Nodes · Blacksmith

BS_Disintegrate

Blacksmithv4coreNeeds full input

Overview

One infection-time field drives every stage, so the body, the chunks, the dust, the glow and the reveal cannot disagree about when a pixel goes. Wire the plate and a subject alpha, set a start and a duration, and pick how the front travels.

How to

Wire in and matte; wire bg too if you have a cleanplate.
Set start and duration (or key progress).
Choose the front mode, then shape it with raggedness and noise_scale.
Turn on smoke, embers or shimmer only if the shot wants them — all three cost a sim.

Inputs

Input	What it takes
in	the image this node works on
matte	the alpha that drives this node
elements	—
wind	—

Outputs

Output	Type
out	Image

Parameters

Parameter	Type	Default	What it does
ride_kiln	Float	0.0	FS-5: how hard the dust rides the `wind` input's motion layer (px/frame — a KilnRender with aov = full writes the gas's). Sampled at every fleck every frame and added to the wind target: 1 is the gas's own speed, 0 is off and the input is not read. Set with nothing wired, the node says so.
matte_source	Choice	auto	Which part of the matte input is the matte. auto: the alpha if it actually varies across the frame, otherwise the luminance. A video matte (a .mov of white-on-black) decodes with a flat alpha of 1 everywhere and the shape in RGB — read that alpha and the whole plate becomes the subject. Set alpha or luminance to pin it when you know which you have. `autoalphaluminance`
motion	Choice	hold	What a MOVING subject does under the wave. hold: the plate and matte freeze at `start` inside the node — no HoldFrame needed; the whole subject stops and dissolves. dynamic hold: each part freezes only when the front is `lead` frames from it, and the rest keeps moving until the wave reaches it — the head stops and crumbles while the feet still walk. live: nothing frozen; only right when a hold sits upstream or nothing moves. `holddynamic holdlive`
lead	Float	6.0	dynamic hold only: how many frames ahead of the front a part freezes. Enough to put the freeze inside the crumbling zone (4–10); more and the subject stops early, less and the seam between frozen and moving shows.
progress	Float	-1.0	Hand control of how far the effect has got: 0 is untouched, 1 is completely gone. Leave it at -1 and Start + Duration drive it from the timeline instead, which is what you want most of the time. Set it to 0..1 (and key it) when the dissolve has to hit an exact beat, or when you want to hold it half-way to judge the look.
play	Choice	dissolve	Which way the effect runs. dissolve: the subject comes apart from start over duration. form: the same effect BACKWARDS over the same frames — at start the subject is gone and the cloud is at its fullest, by start + duration it is intact; the frames before start show the cloud drifting in. It is a time remap of the deterministic solve, so it is exact on a bake; live, every frame re-walks its sim window. Needs motion = hold. A keyed progress overrides it. `dissolveform`
start	Float	1.0	The frame the dissolve begins. Nothing happens before it. Put it a few frames before the moment you care about — the first frames are subtle and they are what make the effect look like it started rather than switched on.
duration	Float	48.0	How many frames the subject takes to go completely. Short (12-24) reads as violent, long (60-100) as an ebbing away. Everything else in the node is timed off this, so change it first and re-judge, rather than compensating in the other knobs.
directional	Float	1.0	How much of the dissolve travels across the subject like a wave, rather than starting everywhere at once. 1 is a clean sweep (the Thanos look); 0 lets the other front modes decide where it starts. Mix it with Blotch or Spread for a wave that is also patchy.
direction	Float	0.0	Which way the wave travels: aim the dial where the sweep should GO on screen (0 sweeps left to right, 90 sweeps down the frame, -90 sweeps up). Point it away from the wind so dust blows off the front rather than back into it — that one relationship does more for believability than any other pair of knobs here. Handles override it.
use_start	Bool	false	Switches the START handle on. With only a start, the wave radiates outward from that point in every direction — the burn-from-a-spot look. Place it with the ▶ place start button, then drag the green handle in the viewer.
start_point	Float2	[480.0, 540.0]	Where the effect begins, in pixels. Drag the green ▶ in the viewer rather than typing it.
use_end	Bool	false	Switches the END handle on. With only an end, that point is the LAST place to go — the far parts of the subject go first and it closes in. With a start too, the wave sweeps from one to the other, pinned so the start position is where it begins and the end position is where it finishes, whatever the direction knob says.
