Drawer Mode: Painting With Physics
Symmetry, brushes and path attraction. Turning a ball path into generative artwork.
In This Tutorial
What Drawer Mode Does
Drawer mode leaves a painted line along the path the ball travels. The physics are the same as any other mode, but the output is the accumulated drawing rather than the motion. That changes what you tune for: you are composing a finished image, and the run is the brush stroke that makes it. Clips in this mode work because the viewer watches a picture assemble itself out of something that looked random.
- •Judge the mode by pausing near the end of a run and looking at the whole image, not by watching the ball.
Symmetry
Symmetry is what turns a wandering line into something that looks designed. Symmetry Count accepts 1 to 12, mirroring the stroke that many times around the centre. A count of 1 gives the raw path. A count of 6 or 8 produces mandala and snowflake structures from the same underlying motion. The symmetry mode control sets the axis arrangement. This single setting is the difference between a scribble and a piece of artwork, and it costs nothing in performance.
- →Symmetry Count: 1 to 12
- →Stroke Thickness: 1 to 20
- →Point Frequency: 0.1 to 10, step 0.1
- →Max Length: 100 to 5000, step 100
- →Line Lifetime: 1 to 60 s
Brush and Line Behaviour
Brush Style sets the character of the stroke. Stroke Thickness accepts 1 to 20. Point Frequency, from 0.1 to 10, sets how often a point is recorded, so higher values give a smoother curve at more cost. Max Length, from 100 to 5000, caps total stroke length, and Line Lifetime, from 1 to 60 seconds, fades old strokes away. Use Max Length when you want a finished static image and Line Lifetime when you want a flowing pattern that keeps clearing itself.
- •For a build-to-a-picture clip, set a high Max Length and leave Line Lifetime long.
- •For a looping ambient clip, set a short Line Lifetime so the canvas never saturates.
Colour Dynamics
The colour mode control decides how the stroke is coloured as it is laid down, rather than assigning one flat colour. Line Visibility, from 0 to 1, sets stroke opacity, and values below 1 let overlapping passes build density where the ball has been more often, which is what gives these images depth. Glow Intensity accepts 0 to 50 and works best on a dark background. A low opacity with a moderate glow is the combination that reads as light rather than paint.
- →Line Visibility: 0 to 1, step 0.01
- →Glow Intensity: 0 to 50
Core Logic and Path Attraction
Three toggles change what gets drawn. Reverse Drawing inverts the stroke direction. Ghost Mode changes how the line persists. Bounce Only records a point at impacts rather than continuously, which produces angular geometric figures instead of curves and is the fastest route to a clean geometric look. Path Attraction pulls the ball toward a target path with a Strength from 0 to 0.5, biasing an otherwise chaotic run toward a shape. Keep the strength low, since high values override the physics and the result stops looking emergent.
- •Bounce Only plus a high symmetry count is the shortest path to a polished geometric piece.
- •Turn on Music Sync in the Add-ons and the drawing advances with the song.
Maximize Your Creation Potential
Ready to dive deeper? Check out our guides, pricing options, community showcases, and help center.