Path Warp
Bend a picture along a path or a mask’s edge: text on a curve or around a badge, a repeating rope or chain, a ribbon, a line or dashes.
Wire a picture into Image and Path Warp lays it along a path, bottom edge on the path by default. Draw the path on the node’s own canvas in the Preview, or wire any mask into the Path pin to follow its edge. Rigid Pieces keeps each letter straight and turns it to the path instead of bending it, which is what type on a path usually wants.
Path Warp shares its path tools, direction rule, and Copy Path / Paste Path with Scatter’s Path mode. Along a Path has a recipe for every common job: badge text, rope borders, dashed lines, leaves on a vine, and more.
Presets
Section titled “Presets”Preset starts a common job in one click, each on a starting shape sized to the canvas:
| Preset | Starting shape | The look |
|---|---|---|
| Text on a Curve | An open arc | Bends the text along the path, centered on it. |
| Badge Top Line | A circle | Straight letters (Rigid Pieces) outside the top of the circle, reading left to right. |
| Badge Bottom Line | A circle | The letters inside the bottom of the circle (Position 0, Side Inside, Turn Around on), so the line still reads left to right, the right way up. |
| Repeat Along | An open wave | Tiles the picture along the path, centered on it: rope, chain, braid. |
| Repeat Around | A rounded rectangle | Tiles the picture around a closed path with a whole number of tiles, so there is no seam, and rounds the corners: a rope or stitch border. |
| Dashed Line | An open arc | Tiles the picture with a gap between tiles. The gap is a percentage of the canvas, so it keeps its proportion at any size. |
| Ribbon | An open S-curve | Stretches the picture along the whole path, centered on it. |
A preset sets the whole look (Fit, Bend, Position, Align, Side, Turn Around, Distance, Gap, Fit to Path, and Rounding), so nothing of the previous pick is left behind. It never changes Scale (use it to size the picture to your path), the path-mask rows, Interpolation, the canvas, or the Output rows. Change any row a preset sets and the menu reads Custom. A pick, starting shape included, is one undo step.
Drawing the path
Section titled “Drawing the path”With nothing wired into Path, the node follows a path drawn on its own canvas, starting as a gentle arc across the middle. While the node is selected, the Preview shows a path tool row:
| Button | Effect |
|---|---|
| Select | Move the points and handles of the path already there (the default). |
| Pen | Click for corners, drag for curves. Click an end point to continue the path, the first point to close it, and press Escape to finish. A new path replaces the old one. Auto-smooth makes every new point smooth. |
| Rectangle, Ellipse | Drag on the canvas to draw a closed path. |
| Reverse | Runs the path the other way. |
| Close / Open | Closes the path (three points or more) or opens it. |
| Copy Path, Paste Path | Move a drawn path between Path Warp, Scatter, and Roto. |
| Clear Path | Removes the path and picks the Pen, so your next click starts a new one. Undo brings the old path back. |
| Show Background | Draws the background, dimmed, under a Warped Only result (see The canvas and the background). |
Select uses Roto’s gestures: Alt+click a point for a sharp corner, Alt+drag a point for fresh smooth handles, Ctrl+click the path to add a point, Ctrl+click a point to delete it. The full list is in Along a Path. The picked tool is not saved with the document.
A drawn path remembers the canvas size it was drawn on, so it keeps its place when the canvas changes size, and a pasted path keeps its relative place on a canvas of another size.
Following a mask’s edge
Section titled “Following a mask’s edge”Wire any mask into Path and the picture follows that mask’s edge (where it is half covered), updating as the mask changes. A Shape’s alpha output, a Roto mask, Text, Mask From Image, Magic Wand, or any other mask-making node works.
The edge draws over the Preview as a read-only dashed line with arrows showing its direction; edit the shape in the node that makes it. The drawing tools, Reverse, Close, Copy, Paste, and Clear are grayed while a mask is wired.
- Mask From defaults to Alpha here, so the main output of a colored Shape, a Text, or any cut-out picture follows its outline.
- Edge picks which edges to follow when the mask has several: Longest, or All (Repeat runs along each one; the other fits place a copy on each).
- Mask Fit lays the mask on the background’s canvas when their sizes differ. The default, Stretch, can turn a circle into an ellipse; use Fit, or make the mask the canvas size.
The panel’s first line names the kind of path being followed. When a wired mask gives no usable edge, a note says what to do: a mask covering the whole canvas, an empty mask (for a colored shape, set Mask From to Alpha), an open Roto path (no area, so use Copy Path and Paste Path instead), or too many edges to trace (blur it, or wire a simpler one).
Which way it runs. An open path runs in the order its points were drawn, with up to the left of travel, so a path drawn left to right carries its picture upright. A closed path runs clockwise on screen from the bottom, so Position 0.5 is the top and up points outside the shape. Rounding rounds every corner, drawn or traced, to a circular arc of that radius; on a drawn path, the rounded path actually followed draws in green beside yours.
The canvas and the background
Section titled “The canvas and the background”Path Warp draws on a canvas of its own, rarely the picture’s size, since a word or a dash usually lies along a curve across a much bigger picture. The canvas is the Background’s size when one is wired; otherwise the size of the mask on Path; with neither, Canvas Width and Canvas Height under Output (1024 x 1024 to start). The panel says which is in force, and the canvas rows are grayed with the reason while a background or path mask sets the canvas.
