The full user guide is inside the app.
Open Fluence and pick Help → User Guide from the menu. That's the canonical reference, updated alongside the app itself. It covers every panel, every clip type, every mapping mode, plus the full keyboard shortcut list.
This page is the high-level orientation: the few concepts and conventions that make the rest of the guide click into place.
Key concepts
Composition
A Fluence project is a composition. It contains layers, layer groups, an arrangement timeline, a global effect chain, transforms, and output settings. Compositions save as JSON and travel with their bindings, automation, and presets.
Layers and slots
Each layer holds a row of clip slots. One slot per layer can be active at a time. Layers composite top to bottom, so the top layer draws over the layers below it. Layers can be grouped, and groups have their own opacity, blend mode, and effect chain.
Clips
A clip is what fills a slot: a shader, a video, a generator, a live capture, an image, or anything from the clip library. Each clip has its own parameters, transform, opacity, and effect chain.
Two views, one composition
The same composition has two views. The Layer Deck is the live grid for triggering clips during a performance. The Arrangement is a timeline-based view of the same layers as tracks, where you drag clips, scrub a playhead, and prepare a set in advance. Switch with the tab at the top of the deck panel.
Bindings
A binding connects an input source (a key, a MIDI Note / CC / Pitch Bend, or an OSC address) to a target inside the composition. Targets cover transport, layer controls, clip triggers, and any effect or parameter. One source can fan out to many targets.
Authoring documentation
Fluence ships with a full reference set for people who build content, installed alongside the app (in the install folder on Windows, inside the app bundle on macOS):
- Shader authoring: the complete reference. ISF anatomy, every metadata field and input type, grouped parameters, multi-pass rendering, frame-delay buffers, built-in uniforms, mouse input, delta-time speed handling, browser categories, and Shadertoy import.
- Mesh shaders: vertex and geometry stages, instancing, PBR materials, and model loading.
- Transitions: the transition contract and how to ship your own.
- Plugins: the plugin manifest, runtimes, and the shared-memory frame protocol.
- Control API: the full protocol and MCP tool reference for scripting Fluence or driving it from an AI agent.
The in-app Help (Help → User Guide) covers the same ground from the performer's side.
Where Fluence keeps things
By default, your project files and assets live under your Documents folder:
Documents/Fluence/Shaders/for.isf,.fs, and Shadertoy.jsonfiles. Drop new shaders here and refresh the browser to load them.Documents/Fluence/Snapshots/for PNGs from the snapshot tool.Documents/Fluence/Presets/for saved parameter, effect, and clip presets.
Bindings are stored in your OS user config directory and persist across sessions.
Quick start
- Install Fluence. Launch it.
- Open the Browser panel and switch to the Sources tab.
- Drag any source onto a clip slot in the Layer Deck.
- Click the slot to activate it. The clip starts rendering in the Viewport.
- Adjust parameters in the right-hand panel.
- Drag more sources onto other slots and click between them to switch.
From there, the in-app User Guide will walk you through layers, mappings, automation, output, and everything else. No tutorial videos required to get started.
Have a question that isn't covered in the in-app guide? Email [email protected].