System: swarm

Structural

Parameter	Default	Range	What it does
palette_steps	0	0 – 16	Quantizes the palette into this many flat bands; 0 leaves it continuous.
shape	0	0 – 4	Which silhouette each mark is drawn as - a disc, a square, a star, and so on.
points	5	3 – 16	How many points or sides the silhouette has, where the shape has a count at all.

Modal

Parameter	Default	Range	What it does
force	1.4	0 – 4	How hard the flow field pushes each particle, so higher is faster and straighter.
spin	0.3	-2 – 2	Rotational bias added to the flow, curling the paths into vortices.
burst	0	0 – 2	An outward impulse from the centre, for a beat to throw the swarm apart.
hue	0	0 – 1	Where this scene reads from the palette, as a coordinate along it rather than a colour.
brightness	0.8	0 – 2	The scene’s overall light level, multiplying what it draws before the composite.
size	1	0 – 4	Size of each particle’s mark.
field_freq	2.3	0.5 – 8	Spatial frequency of the flow field; higher makes smaller, busier eddies.
zoom	1	0.25 – 4	Scales the whole scene about its centre; above 1 fills more of the frame.
pan_x	0		Slides the whole scene sideways, in the scene’s own units rather than pixels.
pan_y	0		Slides the whole scene vertically, in the scene’s own units rather than pixels.
hue_spread	1	0 – 1	How far across the palette the particle band reaches.
hue_center	0.5	0 – 1	Where that band sits along the palette.
saturation	1	0 – 1	Pulls the scene’s colour toward grey; 0 is fully desaturated, 1 is the palette’s own.
palette_mix	0	0 – 1	Crossfades from the preset’s palette to its second one; 0 is the first, 1 the second.
palette_contour	0	0 – 1	Draws a line at each band edge when the palette is stepped; 0 draws none.
twinkle	0	0 – 1	Per-particle brightness flicker, seeded so it is reproducible.
size_spread	0	0 – 1	How much particle sizes vary about size; 0 makes them uniform.
reseed	0	0 – 1	Crossing zero throws every particle back to a fresh start position.
star_valley	0.45	0 – 1	How deep the notches between a star’s points cut; near 1 the star becomes a disc.
star_curve	0	-1 – 1	Bows a star’s edges inward or outward instead of leaving them straight.
star_jitter	0	0 – 1	Randomises each point’s length by a seeded amount, so the star reads as hand-drawn.