stop_at_end	Bool	false	Treat the end handle as a WALL instead of a finish line. Off, the end marks where the wave finishes and everything past it is eaten LAST -- nothing survives. On, material beyond the handle is never consumed at all, so the dissolve can stop half way through the subject and leave the rest standing. Needs one start and one end: with several handles there is no 'beyond', and the node says so.
end_point	Float2	[1440.0, 540.0]	Where the effect finishes, in pixels. Drag the red ■ in the viewer.
extra_points	Text		More start and end points, placed in the viewer with + start / + end (drag them like the first pair; Alt+click removes one). Every start is where the effect begins, every end where it finishes: two starts and the wave radiates from both; a start at the stomach with ends at the head and the feet and it runs both ways at once.
edge_in	Float	0.0	Eats inward from the silhouette, so the outline goes first and the middle survives longest. This is the one for a figure fraying at the edges. Combine a little of it with a directional sweep and the wave arrives with soft, chewed edges instead of a straight line.
core_out	Float	0.0	The opposite: starts in the middle of the shape and grows outward, so a hole opens and widens. Good for something burning through from the inside, or an impact point.
blotch	Float	0.0	Patches that appear all over the subject at once and grow, like paper catching in several places. Raise it for rot, mould and corrosion; keep it low when you want one clean front.
spread_rate	Float	0.0	Infection: pixels catch the dissolve from the pixels next to them, so it flows AROUND the shape instead of straight across it — down an arm and back up, which a directional sweep cannot. The number is roughly how many PIXELS the front creeps per frame, so a 500 px subject wants around 10 to cross in ~50 frames. While it is on, `duration` no longer sets the timing (the rate does); `stop_at_end` holds — the infection will not cross the wall. Costs more the higher it goes, and the front cannot be cached. If what you want is the wave travelling THROUGH the shape on `duration`'s clock, use `flow` instead: same path, no rate to guess, and it caches.
flow	Float	0.0	How much the wave travels THROUGH the shape instead of straight across it: 0 is the straight sweep between the handles, 1 measures the distance inside the matte — down a finger, into the palm, around a bend — so parts joined only through the body go in the order the body connects them. It runs on `duration`'s clock like every other front term (the farthest point through the body goes at `start` + `duration`), it is static so it caches and bakes like the rest, and `stop_at_end` becomes a wall along the body: whatever lies beyond the end handle THROUGH the shape is never consumed. Blend it (0.3–0.6) to bend a straight sweep around the anatomy without giving up its direction.
raggedness	Float	0.25	How uneven the front is. 0 is a mathematically straight edge and reads as a wipe; 0.3 is a natural torn edge; past 0.6 the front breaks into fingers and islands. If the effect looks like a transition rather than a disintegration, this is usually the knob.
noise_scale	Float	64.0	The size of that unevenness, in pixels. Small values give a fine crumbling edge, large values give big lobes and bites. Set it against the size of your subject on screen, not against the frame: a head-and-shoulders shot wants a much smaller number than a wide.
detail	Int	3	How many octaves of noise shape the front (1-6). More adds fine crumbs on top of the big shapes. Two or three is usually enough; the extra levels cost time and are rarely visible once the dust is on.
seed	Int	1	Changes the pattern without changing anything else. If the front happens to break exactly across a face or a logo, nudge this rather than re-tuning the shape knobs.
edge_width	Float	6.0	The width of the live band — the burning zone that follows the front. Everything is born here: dust, smoke, embers, and the glow. Wide bands read as a slow burn with a lot of material in the air; narrow bands read as something snapping apart cleanly.
smear	Float	0.15	Streaks the body slightly along the wind just BEFORE it lets go, so material looks like it is being pulled away rather than switching off. A little (0.2-0.4) sells the handover from solid to dust; too much reads as a motion-blur mistake. 0 leaves the body untouched.
chunks	Float	1.0	How much of the body leaves as FLAKES — pieces that let go whole, float off on the wind and crumble into dust from their rims — rather than going straight to dust at the edge. 0 is all dust; 0.3 is a third of the pieces flaking; 1 is everything. The state between body and dust: without it the edge just tears.
