Scatter
Scatters many transformed copies of one or more stamp images across a canvas, in an area field, circular rings and spirals, or along a path, with per-instance random scale, rotation, opacity, and flip.
- Area mode lays instances out across a rectangular region, as a jittered grid (even coverage with an organic wobble) or a fully random field.
- Circular mode arranges them in concentric rings or a spiral around a center point.
- Path mode places them along a path or a mask’s edge (see Path mode).
In the Preview, drag the manipulator to set the region (Area) or the center and radius (Circular); double-click the center handle to put it back in the middle, or the radius handle to reset Radius. A given Seed always gives the same result, so a look you like is reproducible.
Wire images into the Stamp inputs (a new pin appears as you connect each one) and Scatter cycles through them. A batch wired into one stamp slot cycles its frames as stamps, so a folder of leaves or sprites becomes the source set with one connection. With a Background connected, instances land on it at its size; without one, Scatter renders onto a transparent canvas of Canvas Width by Canvas Height. With Use Density Mask on, a Density Mask thins instances out where it is dark.
Each instance gets its own random scale, rotation, opacity, and flip within the ranges you set. Scale, Scale Min, and Scale Max go down to 0.01, for fine stamps such as small raindrops. Z-Order sets the paint order; By Scale, the default, paints large instances behind small ones for a sense of depth, and Random shuffles the order without favoring any one stamp. With several stamps wired in, Stamp Cycling set to Random shuffles them like a deck, using each stamp once before any repeats.
Path mode
Section titled “Path mode”Set Mode to Path, or pick the Along a Path preset (one stamp every 40 px, each turned with the path), and Scatter places whole copies of its stamps along a path: leaves on a vine, stitches around a patch, links of a chain, footprints, fence posts. Along a Path has a recipe for each.
The path comes from one of two places, the same two as on Path Warp:
- Drawn on the node. With nothing wired into Density Mask, Scatter follows a path drawn on its own canvas, starting from a gentle arc. The Preview’s path tool row has Select, Pen, Rectangle, and Ellipse, plus Reverse, Close, Copy Path, Paste Path, and Clear Path. See Where the path comes from.
- A mask’s edge. In Path mode the Density Mask pin is the path input: wire a Shape, a Roto mask, Text, or any other mask and the stamps follow its edge. Edges picks Outer (the outside edge of every shape) or All (the edges of holes too). A color picture is read through Mask From (Luminance by default), and Mask Fit lays the mask on the canvas. With no Background wired, the mask sets the canvas size.
In Path mode the Path Layout section replaces the area and circle rows, and Use Density Mask, Position Random, and the Area and Circular rotation rows are hidden. Switching modes changes none of them, so switching back restores the old layout exactly.
Step decides how the stamps are spaced:
- Count spreads a fixed number evenly. On an open path the first and last stamps sit on its ends; on a closed path no stamp is doubled where the loop meets itself. Across several edges of a mask, the count is shared out by length.
- Distance places one stamp every so many pixels. Fit to Path evens out the spacing so the stamps fill the path, with the first and last on the ends of an open path. A Distance that would need more than 5000 stamps is raised, and the panel shows the Effective Distance.
- End to End starts each stamp where the last one ends, each by its own size, like the links of a chain. Gap adds space between them, or overlaps them when negative. Fit to Path spreads leftover length over the gaps and never resizes a stamp. On a closed path with Stamp Cycling set to Sequential, the count rounds to a whole number of cycles, so two identical stamps never meet where the loop closes.
The other Path Layout rows:
- Start and End limit the stamps to part of the path; on a closed path, an End before Start wraps across the start of the loop. In the Preview they are two knobs on stems beside the path: drag them along it, or double-click to reset Start to 0 or End to 1. Knobs that meet fan apart so both stay grabbable, and on a mask with several outlines they ride the longest one.
- Turn With Path is how far each stamp turns to follow the path: 1 follows it fully, 0 keeps every stamp at its own angle (upright posts, for example). Rotation Min and Rotation Max add a random turn on top.
- Jitter moves each stamp randomly along the path. Offset moves every stamp off the path (positive is outside a closed path, or left of travel on an open one), keeping them evenly spaced along the offset line. Spread moves each one randomly to either side.
- Alternate Sides puts every other stamp on the other side of the path, mirrored: footprints, paired leaves, zipper teeth.
- Taper shrinks stamps toward End (1 shrinks the last to nothing), or grows them when negative.
- Rounding rounds the path’s corners to that radius, so stamps follow a curve around each corner instead of a point.
