Material alchemy guide

Start

The tool opens with two sample pictures, A and B, and the Nacre preset. Picture A fills the frame with the material already on it; the panel sits beside it.

What you need

• A current browser with WebGL. Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari all have it.
• A picture of your own, if you want one, and a second one for the crossfade. Any image the browser can open works; the samples are there until you swap them.

Your first result

1. Open Material alchemy and tap the picture anywhere. The material swells to full strength while picture A fades into picture B, then settles on B.
2. Press a preset under Presets, such as Jade idol, then tap the picture again. This run carries B back into A.
3. At the top of the panel, press the Image A tile to light your own picture. Press the Image B tile for the picture the crossfade carries it into.
4. To keep the material on picture A alone, turn off A → B crossfade under Sliders; a tap then only makes the material swell and settle.
5. Press Save PNG for a still, or Record video to keep one full run.

Good to know

• A tap during a run does nothing; wait for it to finish. Replay always starts again at once.
• Moving any slider takes the highlight off the preset, and changes the picture on screen at once.
• Each material has one slider of its own, which shows only while that material is chosen.
• The frame takes the shape of picture A. Picture B is stretched to that shape, so two pictures of the same shape look best.
• On a phone the controls sit in a bar at the bottom of the screen. Tap the bar to open them.