chunk_size	Float	24.0	Roughly how big those pieces are, in pixels. Big pieces read as debris and rubble; small ones read as flakes and ash. Judge it at 100% zoom — chunks that are big on your screen may be invisible at delivery size.
chunk_lag	Float	1.0	How long a piece hangs on after the front reaches it, in frames. A little lag makes the break-up look reluctant, which is what real material does; zero makes everything leave the instant it is touched.
flake_life	Float	30.0	How many frames a flake takes to crumble from its rim to its core once it has let go. Short (12) and pieces burst; long (60) and they drift a long way before they go.
shed	Float	0.25	How much dust a flying flake trails from its rim per frame, on top of the pixels it actually loses — 0 is a clean piece, 0.25 a soft trail, 1 a comet. This is the dust AROUND the pieces.
wind	Float2	[0.45, -0.2]	Which way, and how fast, material is carried once it has left the body — dust, chunks and smoke all ride it. Aim the dial where the material should go on screen; speed is in fractions of the frame HEIGHT per second (0.15 is a breeze, 0.5 crosses half the frame in a second), the same at HD and 4K. Point it away from where the effect is travelling, so material blows off the front rather than back into it.
tumble	Float	0.06	How much the flying pieces spin. Small amounts (around 0.05) read as natural; large amounts spin fast enough to strobe, which only helps for something violently exploded.
dust	Choice	drift	The direction language of the fine material, as a preset. off: no dust at all. drift: gentle up-angled wind with a lot of drag, the classic ashes-on-the-breeze look. crumble: gravity wins and it falls. ethereal: no gravity at all, pure swirl, for magic and energy. ink: soft charcoal puffs that rise and curl. powder: dense surface-hugging grain that keeps the plate's colour, meant to be lit. soot: the powder lineage charred near-black whatever the plate was, with a slight cool cast — pair it with shell, mist and smoke from dust. Pick the preset that matches the STORY, then adjust Rate. `offdriftcrumbleetherealinkpowdersoot`
elem_size	Float	1.5	Element chips: how big a stamped chip is against the procedural fleck size (1 = the same).
elem_mix	Float	1.0	Element chips: the fraction of dust particles that stamp a chip from the wired `elements` clip; the rest stay procedural specks. 1 = every particle a chip.
elem_cells	Int	48	Element chips: how many cells the elements clip is cut into for the chip bank.
dust_rate	Float	1.0	How much dust is born per band pixel each frame — density, in effect. Raise it until the air looks full, then back off a third: dust reads heavier over a moving plate than it does on a held frame.
char	Float	1.0	How far the flecks burn toward the dust style's ash colour as they fly. 1 is the style as designed (drift chars most of the way to grey, powder a third, soot almost fully). 0 keeps every fleck the colour of the pixel it left — skin stays skin, a red sleeve sheds red — for a dissolve that reads as the subject coming apart rather than burning. Above 1 pushes a pale style darker. The shell cover and the mist follow it. Under `light_model = scene` a thick cloud also shadows itself, and that — not the ash — is most of why a plume reads darker than the subject: bring `extinction` toward 0 alongside this for dust in the subject's own colours.
dust_budget	Int	250000	The cap on how many dust particles may exist at once (250,000 by default). It exists so a long dissolve cannot quietly become unrenderable. When the cap is reached the node THINS the newest births and says so in the status rather than dropping frames silently — a fan that looks sparse near its tail is usually this. Raise it, or lower Rate.
spread	Float	1.0	How wide the cone is that dust leaves the edge in — 0 all in the wind's line, 1 as designed, 2 fanning almost sideways. Widen it when the take-off reads as a jet.
depth	Float	0.7	How much the cloud reads as three-dimensional: 0 puts every fleck at one distance (flat, a screen of dots); 1 is a full near-to-far spread — near flecks big and quick, far ones small, faint and slow, drawn behind. Around 0.7 is right for most shots; turn it up when the cloud looks like a sticker.
dust_life	Float	1.0	How long a fleck lives, as a multiple of the style's own life (drift is about four seconds). Longer fills more of the frame with thin, far-travelled ash; shorter keeps the cloud close to the edge.
shell	Float	0.0	The soot shell: the share of consumed material that turns to fuzz IN PLACE, holding the silhouette for `hold` frames before it lifts off — both as flecks born at rest and as a continuous cover over everything the front has eaten, so a patch eaten fast never shows the plate behind it. 0 is the instant release the other looks have; 0.7 is the reference — the surface growing fur, then billowing away as one mass; 1 covers the eaten surface completely.