A closed path runs clockwise from the bottom, so 0.5 is the top. Everything else works as in the other modes: Scale, Aspect, opacity, Random Flip, Stamp Cycling, Z-Order, Blend Mode, Anchor (Bottom stands each stamp on the path), Edge Mode, Seed, and the Surface group for texture sets. All six presets set every Path Layout row too, so a preset gives the same look whatever the node was set to before, and never resets the path you drew.
Click a path point, a handle, or a Start or End knob and the arrow keys move it one image pixel per press, or ten with Shift; a knob steps along the path. Over texture sets, dragging the path or its knobs redraws the Preview at reduced resolution and shows the exact result on release.
Grayscale stamps and height maps
Section titled “Grayscale stamps and height maps”In every mode, a Stamp input also takes a grayscale map, or a batch of them, straight from a mask output: a droplet from Bevel’s Height, a Shape’s alpha, a noise. Each lands as an opaque gray stamp, and color stamps beside it are unchanged, so a mix needs no switching.
When every stamp is grayscale and the Background is grayscale or not wired, the output is a grayscale map too, black where no stamp lands, so it wires straight into Drips, Normal Map, or a Texture’s Height. Any color stamp or color background gives a color output, as before, and a Scatter saved in an earlier version keeps the color output it was saved with.
For height maps and grayscale shapes, set Blend Mode to Lighten at Opacity 100%: where two stamps overlap, it keeps the taller of the two. Linear Dodge (Add) stacks them instead, so an overlap rises higher than either stamp. Under Normal, a gray stamp’s black corners cover its neighbors.
Scattering texture sets
Section titled “Scattering texture sets”Wire a texture set, or a library of them (a batch of sets, straight out of Separate or Collect), into a Stamp pin and Scatter places it exactly as it places an image: same seeds, density, jitter, Edge Mode, and Sequential or Random cycling through the library. Every map of an instance is placed together and its normal map is turned with its pixels. Under Wrap, an instance that crosses a canvas edge comes back on the opposite side in every map and the Opacity, so the published set tiles.
When any stamp or the background is a set, the output is a set and a Surface group appears:
- Height Operation offers the same five choices as a Texture Layer row. Under Higher Surface (the default) or Lower Surface, overlapping instances resolve by height, so a buried instance shows only where it is actually higher (or lower). Under Replace, the later instance in Z-Order covers the earlier one outright.
- A negative Height Offset buries the population in the ground beneath, with color, normal, and roughness moving together; Height Offset Variation sinks each rock to a different depth. Neither Height Offset nor Height Scale recomputes an instance’s Normal map.
- Background Height only applies where no instance landed and no background set supplies its own Height. A Higher or Lower Surface instance always wins over bare canvas.
- Seam Feather softens the seam between overlapping Higher or Lower Surface instances across all maps. It decides which surface shows along a seam and never makes the result more transparent.
Every instance’s Opacity reaches the finished set. The published Opacity is the union of the instances that landed, as in Texture Layer, so a scatter over no background is transparent between its stamps in 3D Render and in exported files, and an instance’s random opacity fades it there too.
Over a set, Blend Mode acts only on Base Color and Emissive. The Normal, Height, and single-value maps follow Height Operation, and Opacity is never blended.
A plain image on the Background input alongside set stamps is read as a Base Color only set with its alpha as Opacity: it sizes the canvas and shows through wherever no instance lands, with the other maps at neutral values.
Parameters
Section titled “Parameters”Pins
Placement
How stamps are laid out
Total instances (Circular and Path modes)
Grid columns (Area). Columns x Rows capped at 5000
Grid rows (Area). Columns x Rows capped at 5000
How far stamps stray from their ordered positions. 0 = a perfect grid or rings
Concentric rings (Circular)
Outer radius as a fraction of half the smaller canvas dimension
0 = concentric rings, 1 = Archimedean spiral
Orient each stamp toward the circle (0=off, 1=full)
Progressively shrink stamps toward outer rings
How random positions are drawn
What happens to stamps at the canvas edge
Path Layout
How stamps are spaced along the path
Space between stamps along the path
Space between neighboring stamps. Negative values overlap them
Evens out the spacing so the stamps fill the path. With Distance on an open path, the first and last stamps sit on its ends
Where the stamps begin along the path. On a closed path, an End before Start wraps across the start of the loop
Where the stamps end along the path
How far each stamp turns to follow the path. 0 = every stamp keeps its own angle, 1 = each follows the path's direction
Lowest extra rotation per stamp (degrees), on top of the path's direction
Highest extra rotation per stamp (degrees), on top of the path's direction
Moves each stamp randomly along the path, up to half a step either way at 1
Moves every stamp off the path. Positive values move them outside a closed path, or to the left of travel on an open one
Moves each stamp randomly off the path, up to this far to either side
Puts every other stamp on the other side of the path, mirrored, like footprints or paired leaves
Shrinks stamps toward End: 1 shrinks the last to nothing. Negative values grow them instead, to twice the size at -1
Rounds the path's corners, drawn or traced, to this radius
Which edges of the wired mask the stamps follow
Randomization
Base scale multiplier applied to every stamp
Lower scale multiplier. Applied on top of base scale
Upper scale multiplier. Applied on top of base scale
Horizontal aspect stretch (>1 = wider stamps)
Vertical aspect stretch (>1 = taller stamps)
Minimum per-instance rotation (degrees)
Maximum per-instance rotation (degrees)
Lower per-instance opacity (x global opacity)
Upper per-instance opacity (x global opacity)
Random per-instance mirror
Placement seed. -1 gives each node and each batch frame its own placement. Click the dice to roll a new fixed seed
Stamping
How the stamp inputs are chosen.
