Glyph Weave guide

Every control

Every control in the panel, group by group. The nine groups open together; each one can be folded away by its heading.

Numbers print their value beside the slider. A control the field or the mode does not use is still there, and its line says so.

Presets keys 1 – 0

Ten starting points. A preset sets the field, the cut, the relief and every layer at once, and keeps your seed, aspect and cell count. The number keys press them.

Acid 1Button: Acid (1). The look the tool opens with: a green diagonal ground, indigo and blue walls, cream tops, three tiers inside a square frame. A preset keeps your seed, aspect and cell count. See preset.
Vermilion 2Button: Vermilion (2). Islands in red and orange on a round ground, walls ten cells long falling south, four tiers. A preset keeps your seed, aspect and cell count. See preset.
Peacock 3Button: Peacock (3). Cells under four-fold symmetry, a blue grid ground, two tiers and a violet accent band. A preset keeps your seed, aspect and cell count. See preset.
Ash 4Button: Ash (4). Strata in greys, a thin band cut, walls falling north over the whole frame, three tiers. A preset keeps your seed, aspect and cell count. See preset.
Turmeric 5Button: Turmeric (5). Marble folded in a kaleidoscope, browns and yellow on a brick ground, inside a diamond. A preset keeps your seed, aspect and cell count. See preset.
Night 6Button: Night (6). Rings on a speckled indigo ground, pink and violet walls, in a circle. A preset keeps your seed, aspect and cell count. See preset.
Fire 7Button: Fire (7). Worms with the longest walls, twenty-two cells, no ground at all: tops and walls on black. A preset keeps your seed, aspect and cell count. See preset.
Forest 8Button: Forest (8). Islands mirrored down the middle, greens, tops woven from a lattice and crosses. A preset keeps your seed, aspect and cell count. See preset.
Serpent 9Button: Serpent (9). Worms turned four ways on a near-black ground, four tiers, red and yellow walls. A preset keeps your seed, aspect and cell count. See preset.
Fable 0Button: Fable (0). Marble cut in a thin band with a second, amber cut as the accent; blues, two tiers. A preset keeps your seed, aspect and cell count. See preset.

Words type becomes matter

Off until you type. What you write becomes part of the matter, not a label drawn on top.

OffButton: No words: the field alone.
LettersButton: The letters are the matter: the tiers climb inward from each stroke's edge, one tier every Bevel cells. See signed distance field.
RaiseButton: The letters stand on top of the field, so both are read at once.
CarveButton: A stepped plate hugs the letters and the letters are cut out of it. The most legible of the three. See carved letters.
TextText: What to write. Up to four lines and eighty letters; Latin, Tamil and Devanagari all set. Typing turns the mode on.
GroteskButton: Helvetica Neue, or the nearest plain sans your machine has.
FuturaButton: Futura, or Century Gothic: round and geometric.
CondensedButton: A narrow face, for long words.
ImpactButton: Impact, the face the tool opens with: heavy, so the letters survive tall walls.
DidotButton: Didot or Bodoni: thin hairlines, which drown under deep walls.
MonoButton: A typewriter face, every letter the same width. See monospace.
TamilButton: A Tamil face. Type Tamil in Text and it is set with this one.
HindiButton: A Devanagari face, for Hindi and Sanskrit.
SizeSlider · 0.1 to 1 · starts at 0.78: How much of the frame the ink fills, from a tenth to all of it.
LineSlider · 0.5 to 2 · starts at 0.92: The space between lines, as a share of the type's own line height.
BevelSlider · 0.25 to 16 · starts at 2.5: Cells of stroke per tier: small values step the letters steeply, large ones leave them flat.
BoilSlider · 0 to 6 · starts at 0.8: How far the letters' edges wander, in cells. The wander comes back round with the loop, so type trembles and the loop still closes. See boiling edge.
Boil sizeSlider · 0.1 to 6 · starts at 1.2: How large the wander's own noise is: small values fray the edge, large ones sway whole strokes.

Field the matter underneath

The noise every shape is cut from. Changing the source re-fits Level so the picture keeps about as much matter as before.

