Mesh warp guide

Overview

Mesh warp bends a picture when you drag points on a grid laid over it.

A dark picture of soft pink, blue and gold circles, swollen in the middle, under a bent grid of green and amber points
The sample on an 8 × 8 grid after the Bulge preset. Moved points and lines turn amber.

It is a puppet warp. A grid of control points sits on the picture, and each square of the grid is cut into two triangles.

Drag one point and the picture around it bends with it. Nearby points follow by the falloff you pick, and pinned points hold still.

Each triangle of the picture is redrawn to fit its new corners, which is texture mapping on a 2D canvas. Presets bend the whole grid at once, and Animate keeps it moving.

You can keep a PNG, copy the picture, or record the canvas as a video.

Open Mesh warp Start here

In this guide

  1. StartWhat you need, your first bend, and the mouse and touch moves.
  2. Every controlEvery control in the panel, one line each.
  3. Three looksThree pictures and the settings that made them.
  4. Keep your workThe PNG, the copy, and the video.
  5. HelpWhat to do when something goes wrong.

It runs in your browser on a 2D canvas. Nothing is uploaded. A mouse, a trackpad, a pen and a finger all work.