The [waterfall] table

The waterfall system draws the same band array spectrum does, but keeps its history: every row_period seconds the current levels become a new row at the front of a landscape, and the older rows step back from the camera until the oldest leaves. The table chooses how much history there is and how finely it is cut:

system = "waterfall"

[waterfall]
elements   = 48      # bands across a row, 2..=64, default 48
rows       = 64      # rows drawn, the live front row included, 2..=1024, default 64
row_period = 0.04    # seconds between two rows, 0.01..=2, default 0.04
smoothing  = 0.05    # per-band easing, as on [spectrum]; default: instant

Key	Values	Notes
elements	integer 2..=64	Bands across one row, from the bottom of the spectrum on the left to the top on the right. Default 48.
rows	integer 2..=1024	How many rows the landscape draws, the live front row included. Default 64.
row_period	seconds 0.01..=2	How often a row is pushed. With rows it sets how much time the landscape shows: the defaults hold about 2.5 seconds.
smoothing	seconds, or { attack, release }	Per-band easing, in the same vocabulary as [smoothing].

Every key is optional and so is the table: system = "waterfall" alone draws the default landscape. An out-of-range value is a surfaced load error naming what it expected.

Three things are worth knowing before you tune one:

• The front row is live and the rest are history. The newest row is the current eased level, redrawn every frame; a pushed row fades in over its first period and the oldest fades out over its last, so the landscape scrolls without popping.
• Depth is row_spacing times rows. row_spacing in [params] is the world distance between two rows, so a long history at a wide spacing reaches far behind the camera’s focus. fade dims the far rows against the front edge, and line_width narrows with distance.
• The tier caps the rows. A landscape is drawn from the same per-tier segment budget as the other 3D line systems, elements - 1 segments per row and twice that when solid, so a rows past what the tier allows is clamped and the app says so. A wide, deep landscape at a large aperture is the expensive case.

The camera is the shared one: yaw, pitch, distance, fov, focus, aperture, fog and solid behave as on plexus. The full parameter list is the waterfall table of Parameter roster.

A solid landscape reads as terrain. With solid = "1" each row also lays a black band under itself down to the ground, so a near row hides the rows behind it the way a ridge hides the valley past it. Rows are ordered by where they stand, not by how tall they are, so a far peak never shows through a nearer row. The bands cost segments too: a solid row draws twice the segments of a glowing one, so the tier holds a solid landscape to half the rows, nearest first, and the app says so when that bites.

fog and fade are different dimmers. fade dims a row by its age, oldest darkest. fog dims anything by its distance from the camera. Seen from the front, the oldest rows are also the farthest, so the two look alike. From the side they are not: fog darkens the far end of every row, new ones included.