WormsButton: Ridged noise: long winding ridges. The field the tool opens with. See noise field.
IslandsButton: Smooth hills and hollows, so a cut leaves round islands. See fractal Brownian motion.
MarbleButton: The same hills run through a fold, which veins them like stone.
CellsButton: Distance to scattered points (Worley noise): cracked cells and plates.
RingsButton: Rings around a point, bent by the noise.
StrataButton: The field stepped into flat bands, the number Strata sets. See strata bands.
ScaleSlider · 0.5 to 12 · starts at 3.4: How large the shapes are. Small numbers zoom in. The wheel over the art changes this too.
DetailSlider · 1 to 6 · starts at 3: How many octaves of noise are added: more means finer detail on top of the large shapes.
SharpnessSlider · 0.5 to 8 · starts at 4: How hard the ridges are: low is soft and hilly, high is knife-edged.
WarpSlider · 0 to 2 · starts at 0.3: How far the field is pushed through itself before it is read. See domain warping.
Warp sizeSlider · 0.1 to 3 · starts at 0.8: The size of the push: small values crinkle the edges, large ones swing whole shapes.
ContrastSlider · 0.2 to 3 · starts at 1: Spreads or squeezes the field's values around the middle, so a cut keeps more or less.
StrataSlider · 1 to 16 · starts at 6: How many flat bands the Strata source steps the field into. Other sources ignore it.
NoneButton: No folding: the field runs as it is.
MirrorButton: Mirrored down the middle.
QuadButton: Mirrored both ways: four copies.
Rot4Button: Turned four times about the middle.
KaleidoButton: Folded eight ways, like a kaleidoscope. See kaleidoscope.

Shape where the field is cut

Which cells of the field are kept.

LevelSlider · 0 to 1 · starts at 0.9: Where the field is cut. Everything from here up is kept as shapes. See level cut.
BandSlider · 0.005 to 1 · starts at 1: How wide the kept band is. At 1 everything above Level is kept; lower it and only a slice is.
Accent atSlider · 0 to 1 · starts at 0.35: A second, separate cut, drawn by the accent layer alone.
Accent bandSlider · 0.005 to 0.5 · starts at 0.05: How wide that second slice is.

Relief walls and stacked tiers · T

How the kept cells stand up, and how many levels there are.

↖Button: Walls fall up and left.
↑Button: Walls fall straight up.
↗Button: Walls fall up and right.
←Button: Walls fall left.
·Button: No walls at all: Depth goes to zero and only the tops are drawn.
→Button: Walls fall right.
↙Button: Walls fall down and left.
↓Button: Walls fall straight down.
↘Button: Walls fall down and right.
DepthSlider · 0 to 64 · starts at 7: How long a wall is, in cells: the height every shape stands at. See oblique extrusion.
Near / farSlider · 0 to 1 · starts at 0.45: Where a wall changes from the near layer to the far one, as a share of its length.
1Button: One level only. With one tier and no words the tool draws exactly what the first KATTAM drew.
2Button: Two levels, the second cut a Tier step higher in the field. See stacked tiers.
3Button: Three levels.
4Button: Four levels, the most the sight line carries.
Tier stepSlider · 0.002 to 0.25 · starts at 0.034: How much more field value each tier needs than the one below. A small step makes narrow terraces. See tier step.
Tier riseSlider · 0 to 64 · starts at 2: How many cells each tier stands above the one below, and how far along the fall it is seen. See line of sight.

Layers pattern × mark × colour

Ten layers. Pick one in the chips, then give it a pattern, a mark, a colour and its gaps.