hold	Float	12.0	Frames a shelled fleck holds its pixel before it releases into the drift, jittered ±40% per fleck so the shell dissolves grain by grain rather than all at once. 10–20 at 24 fps. Only matters when shell is above 0.
mist	Float	0.0	A second, fine population — sub-pixel, short-lived, fading fast — born at the cloud's OUTER boundary where the density thins: the furry fringe at every silhouette. A rate multiplier on dust_rate; 0 is off, 1–1.5 is the reference. It shares the dust budget and the same thinning report.
turb1_on	Bool	true	Turbulence 1 on or off: the per-fleck swirl that opens a tight take-off into a fan.
turbulence	Float	1.0	How much the dust swirls on its way — 1 is the dust style as designed, 0 is straight lines, 2 is a gale in a stairwell. The swirl grows as a fleck ages, so a tight take-off still opens into a fan.
turb1_size	Float	55.0	Turbulence 1's swirl size in pixels. Small (20) is grit, large (200) is slow eddies.
turb1_speed	Float	1.0	How fast turbulence 1's swirls change shape over time, as a multiple of the style's rate. 0 freezes the pattern.
turb2_on	Bool	true	Turbulence 2 on or off: the breeze — one coherent swirl the size of the frame, so the whole cloud leans and recovers together.
turb2_amount	Float	1.0	How strong the breeze is, as a multiple of the style's. 0 leaves only the wind and turbulence 1.
turb2_size	Float	0.0	The breeze's swirl size in pixels; 0 means a third of the frame height, which is the breeze most shots want.
turb2_speed	Float	1.0	How fast the breeze changes, as a multiple of the style's rate.
buoyancy	Float	0.0	Lift, in frame-heights per second squared: positive and the dust rises (hot ash, 0.02–0.1), negative and it falls (sand, grit).
drag	Float	1.0	How quickly flecks give up their own speed and take the wind's, as a multiple of the style's. Higher settles them sooner; lower lets thrown material carry.
disturbance	Float	0.0	Random per-fleck kicks each frame — flutter, the way a leaf or a flake of ash never travels straight. 0.1–0.3 is alive; more is a blizzard.
hang	Float	8.0	Frames a fleck hovers where it was born before the wind takes it (turbulence still moves it). This is what keeps dust around the gap a piece just left — 0 and the cloud is a thin shell that leaves at once; 8 hugs the body; 20 lingers.
light	Float	0.0	A kick light on the dust and the flakes as they fly — 0 off, 1 a clear key, 2 hot. The body keeps the plate's own light; this lights only what has left it. Shaded like a lit cloud: the side toward the light brightens, the far side holds.
light_direction	Float	-135.0	Where the light comes FROM, on screen: aim the dial at the light. −135 is upper-left (the sun on a plate lit from the left), −90 straight above.
light_elevation	Float	35.0	How far the light is toward the camera: 0 grazes across the cloud (rim on one side), 90 is from the camera (flat, everything lit).
light_color	Color	[1.0, 0.92, 0.8, 1.0]	The light's colour — warm for sun, cool for sky. Multiplies the lit side only.
light_wrap	Float	0.3	How far the light wraps round the cloud: 0 a hard terminator, 1 soft light from everywhere.
light_ambient	Float	0.35	How much the unlit side keeps: 0 goes black on the far side, 0.35 reads as shade, 1 no shading at all (light becomes a plain gain).
light_model	Choice	legacy	How the material is lit. `legacy` is the kick light above — a gain dialled onto the finished cloud. `scene` lights the shot instead: material still on the body keeps the PLATE's own light (the key, the soft terminator, the shading between the fingers), and material in the air becomes a lit volume — the light fades as it crosses the cloud, thin wisps glow when it comes from behind, the sky lights the top and the bounce the underside. `legacyscene`
sky_color	Color	[0.35, 0.4, 0.5, 1.0]	The light coming from ABOVE in `scene` — sky outdoors, ceiling bounce indoors. It lights the top of the cloud and is shut out where the cloud is thick above a point. Read it off upward-facing surfaces in the plate.
ground_color	Color	[0.18, 0.17, 0.14, 1.0]	The light coming from BELOW in `scene` — grass, sand, tarmac. It tints the underside of the cloud, and is usually darker and warmer (or greener) than the sky.
sky_amount	Float	1.0	How much sky and bounce there is against the key. 1 is the pair as set; lower for hard sun with black shadows, higher for overcast, where the dome does nearly all the lighting.
scatter	Float	0.6	How much the dust throws light FORWARD (0 scatters evenly, 0.6 is fine dust and smoke). It shows where the light is behind the cloud — set `light_elevation` negative — and then thin wisps light up while the thick parts stay dark. That silver edge is what makes backlit smoke read as volume.
