For generative artists, creative coders, shader writers and live coders. Write WGSL or GLSL, paste a Shadertoy, grow patterns and flocks from a few rules, and script the rest in Python. Then save a loop, a print series or a pen plot, or play it live on a projector.
All three made in Kinematic. The big one is four nodes.
A loop to post, a series of prints, a plot for the wall, a set on Friday night and a room that runs all season. Each one starts as a graph you can open again and change.
Render frame by frame on the virtual clock, so a heavy shader never drops a frame and the timing comes out the same on every run. Save MP4, MOV, WebM or ProRes, or a numbered PNG or EXR sequence. Noise can tile with no seam, so a loop can end where it began.
$ kinematic render piece.kin -o loop.mp4 \ --clock virtual --frames 600
Noise, scatter and growth nodes all take a seed, and the same seed brings the same piece back. Sweep a list of seeds and every run saves its own file. Prints keep 16 bits in PNG and TIFF, or full float in EXR, with the print size and your name written into the file.
$ kinematic run piece.kin \ --sweep noise.seed=3,7,12,21,42,64 \ --set "out.file_path=prints/seed_{i}.png" \ --jobs 3
Draw in single strokes with no fills: noise contours, Voronoi cells, spirals, Lissajous curves or the edges of a 3D model. Bake your type into outlines, simplify and offset paths, then save the SVG for your plotter.
Plot a 3D vase →Press F1 and the editor steps aside, so the picture fills the screen. MIDI knobs, the music in the room and a page of faders on your phone can all steer it while it plays.
Put the show on the big screen →Map projectors onto walls and objects, or play a picture across an LED wall over Art-Net. Kiosk mode keeps the machine awake, and the show can restart itself if it ever falls over.
Projection →Write WGSL or GLSL in the Shader editor, or point a shader at a file and keep your own editor open: save, and it recompiles. Errors name your own line, and the last picture that worked keeps drawing while you fix it.
Paste a Shadertoy, set the language to GLSL and tick Shadertoy compat. A comment like // @range(0, 3) above a uniform gives it a slider, and any uniform can follow a song, a MIDI knob or the clock instead of a number. Run up to 64 passes, write up to 7 pictures at once, feed frames back into themselves, or move the points of a mesh in a vertex shader.
Python lives in the same graph: scripts that add and wire nodes, one-line expressions on any setting, and the packages you install with kinematic pip.
layout(set = 0, binding = 23) uniform Params { // @range(0, 3) @default(1) float speed; // @range(0.004, 0.03) @default(0.012) float glow; } uKINUser; // Glowing ribbons that sway across the screen. void mainImage(out vec4 fragColor, in vec2 fragCoord) { vec2 uv = (fragCoord*2.0-iResolution.xy) / iResolution.y; float t = iTime * uKINUser.speed; vec3 col = vec3(0.02, 0.01, 0.05); for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++) { float fi = float(i); float wave = 0.3 * sin(uv.x * (1.5 + fi * 0.4) + t * (0.6 + fi * 0.15) + fi * 1.7); float d = abs(uv.y-wave+0.22*fi-0.44); vec3 tint = 0.5 + 0.5 * cos(6.2831 * (fi * 0.15 + vec3(0.0, 0.33, 0.67)) + t * 0.3); col += tint * uKINUser.glow / (d + 0.004); } fragColor = vec4(col, 1.0); }
Set the rules, then let it run. Reaction diffusion comes with 40 starting patterns, Conway's Life runs with its classic variants or rules you type, and noise comes in twelve kinds, from Perlin and Worley to curl and flow.
Particles flock, swirl into vortices and drag ribbons of light. L-systems grow branches, Voronoi cells crack a picture into tiles, and SDF shapes melt into one another before they come out as a mesh.
Play a song, a microphone or a synth you patched in the same graph. Kinematic follows its loudness, splits it into bass, mids and treble, and finds every beat.
Drag that level onto any number: a uniform, a seed, the size of a shape, how many particles fly. From then on the value follows the music.
Press F1 and Perform Mode clears the editor away, so the picture fills a projector or a second screen while it runs. Move a knob on your MIDI controller to map it, or run the piece from a phone over OSC.
Send the picture to another app or another machine over NDI, or over Syphon on a Mac. Map it onto a building, or play it across an LED wall over Art-Net, with a 3D preview of how it will look.
Bring your shaders, your scripts and your controllers. Every format and device here is on Works with.
Point a Custom shader at a .wgsl or .glsl file and it recompiles every time you save. Turn on two-way sync and edits made in Kinematic go back into the file, so the two never drift apart.
#include pulls in your own files, the text in another node, or the built-in librariesRun a piece with no window, sweep its settings, render on a clock that never drops a frame, or open it straight into the show on a second display.
$ kinematic run piece.kin \ --sweep noise.seed=1,2,3,4 --jobs 4 $ kinematic render piece.kin -o loop.mp4 \ --clock virtual --frames 600 $ kinematic piece.kin --perform --display 1
Move a knob to map it to anything in the graph. Nine popular controllers map in one press, with their lights lit back where they have them.
#time * 2, or one line of PythonEach lesson takes about ten minutes. The demos come with the app: open one from the Demos browser, press Play, then take it apart on the canvas.
12 min · 9 stepsPaste in a Shadertoy and give it slidersGlowing ribbons from a pasted shader, with Speed and Glow sliders you add yourself.Open the lesson →
10 min · 7 stepsRecolor a twisting torus in its shaderChange three lines of a material shader while it runs, and the stripes turn teal and violet.Open the lesson →
8 min · 8 stepsSpin a donut with one line of PythonTwo short Python expressions typed into its settings make it tumble and breathe.Open the lesson →
12 min · 7 stepsBuild a ring of spheres with a Python scriptA short script adds the nodes and wires them for you.Open the lesson →
12 min · 9 stepsMake a visual that pulses to your musicGlowing bokeh that zooms in on every loud beat of a song you choose.Open the lesson →
10 min · 7 stepsMap moving patterns onto three panelsStripes, dots and a star, each fitted to its own panel the way a projector sees them.Open the lesson →
Noise domain warpFlowing color from a shader that warps its own coordinates with noise.In the Demos browser
Feedback fluidInk stirred by three turning whirlpools, kept sharp by feedback.In the Demos browser
Reaction-diffusion artA Gray-Scott pattern sliding between spots, stripes and mazes.In the Demos browser
Cellular life simulationColonies of the Game of Life, softened into glowing light.In the Demos browser
Voronoi kaleidoscopeStained glass Voronoi cells, rebuilt from a new seed as it runs.In the Demos browser
Math lib flow fieldsSwirling flow lines built from the math library.In the Demos browser
Raymarch SDFThree spheres melting into each other, raymarched in one shader.In the Demos browser
Orbital gravityMetal boxes in orbit around a point, tumbling as they fade.In the Demos browserFree. No account, no license key, even for commercial use. macOS, Windows, Linux and Raspberry Pi.