ShapeButton: The top of the first tier: the cells the cut keeps. Picking it opens its own pattern, mark and colour below.
Tier 2Button: The top of the second tier, drawn only when Tiers is 2 or more. Picking it opens its own pattern, mark and colour below.
Tier 3Button: The third tier's top. Picking it opens its own pattern, mark and colour below.
Tier 4Button: The fourth tier's top. Picking it opens its own pattern, mark and colour below.
RimButton: The cells on a top's edge that border a lower one. Off in most presets; on, it outlines every tier. See rim cells. Picking it opens its own pattern, mark and colour below.
NearButton: The part of each wall nearest its top. See near and far walls. Picking it opens its own pattern, mark and colour below.
FarButton: The rest of the wall, further down the fall. Picking it opens its own pattern, mark and colour below.
AccentButton: The cells of a second cut, set by Accent at and Accent band under Shape. Picking it opens its own pattern, mark and colour below.
GroundButton: Everything inside the frame that the shapes do not cover. Picking it opens its own pattern, mark and colour below.
VoidButton: The background outside the frame. It has a colour and nothing else. Picking it opens its own pattern, mark and colour below.
OnButton: Draws this layer, or leaves its cells to whatever is under them.
Button: The layer's colour. Every colour on the page is one of these; the art has no palette of its own.
ClearButton: Filled leaves the unlit cells to the layer underneath; Clear paints them in the colour beside this button.
Button: The colour the unlit cells take when Gaps is Clear.
Button: Every cell of the layer lit. The plainest fill; the Mark then decides what each cell draws.
Button: Every other cell, like a checkerboard, at the size Period sets.
Button: Lines running down to the right: Period apart, Width cells thick. See cell lattice.
Button: The same lines the other way, down to the left.
Button: Rows across, Period apart and Width thick.
Button: Columns down, Period apart and Width thick.
Button: Rows and columns together: a net of lit cells with square holes.
Button: Both diagonals together: a mesh of lit cells with diamond holes.
Button: Only where a row and a column meet: single cells, Period apart.
Button: Rows with every other row shifted half a period, like brickwork.
Button: An ordered screen: the cells light in a fixed 8 × 8 order, so the layer reads as a tone. Density and Density by appear under Weight. See Bayer matrix.
Button: Noise per cell: each one lights or not from its own number. Density and Density by appear under Weight; March moves the whole field.
Button: Diagonals that turn every Period rows: a zigzag.
PeriodSlider · 1 to 16 · starts at 1: How many cells the pattern repeats over.
WidthSlider · 1 to 16 · starts at 1: How many cells of each repeat are lit, never more than Period.
MarchSlider · -4 to 4 · starts at 0: How many whole cells the pattern moves in one loop. Whole cells, so the loop still closes. See lattice march.
Button: The whole cell, filled. Keeps the lattice hard-edged.
Button: A smaller square inside the cell; Weight sets how much is left.
Button: A round dot in the middle of the cell.
Button: A line down to the right, inside the cell.
Button: A line down to the left.
Button: A flat bar across the middle of the cell.
Button: An upright bar down the middle of the cell.
Button: Bar and upright together: a plus.
Button: Both diagonals: a cross.
Button: A hollow ring; Weight sets how thick its wall is.
Button: A triangle filling the upper-left corner of the cell.
WeightSlider · 0.05 to 1 · starts at 1: How much of the cell the mark fills: the dot's size, the stroke's thickness, the ring's wall. See cell mark.

Frame where the ground lives

Where the ground sits and whether the shapes may run past it.

FullButton: The ground fills everything inside the margin.
SquareButton: A square ground, Inset cells in from the margin.
CircleButton: A round ground.
DiamondButton: A diamond, turned forty-five degrees.
NoneButton: No ground: the shapes stand on the background colour.
MarginSlider · 0 to 71 · starts at 14: An empty border around everything, in cells.
InsetSlider · 0 to 108 · starts at 30: How far the ground's shape sits inside that margin.
SpillButton: The shapes run past the ground's edge.
ContainButton: The shapes are cut off at the ground's edge, words with them.

Motion 1 s loop · closes exactly

How long the loop is and how far the matter travels in it.

25Button: Twenty-five frames to a loop.
50Button: Fifty frames: twice as smooth, twice the file.
100Button: A hundred frames, for a long slow turn.
25Button: Twenty-five frames a second, so twenty-five frames make a one second loop. See frame clock.
50Button: Fifty a second: the same frames, played twice as fast.
MotionSlider · 0 to 2 · starts at 0.6: How far the matter travels in one loop. At zero the picture stands still.
CyclesSlider · 1 to 4 · starts at 1: How many times the travel comes back round inside one loop.
1 loopButton: The MP4 holds one loop.
6 sButton: Whole loops up to six seconds.
12 sButton: Whole loops up to twelve seconds, the length the tool opens with.
30 sButton: Whole loops up to thirty seconds.

Canvas 216 × 216 cells

The picture's shape and how many cells it is cut into.

1:1Button: A square picture.
4:5Button: Upright, four by five.
9:16Button: Tall, for a phone screen.
16:9Button: Wide, for a screen or a video.
72Button: Seventy-two cells along the short side: big, blocky cells.
108Button: A hundred and eight cells.
144Button: A hundred and forty-four.
180Button: A hundred and eighty.
216Button: Two hundred and sixteen, what the tool opens with.
270Button: Two hundred and seventy: finer cells, slower to draw.
360Button: Three hundred and sixty, the finest. Every cell is still a whole number of screen pixels. See integer scaling.

Reset

ResetButton: Back to Acid at its own seed, size and cell count. What you starred and the history strip stay.