extinction	Float	0.6	How thick the cloud is to light: how fast the key is used up crossing it. Higher buries the far side in shadow and deepens the core; 0 lets the light through as if nothing were there.
multi_scatter	Float	0.6	How much light bounces around INSIDE the cloud. 0 is single scattering, which crushes a dense core to black; 0.6 keeps it deep but soft, the way real dust and smoke look.
ml_count	Int	0	How many lights of the Relight rig light the cloud (0–8). 0 keeps the single kick light below exactly as it was. Add lights on the ground-plane widget above; they shade the dust, flakes and smoke from where they sit.
ml_weight	Float	1.0	A gain on every rig light at once — balance the rig against the kick light and the plate.
terminator	Float	0.3	How softly a rig light wraps around the cloud's lobes: 0 is a hard lambert terminator, 0.3 (the default) reads as a soft source, 1 lights every side evenly.
ml_selected	Int	0	Which rig slot the widget's knobs show (click a light).
actor_depth	Float	0.5	Where the cloud sits along the depth axis, in the same units as a light's depth — a light at 0.3 with the cloud at 0.5 sits in front of it and lights its face; behind it, only the rim. Drawn as the box on the widget.
depth_near	Float	0.0	The ground-plane widget's near edge, in depth units — the widget's range only.
depth_far	Float	1.0	The ground-plane widget's far edge, in depth units — the widget's range only.
show_grid	Bool	true	Draw the ground-plane widget's grid.
show_trails	Bool	true	Draw the selected light's keyed path over the surrounding 48 frames on the widget.
ml0_enable	Bool	true	This slot lights, or sits idle. A disabled slot keeps its knobs.
ml0_pos	Float2	[672.0, 432.0]	Where the light sits on screen, in pixels (x from the left, y from the top). Drag it in the viewer, or on the ground-plane widget (Shift+drag for height).
ml0_depth	Float	0.3	How far from the camera the light sits, in the depth map's own units — smaller is nearer. A light at 0.3 sits in FRONT of a surface at 0.5 and lights it; behind it, it lights nothing that faces the camera.
ml0_intensity	Float	2.0	The light's brightness AT its falloff radius, scene-linear, times `ml_weight` — beyond the radius it falls off by `falloff`, inside it holds.
ml0_color	Color	[1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0]	The light's colour.
ml0_falloff	Float	2.0	How the light fades with distance: 2 is inverse square (the physical law), lower reaches further, higher pools close to the source.
ml0_radius	Float	200.0	The distance in pixels at which the light is exactly `intensity` bright; inside it the light holds, beyond it falls off by `falloff`. Small is a bulb that burns a hot spot, large is a panel that lights evenly.
ml1_enable	Bool	false	This slot lights, or sits idle. A disabled slot keeps its knobs.
ml1_pos	Float2	[1248.0, 432.0]	Where the light sits on screen, in pixels (x from the left, y from the top). Drag it in the viewer, or on the ground-plane widget (Shift+drag for height).
ml1_depth	Float	0.3	How far from the camera the light sits, in the depth map's own units — smaller is nearer. A light at 0.3 sits in FRONT of a surface at 0.5 and lights it; behind it, it lights nothing that faces the camera.
ml1_intensity	Float	2.0	The light's brightness AT its falloff radius, scene-linear, times `ml_weight` — beyond the radius it falls off by `falloff`, inside it holds.
ml1_color	Color	[1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0]	The light's colour.
ml1_falloff	Float	2.0	How the light fades with distance: 2 is inverse square (the physical law), lower reaches further, higher pools close to the source.
ml1_radius	Float	200.0	The distance in pixels at which the light is exactly `intensity` bright; inside it the light holds, beyond it falls off by `falloff`. Small is a bulb that burns a hot spot, large is a panel that lights evenly.
ml2_enable	Bool	false	This slot lights, or sits idle. A disabled slot keeps its knobs.
ml2_pos	Float2	[960.0, 270.0]	Where the light sits on screen, in pixels (x from the left, y from the top). Drag it in the viewer, or on the ground-plane widget (Shift+drag for height).
ml2_depth	Float	0.3	How far from the camera the light sits, in the depth map's own units — smaller is nearer. A light at 0.3 sits in FRONT of a surface at 0.5 and lights it; behind it, it lights nothing that faces the camera.
ml2_intensity	Float	2.0	The light's brightness AT its falloff radius, scene-linear, times `ml_weight` — beyond the radius it falls off by `falloff`, inside it holds.
ml2_color	Color	[1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0]	The light's colour.
ml2_falloff	Float	2.0	How the light fades with distance: 2 is inverse square (the physical law), lower reaches further, higher pools close to the source.
