Effects & Shaders

An Effect (or VideoEffect) is a single processing node inside a chain. Each effect wraps a renderer — most commonly an ISF shader — and exposes a set of parameters.

Adding an effect

1. Select a track to make its chain active
2. Open the Add Content browser (right sidebar, plus.square.on.square icon)
3. Find a shader and drag it into the chain, or double-click to add it

Effect slot controls

Control	Function
Eye icon	Enable/disable — disabling passes input through unchanged
Mix slider	Blend processed ↔ original
Name	The shader or content name

Shader types

Arkestra uses the ISF (Interactive Shader Format) standard for GPU effects. Each shader has a kind (functional role) and a category (visual style).

Kind	Badge color	Use
Layer	Orange	Generators — produce pixels from scratch
Effect	Purple	Post-processors — transform an input image
Displacement	Emerald	Drive point cloud geometry in 3D tracks
Feedback Effect	Red	Designed for use inside Feedback Loop tracks

See the specific pages for each kind:

• Layer Shaders →
• Effect Shaders →
• Feedback Loops →
• Displacement →

Non-shader effects

Some effect slots don’t use ISF shaders at all:

Content type	Description
Video	Plays a video file (looping)
Image / GIF	Displays a static or animated image
Camera	Live input from a connected camera
Syphon	Receives a texture from another app via Syphon