Beam¶
Extract lines from a layer and control their width and style.
Extraction¶
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| Scan Source | The source of the lines. Edges extracts luminance edges; Luminance draws bright regions directly; Alpha Outline extracts alpha edges; Mask Paths traces all layer mask paths as Bezier curves; Audio Waveform draws audio (Oscilloscope Drawing). |
| Ignore Layer Bounds | Prevents the outer border of an opaque image from being detected as an edge by ignoring boundary gradients. |
| Threshold | The beam extraction threshold, with a soft knee. Higher values retain only stronger edges. |
| Beam Width | Width of the beam core, in pixels. |
| Beam Intensity | Core brightness. Higher values create a white-hot center. |
The Scan Source / Threshold descriptions above apply to Pixel Walk. When you switch Trace Engine to Vector Signal, Contour Level selects luminance or alpha contours. Threshold has no effect in Luminance mode.
Style¶
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| Beam Style | Solid, Dashed or Dots. Patterns follow the stroke's arc length. |
| Pattern Spacing | Dash or dot period, in pixels. |
| Line Quantize | Tolerance for simplifying lines, in pixels. Higher values turn curves into polylines and circles into polygons for a low-poly wireframe look. |
| Smoothing | Stroke smoothing, in pixels. Smooths jagged edges in live-action footage. |
| Min Stroke Length | Removes stroke fragments shorter than this length, in pixels. Useful for cleaning up noisy footage. |
| Speed Shading | Recreates the brighter corners and endpoints caused by a physical beam slowing down. |
| Signal Noise | Small fluctuations perpendicular to the line, in pixels. |
Audio waveform (when Audio Waveform is selected)¶
| Parameter | Description |
|---|---|
| Wave Mode | Scan draws a horizontal waveform. Lissajous uses stereo L/R as X/Y coordinates, like an oscilloscope's XY mode. |
| Wave Gain | Waveform amplitude. |
| Wave Window | Time window to draw, in milliseconds. Set it to 1000 / frame rate to draw one frame's worth of signal. |
| Wave Dwell | Brightness modulation based on beam speed. Dwell points become brighter and fast connecting lines become fainter. |
| Audio Layer | The layer supplying audio. None uses the source audio of the layer receiving the effect. |
See Oscilloscope Drawing for a setup guide.