ml2_radius	Float	200.0	The distance in pixels at which the light is exactly `intensity` bright; inside it the light holds, beyond it falls off by `falloff`. Small is a bulb that burns a hot spot, large is a panel that lights evenly.
ml3_enable	Bool	false	This slot lights, or sits idle. A disabled slot keeps its knobs.
ml3_pos	Float2	[480.0, 648.0]	Where the light sits on screen, in pixels (x from the left, y from the top). Drag it in the viewer, or on the ground-plane widget (Shift+drag for height).
ml3_depth	Float	0.3	How far from the camera the light sits, in the depth map's own units — smaller is nearer. A light at 0.3 sits in FRONT of a surface at 0.5 and lights it; behind it, it lights nothing that faces the camera.
ml3_intensity	Float	2.0	The light's brightness AT its falloff radius, scene-linear, times `ml_weight` — beyond the radius it falls off by `falloff`, inside it holds.
ml3_color	Color	[1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0]	The light's colour.
ml3_falloff	Float	2.0	How the light fades with distance: 2 is inverse square (the physical law), lower reaches further, higher pools close to the source.
ml3_radius	Float	200.0	The distance in pixels at which the light is exactly `intensity` bright; inside it the light holds, beyond it falls off by `falloff`. Small is a bulb that burns a hot spot, large is a panel that lights evenly.
ml4_enable	Bool	false	This slot lights, or sits idle. A disabled slot keeps its knobs.
ml4_pos	Float2	[1440.0, 648.0]	Where the light sits on screen, in pixels (x from the left, y from the top). Drag it in the viewer, or on the ground-plane widget (Shift+drag for height).
ml4_depth	Float	0.3	How far from the camera the light sits, in the depth map's own units — smaller is nearer. A light at 0.3 sits in FRONT of a surface at 0.5 and lights it; behind it, it lights nothing that faces the camera.
ml4_intensity	Float	2.0	The light's brightness AT its falloff radius, scene-linear, times `ml_weight` — beyond the radius it falls off by `falloff`, inside it holds.
ml4_color	Color	[1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0]	The light's colour.
ml4_falloff	Float	2.0	How the light fades with distance: 2 is inverse square (the physical law), lower reaches further, higher pools close to the source.
ml4_radius	Float	200.0	The distance in pixels at which the light is exactly `intensity` bright; inside it the light holds, beyond it falls off by `falloff`. Small is a bulb that burns a hot spot, large is a panel that lights evenly.
ml5_enable	Bool	false	This slot lights, or sits idle. A disabled slot keeps its knobs.
ml5_pos	Float2	[960.0, 810.0]	Where the light sits on screen, in pixels (x from the left, y from the top). Drag it in the viewer, or on the ground-plane widget (Shift+drag for height).
ml5_depth	Float	0.3	How far from the camera the light sits, in the depth map's own units — smaller is nearer. A light at 0.3 sits in FRONT of a surface at 0.5 and lights it; behind it, it lights nothing that faces the camera.
ml5_intensity	Float	2.0	The light's brightness AT its falloff radius, scene-linear, times `ml_weight` — beyond the radius it falls off by `falloff`, inside it holds.
ml5_color	Color	[1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0]	The light's colour.
ml5_falloff	Float	2.0	How the light fades with distance: 2 is inverse square (the physical law), lower reaches further, higher pools close to the source.
ml5_radius	Float	200.0	The distance in pixels at which the light is exactly `intensity` bright; inside it the light holds, beyond it falls off by `falloff`. Small is a bulb that burns a hot spot, large is a panel that lights evenly.
ml6_enable	Bool	false	This slot lights, or sits idle. A disabled slot keeps its knobs.
ml6_pos	Float2	[288.0, 324.0]	Where the light sits on screen, in pixels (x from the left, y from the top). Drag it in the viewer, or on the ground-plane widget (Shift+drag for height).
ml6_depth	Float	0.3	How far from the camera the light sits, in the depth map's own units — smaller is nearer. A light at 0.3 sits in FRONT of a surface at 0.5 and lights it; behind it, it lights nothing that faces the camera.
ml6_intensity	Float	2.0	The light's brightness AT its falloff radius, scene-linear, times `ml_weight` — beyond the radius it falls off by `falloff`, inside it holds.
ml6_color	Color	[1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0]	The light's colour.
ml6_falloff	Float	2.0	How the light fades with distance: 2 is inverse square (the physical law), lower reaches further, higher pools close to the source.
ml6_radius	Float	200.0	The distance in pixels at which the light is exactly `intensity` bright; inside it the light holds, beyond it falls off by `falloff`. Small is a bulb that burns a hot spot, large is a panel that lights evenly.
ml7_enable	Bool	false	This slot lights, or sits idle. A disabled slot keeps its knobs.
