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.
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 they show up in the browser on next launch.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].