A batch wired into a stamp slot cycles its frames as stamps.
Use the density mask's grayscale value as the per-instance keep probability, so brighter reads as denser.
- White: every instance kept.
- Black: none kept.
- Mid-gray: about half.
Compositing
Per-stamp blend mode.
For height maps and grayscale shapes, Lighten at Opacity 100% keeps the taller of overlapping stamps; Linear Dodge (Add) stacks them.
Over a texture set it blends Base Color and Emissive only. The other maps follow Height Operation.
Global opacity applied to every stamp
Paint order
Rotation/scale pivot
Output width when no background is connected
Output height when no background is connected
Surface
How each instance meets the surface beneath it.
- Add Detail: the instance's relief is added on top of the surface below.
- Subtract Detail: the instance's relief is cut into it.
- Higher Surface: the taller of the two shows, so an instance sinks into higher ground.
- Lower Surface: the lower of the two shows.
- Replace: the instance covers what is under it.
Lifts or drops every instance's whole surface after Height Scale.
A negative value buries the instances in the surface below, so only the parts standing above the ground show, in all maps together.
Varies Height Offset per instance by up to plus or minus this amount, so every instance sinks differently. 0 = the same offset for all. The draw follows Seed
Multiplies every instance's source height before it is compared with, or written over, the surface below.
An instance's Normal map is not recomputed from the scaled height.
The height reported where no instance covers the canvas.
Instances never compare against it: a Higher Surface or Lower Surface instance always wins over empty canvas. Heights below 0 or above 1 need 32-bit (Float) Mode.
Fades each Higher Surface or Lower Surface instance in over this many pixels from the edge of the region it wins, across all maps together.
0 = hard seam, 1 antialiases it, and larger values give a softer join.
Mask
How the connected color image is read as a mask
How the mask is mapped when it doesn't match the canvas
- Stamp inputs use a variable-count pin array: connect the trailing empty Stamp pin and another appears, so you can feed any number of stamp images. Each stamp slot accepts a single image or a whole batch, and a batch cycles its frames as stamps. Stamp Cycling decides how stamps are picked per instance (Sequential walks them in connection order, Random picks one each time).
- The Background input is optional. With one connected, instances are scattered onto it and the output matches its size; with none, Scatter renders onto a transparent canvas at Canvas Width x Canvas Height. A batch on the Background pin produces one scatter per variant.
- Connect a mask to the Density Mask input and enable Use Density Mask to vary instance density across the canvas: brighter mask areas keep more instances, darker areas thin out.
- Region (Area mode) and Center / Radius (Circular mode) are set by dragging the on-canvas manipulator in the preview rather than by sliders.
Usage Tips
Section titled “Usage Tips”- Start from a built-in preset (Organic Field, Random Tile Grid, Seamless Texture, Ring Pattern, Spiral Pattern, or Along a Path), then tune from there.
- Set Edge Mode to Wrap to scatter a seamless, tileable texture. It works in Circular mode too: a ring whose stamps overhang the canvas wraps the same way.
- Paint a gradient or shape into the Density Mask to steer where instances concentrate.
- Use Circular mode with Face Outward and a touch of Spiral for radial bursts, petal rings, or clock-face layouts.
- A Seed of -1 gives each node, each batch frame, and each texture set in a library its own arrangement, which survives reopening the document and differs between nodes; a duplicate gets a fresh one. A fixed Seed places the same way on every frame. Set an explicit Seed, or click the dice, when you want a value you can copy to another node.