3D & Displacement

Arkestra includes a full 3D rendering engine for real-time point clouds, signed-distance-field (SDF) raymarched shapes, and fluid simulation — all composited with bloom and depth effects, and output as a regular texture that blends into the master mix.

The 3D track

Add a 3D track to start. A 3D track renders a Scene — a collection of 3D objects. The track outputs a texture just like any other track.

3D Object types

Type	Description
Point Cloud	A mesh or particle system rendered as a cloud of 3D points. Driven by displacement shaders
Gaussian Splat	A captured scene drawn as soft coloured ellipsoids, loaded from `.splat`, `.ply` or `.sog` files. Takes the same displacement as a point cloud
SDF Shape	A raymarched signed-distance-field primitive (sphere, box, torus, etc.) with glass-like refraction

Multiple objects can exist in the same 3D track and share the same depth buffer.

SDF shapes include a Mandelbox fractal with Inner Radius and Speed parameters for sculpting the fractal in real time, and a Fractal Tunnel — an endless corridor carved through repeating Mandelbox cells. Drive its Travel Phase with a sawtooth LFO for seamless infinite fly-through, and shape the walls live with Corridor, Cell Size, Fold Limit, and the shared fractal controls.

Copy, cut, paste and duplicate

Right-click any object card — or an SDF shape card — for Copy, Cut, Paste and Duplicate. With a card selected, the usual shortcuts work too: ⌘C, ⌘X, ⌘V and ⌘D.

Paste puts the object into the selected chain of the current 3D track, so you can copy an object from one 3D track or project and paste it into another. Insert 3D Object also has a Paste entry. An SDF shape pasted into a track that has no SDF group gets a new group made for it.

Object opacity

Every 3D object card has an Opacity slider that fades just that object, independently of the track fader. Point Cloud, Gaussian Splat, 3D Mesh and Draw Trail cards each carry their own; an SDF group shows a single Opacity row above its shape cards that fades the whole group.

Opacity is mappable, so it can be driven by MIDI, an LFO, a chain macro, or automation. That makes it the control to reach for when an object needs to fade in or out during a set — the eye icon in each card header is a hard on/off and can’t be automated.

Object opacity stacks on top of the per-object opacity controls that already exist (the Gaussian Splat opacity scale, the glass material opacity on point clouds and SDF shapes) rather than replacing them.

A faded object stops writing depth, so objects behind it stay visible through it. At zero opacity the object is skipped entirely — no draw, no point cloud compute, no splat sorting, no shadows — so a muted object costs about as little as one switched off with the eye icon, and it comes back instantly when the opacity rises again. A point cloud’s simulation pauses while it’s hidden and picks up where it left off.

Rendering pipeline

Scene3D objects (point clouds + SDF shapes)
       ↓
Metal renderer (color + depth textures)
       ↓
Bloom pass
       ↓
Track output (composites into master mix)

Post-processing on the 3D track

The 3D track’s chain runs after the 3D render, so you can apply any Effect shader on top — color grade, blur, glitch, etc.