ml7_pos	Float2	[1632.0, 324.0]	Where the light sits on screen, in pixels (x from the left, y from the top). Drag it in the viewer, or on the ground-plane widget (Shift+drag for height).
ml7_depth	Float	0.3	How far from the camera the light sits, in the depth map's own units — smaller is nearer. A light at 0.3 sits in FRONT of a surface at 0.5 and lights it; behind it, it lights nothing that faces the camera.
ml7_intensity	Float	2.0	The light's brightness AT its falloff radius, scene-linear, times `ml_weight` — beyond the radius it falls off by `falloff`, inside it holds.
ml7_color	Color	[1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 1.0]	The light's colour.
ml7_falloff	Float	2.0	How the light fades with distance: 2 is inverse square (the physical law), lower reaches further, higher pools close to the source.
ml7_radius	Float	200.0	The distance in pixels at which the light is exactly `intensity` bright; inside it the light holds, beyond it falls off by `falloff`. Small is a bulb that burns a hot spot, large is a panel that lights evenly.
glow	Float	0.0	Brightness of the hot rim on the leading edge of the front — a rim, not a fill. Off by default: ash, sand and stone do not glow. Push it for energy and fire looks (the Energy burst and Burn presets set it). It is added light, so it never cuts a hole in what is behind it.
glow_color	Color	[1.0, 0.55, 0.15, 1.0]	The colour the rim cools to. The instant a pixel is consumed it is near white; over the next few frames it falls to this colour. Orange for embers, blue or violet for energy. The white-hot core is automatic — you are choosing where it goes afterwards.
smoke	Float	0.0	Density of smoke born in the band. Off by default, because it is a simulation and it costs. Smoke drifts with the wind, rises, spreads and thins, and it takes the plate's own colour where it was born — so smoke off a red sleeve is red, which is what makes it look like the subject's smoke rather than fog.
smoke_source	Choice	band	Where the smoke is born. band: off the dissolving front, the classic separate smoke pass. dust: seeded from the dust cloud itself — wherever it is, as dense as it is, in the cloud's own colour — riding the dust's wind at full strength and composited with the grain by density: one medium, haze with grain embedded in it. The Soot look. `banddust`
smoke_rise	Float	0.25	How fast smoke lifts on its own heat, on top of the wind, in pixels per frame. Zero makes it hang in the air like dust; higher values make it climb and stretch.
smoke_dissipate	Float	0.035	How much of the smoke is lost every frame. Low values let it build into a thick column, high values keep it as a thin veil that never accumulates. If your smoke goes solid and grey, this is the knob.
smoke_turbulence	Float	0.5	How much the smoke's density swirls as it rises. 0 rises straight; 1 churns.
smoke_swirl	Float	44.0	The size of the smoke's swirl in pixels — small is a busy boil, large is one slow roll.
smoke_tone	Float	1.0	Brightness of the smoke relative to the plate colour it was born with: under 1 is soot, over 1 is steam.
smoke_sheer	Float	0.0	Shear the smoke sideways as it rises, like wind across a chimney — negative left, positive right.
smoke_wisp	Float	0.0	Break the smoke into wisps: 0 is one soft mass, 1 is thin strands.
crust	Float	0.0	The burnt-crust look in the dying band: a noise relief lit by the light dials and the body's texture displaced along it. 0 is off (bit-identical); 1 is a clear crust; 3 is cake.
crust_scale	Float	9.0	The crust's granule size in pixels at HD (scaled with the frame).
from_within	Float	0.0	Where the dust is born: 0 at the dissolving edge, 1 from deep inside the body, so it seems to come from within rather than off the surface.
bake_full	Bool	false	Set by ⚒ Analyze on its own graph copy: walk the FULL media-sim history into the bake. Live leaves it off and caps the walk for interactivity. Not a knob to set by hand.
embers	Float	0.0	Rate of sparse, long-lived sparks. They are added light with no coverage, so they never punch holes in the picture, and they outlive the dust — embers are the last thing alive after the body has gone. Keep the rate low; a shot full of them stops reading as sparks.
ember_flicker	Float	0.6	How much each ember winks in and out. Every ember has its own phase, so they flicker against each other rather than pulsing together. 0 is steady, 1 is fully winking out.
shimmer	Float	0.0	Heat distortion in the air above the band, in pixels of displacement. It refracts what is already there rather than blurring it, so the picture stays sharp and simply arrives from the wrong place. A little goes a very long way.
shimmer_scale	Float	24.0	The size of the shimmer's ripples, in pixels. Small for the tight boil right over a flame, large for the lazy waver of hot air further out.