Wire the picture you are decorating into Background and the bent picture is composited onto it, as on Mesh Warp and Corner Pin. Output Mode is Composite (the default, with Blend Mode and Opacity) or Warped Only. Outside the bent picture, the result is the background (Composite) or transparent (Warped Only, or no background).
In Warped Only, the Show Background button draws the background dimmed under the result so you can still place the path. It changes the Preview only: nothing is recooked and the button is not saved.
With no picture wired, the node still shows its canvas and path, so you can draw the path first.
Fit and Bend
Section titled “Fit and Bend”Fit decides how the picture fills the path:
- Keep Size lays it at its own size (times Scale), for text and single pictures. Position says where along the path it sits, and Align which part of the picture sits there.
- Stretch spans the whole path, so Position is grayed.
- Repeat tiles the picture along the path. The Position row reads Phase and slides the tiles; Gap adds space between tiles (negative values shorten each one), and Fit to Path evens the tiles out so a whole number fits, with no seam on a closed path.
Bend decides what happens inside the picture:
- Smooth bends the whole picture with the path. Around a corner tighter than the picture is tall, it eases the turn so the corner never smears.
- Rigid Pieces splits the picture at empty columns, so each letter, link, or footprint becomes one piece turned to the path at its middle, unbent. Stacked parts stay whole (the dot of an
i, accents), and a kerned pair such asAVthat shares columns turns as one piece. It handles one line of text; use one Path Warp per line.
On an open path, a picture longer than the path runs straight on past its ends. On a closed path it wraps around, and the panel notes when it is longer than the whole loop.
Side, Turn Around, and Distance
Section titled “Side, Turn Around, and Distance”Side places the picture Outside the path, On it (centered), or Inside; on an open path the choices read Above and Below. The picture’s top faces outside (or up).
Turn Around runs the picture the other way along the path so it reads right side up on the other side, like a badge’s bottom line. It turns the picture, never mirrors it. For text, the text’s baseline rides the path, so descenders like g and y hang below it, and the panel says “Riding the text baseline”.
Distance moves the picture away from the path toward its Side, laying it out along that moved line so a repeated pattern stays evenly spaced on both sides of every bend. Where Distance reaches past the center of a tighter bend, Smooth trims the picture there instead of folding it, and the panel says so. With Side On, Distance is grayed.
Texture sets
Section titled “Texture sets”Wire a texture set into Image and every map, with the set’s Opacity, bends together, the Normal’s directions turning with the bend. Rigid Pieces splits the set once, from its Opacity, so every map gets the same pieces.
A set comes out Warped Only on the background’s canvas, with Composite grayed and the reason shown: a background is a canvas for a set, never a backdrop. Lay the bent set over a material with Texture Layer. As on every warp, Lanczos becomes Bilinear on a set with a Normal or Height map, with the reason shown in the panel.
Handles and keyboard
Section titled “Handles and keyboard”A knob on a short stem beside the path sets Position (or Phase in Repeat): drag it along the path. It sits on the side away from the picture, never covering the path’s end points, and stays on its stretch of path even where the path runs close to itself. On a closed path it slides past the start of the loop. Double-click the knob to reset Position to 0.5.
Click a point, a handle, or the knob and the arrow keys move it one image pixel per press, ten with Shift; the knob steps along the path. Escape clears the selected handle. See Arrow-key nudging.
While you drag the path or the knob, the Preview redraws continuously: a plain picture at reduced resolution so it keeps up, a texture set at full size but only the map on screen. The exact result appears on release, and nothing downstream sees the reduced picture.
Parameters
Section titled “Parameters”Pins
Path Warp
How the picture fills the path
Size of the picture on the path
Where the picture sits along the path, from its start at 0 to its end at 1. On a closed path 0.5 is the top. In Repeat it slides the tiles
Which part of the picture sits at Position
Where the picture lies: outside the path, centered on it, or inside. On an open path, Outside is above and Inside is below
Run the picture the other way along the path, so it reads right side up on the other side (the bottom of a badge). Never mirrors
Moves the picture away from the path, toward its Side. Its spacing stays even along the moved line. Not used when Side is On
Space between tiles, for dashes. Negative values shorten each tile
Evens out the tiles so a whole number fits the path, with no seam on a closed path
Rounds the path's corners, drawn or traced, to this radius
Which edges of the wired mask the picture follows
Mask
How a color picture wired into the path pin is read as a mask. Alpha follows the outline of a shape, a text or a cut-out
How the path mask is laid on the background's canvas when their sizes differ
Filter
A texture set with a Normal or Height map uses Bilinear
Output
How the bent picture blends onto the background
Opacity of the bent picture over the background
Output width when neither a background nor a path mask is connected
Output height when neither a background nor a path mask is connected
Usage Tips
Section titled “Usage Tips”- For badge text, wire one Shape’s alpha output into two Path Warps, one per line, and pick Badge Top Line on one and Badge Bottom Line on the other.
- Size the picture to the path with Scale; no preset changes it.
- For rope or a stitch border around a shape, use Repeat Around and wire a Shape into Path; raise Rounding if the corners are tight.
- Draw a vine once, click Copy Path, and Paste Path into a Scatter set to the Along a Path preset so its leaves follow the same curve.
- The Node Library also finds this node under “bend”, “curve”, “type on path”, “follow path”, “ribbon”, or “arc”.