a pad or press a key on your keyboard. Open the strip to see your devices, connect the OSC bridge, and remove what is mapped to the rack; the settings icon opens Performer Settings → MIDI for everything else (MIDI & OSC Integration):

• a slider follows a knob or fader
• an effect under ADD AN EFFECT switches it on from a pad (adding it if needed) and hides it on the next press
• HIDE hides and shows that effect from a pad, a key, or its OSC address (…/hide)
• HIT punches the effect from a pad
• FX Rack (the rack's own on/off) is listed in the learn banner

A choice such as Gradient Map → Palette or ASCII → Characters steps to its next option on each press.

Which OSC addresses control the rack?

Every effect has fixed addresses under /beamtracer/viz/fx/, so a TouchDesigner patch or OSC controller can play the rack without learning. Values are in each control's own range; an on/off address follows 1 / 0 and toggles on a message with no value, and a hit address fires on any message. /beamtracer/viz/fx switches the whole rack on or off.

Tips

• Start with one effect and add others one at a time — the order changes the look more than any single slider.
• Feedback with a small Zoom under Kaleido turns any visualizer into a tunnel of mirrored trails.
• Halftone, Dot Screen and ASCII read best on visualizers with large shapes and strong contrast.
• Map a few HIT buttons to drum pads for effects that land on the beat. Shake HIT on the kick is the classic.
• Droste with a little Spiral turns any visualizer into an endless tunnel of itself; assign bass to its Speed to surge forward on every kick.
• Slit-scan shows best on visualizers with steady motion: each strip of the frame is a moment older than the last, so movement bends across the screen.
• Posterize or Duotone after Hex Tile gives a screen-printed mosaic.
• Assign the beat to Beat Flash → Intensity to wash the picture toward the flash color on every kick, or map its HIT to a pad.
• Row Tear with its HIT on the snare breaks the picture up like a damaged signal for a moment, then lets it settle.
• Mirror Fold before Kaleido turns any visualizer symmetrical first; Glow and Lens Streaks last in the list make the brightest points bloom and streak.