render	Choice	dissolve	How the subject comes apart. `dissolve` is the full pipeline: the body erodes on the wave, flakes leave it, dust and smoke are born in the band. `points` is the trippy mode: every pixel of the subject becomes a point, the wave sets each one swirling as it fades, and overlap ADDS — where points crowd, the light sums to plasma. Under `points` the Body, Flakes, Dust and Media sims are not run; the points are the material. Glow still adds. `dissolvepoints`
point_size	Float	1.5	Splat diameter in pixels. 1 is a pixel-exact point; 2–4 reads as soft grain; big values smear points into a haze. A point carries the same light whatever its size — size spreads it, it does not brighten it.
point_life	Float	40.0	Frames from the wave consuming a pixel to its point being gone. Short and the cloud is a thin shell right behind the front; long and the whole subject hangs in the air as plasma.
point_scatter	Float	60.0	How far a point swings by the time it fades, in pixels. Displacement and fade share one clock: a point barely moves while it is bright and swirls widest as it goes. 0 and the subject fades in place.
point_scale	Float	90.0	Feature size of the swirl field in pixels: small is a fine sizzle, large is slow lobes the whole subject rides together.
point_evolve	Float	1.0	How fast the swirl field churns over time — the recursive turbulence of the reference dissolves. 0 freezes the field so every point follows a fixed path; 1 evolves it once every second or so; higher is frantic.
point_rise	Float	-0.4	Vertical drift in pixels per frame of a point's age. Negative rises (embers, energy), positive sinks (sand, ash), 0 drifts on the swirl alone.
point_glow	Float	1.0	Gain on the light a flying point carries. Rest points are never scaled, so the intact subject keeps its brightness; above 1 the dissolving material glows hotter than the plate, and Glow on top makes it energy.
point_depth	Float	0.0	0..1: how much a point's brightness acts as depth. Bright points read nearer and swing wider, dark ones sit back and move less — the parallax stand-in until a camera input exists.
view	Choice	result	What to look at. `result` is the effect; every other setting puts one stage in the picture so you can SEE what the solve is doing. `matte` is the alpha it was given — check this first when the result surprises you. `front` colours the subject by the wave: warm where it has already gone, cool where it is still to come, black outside the matte. `band` is the live edge everything is born on. The rest show the individual stages. `resultmattefrontbandbodychunksdustglowpoints`
status	Text		What the node has to tell you — the dust budget being hit, the sim cap being reached, or how much of the revealed background it had to guess rather than observe. Read it when something looks wrong before you start turning knobs.
baked	Text		The analysis ⚒ Analyze wrote. While it is set, every frame is READ from that sequence instead of solved, which is what makes playback play. It clears itself the moment a solve knob moves, because an analysis that no longer describes the node is worse than none.
baked_hash	Text		The knob state the analysis was solved from. Compared against the node every tick; when they differ the analysis is dropped and the panel says so.
baked_range	Text		The frame range the analysis wrote (recorded by ⚒ Analyze).
bake_dir	Text		Where ⚒ Analyze writes the frames. Empty writes beside the project.
bake_label	Text		A label for the analysis, shown on the node while it plays from disk.
hold_seq	Text		Set by ⚒ Analyze in its own copy of the node: under dynamic hold the analysis reads each frame's frozen state from the previous frame of this sequence, so every part freezes on exactly its own frame. Leave it empty.
preview_frames	Int	240	How DENSE the live preview's dust is, out of 240: the full history is always simulated (the trail IS the history), but only this fraction of the particles are born while you shape the effect, so scrubbing stays quick. 80 is a third; 240 is every particle, which is what ⚒ Analyze uses. The look does not change with this — only how many specks there are.
disabled	Bool	false	Bypass: the node passes its first input through untouched (D in the graph). The knobs keep their values for when it comes back.
label	Text		A note shown under the node in the graph — what this node is FOR. Never affects the render or the cache.
hide_input	Bool	false	Draw the node without its input wire — a tidy graph for a node whose source is obvious (a Dot, a viewer tap).

Known edges

The media sims re-run from start each frame, capped at 240 frames and reported when capped. The subject alpha input is called matte, not mask: mask is the engine's universal mask-the-effect slot and would blend the result back toward the plate by the very alpha being dissolved.

Since

27 Aug 2026