Wave

It creates a 0-1 value along the points’ “order” and writes it back as a per-point weight. It is the second stage of “make the order (Point Key) → turn it into a wave (Wave) → write it to an attribute (Attribute)”, and it changes neither the position nor the appearance. If you connect a point cloud that has not gone through Point Key, the point order is used as the order as it is, so you can also build “a wave by point order” without Point Key.

Mode (dropdown)

• Wave — a continuous wave whose phase is shifted per order. Advancing Phase by 1 is one cycle, and when Phase is an integer it rises from the trough (0)
• Sweep (default) — a window of width Width travels around over the order. The fractional part of Phase is the window’s position, and the end and the beginning are connected
• Envelope — a one-shot attack/decay. Width is the proportion of the attack (clamped to 0.005-0.95), and points it has passed stay at 0 and do not fire again
• Rise — after rising it stays at 1. Width is the width used for the rise (clamped to 0.005-1)

How the parameters behave

• Phase (default 0) — the progress position common to all modes. Plug in an LFO or a counter to drive it
• Stagger (default 0.05) — the phase offset per one step of order. It only takes effect in Wave / Envelope / Rise (it is not used in Sweep). Setting it to 0 makes all the points move at the same time. The total amount of offset is proportional to the point count, so the more points there are, the wider the gap between the first and the last
• Width (default 0.15, lower limit 0.005) — it only takes effect in Sweep / Envelope / Rise (it is not used in Wave)
• Edge (default 1) — the softness of the falloff. It only takes effect in Wave / Sweep (it is not used in Envelope / Rise). At 0 there is no falloff (1 and 0 switch abruptly), and at 1 it is the smoothest

When PointCloud is not connected, or the point count is 0, the output is empty as well.

Where to use it

Plugging a tempo-synced value into Phase lets you create a wave that runs across the whole point cloud on the beat. Envelope and Rise are shapes that do not repeat, so they suit entrance effects such as “appearing in order just once” or “appearing in order and staying”.

await synapse.modules.create({ type: "Wave" })