Documentation / Node reference / tex nodes
Repeats a chain of texture nodes on its own result: a simulation that runs frame after frame, or a filter applied several times.
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The nodes inside the solver are one step. Inside, a tex/SubnetInput set to input 0 gives the picture as it is now: the picture on the solver's first input before the first step, then the result of the step before. The tex/Output inside gives the picture after the step, which the solver keeps and shows. The solver's other inputs reach the tex/SubnetInput nodes set to 1, 2 and 3 unchanged, every step.
mode PER_FRAME runs a simulation. Each time the scene time moves forward, the solver runs `iterations` steps on the picture it kept from the frame before. Reaction-diffusion is the classic one: a tex/Builder inside reads the picture's neighbours and writes how two chemicals spread and react, 20 steps a frame, and patterns of spots or stripes grow out of a few seeded dots. The solver starts over from its first input at `startFrame` and before it, and whenever time goes back, so to start again, go back to `startFrame`. Pausing holds the picture as it is. Jumping forward on the timeline does not run the frames skipped: it runs one frame's steps. Changing a param, inside or on the solver, does not step either.
mode COUNT runs a filter several times. Every cook starts from the first input and runs `iterations` steps: a tex/Blur inside with iterations 10 blurs the picture ten times, a tex/Brightness of 0.9 with iterations 5 darkens it to 0.9 times 0.9 times 0.9 times 0.9 times 0.9. Nothing is kept between frames.
The solver only steps when something shows its picture, a material or a preview: a solver nothing displays does not cook, so it does not step. Bypassing it shows its first input and steps nothing.
| Name | Type | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| mode | UInt8 PER_FRAME · COUNT | When the steps run. PER_FRAME: each time the scene time moves forward, continuing from the picture of the frame before, for a simulation. COUNT: on every cook, starting from the first input each time, to apply the nodes inside several times. |
| iterations | UInt32 | How many times the nodes inside run: per frame with PER_FRAME, per cook with COUNT. 0 shows the first input. The solver runs at most 1000 at a time and warns above that. |
| startFrame | UInt32 | The frame at which the simulation starts. At this frame and before it, the solver shows its first input; the steps begin on the frame after. Going back to it starts the simulation over. |
Scenes you can open in the editor that teach this node.
The tex/ReactionDiffusion node grows a pattern from a star seeded in a picture: two chemicals spread and react, and the star becomes a maze of stripes. Other values of F and k give coral, worms, spots and holes.
tex/PolyNode tex/Solver tex/Builder code/TextureLaplacian
The tex/ReactionDiffusion node grows a pattern in a 64 by 64 by 64 texture: two chemicals spread through the volume and react, and three seeded spheres grow into a maze of folded sheets. The viewer draws them as fog with a mat/Volume, and beside it as a solid with a mat/VolumeSurface, both reading the texture where the GPU wrote it. Open the texture panel to see it slice by slice or raymarched.
tex/PolyNode tex/Solver tex/Builder code/TextureLaplacian mat/Volume mat/VolumeSurface
This page is generated from the engine, so it describes the release you can download. The same text is in the editor's Help panel next to the node itself.