FX groups
A group is a slot on the FX chain that holds its own stack of layers. Instead of each layer landing straight on the picture, the group renders its layers into a buffer off to the side, then composites that finished buffer back onto the chain in one move - with a single amount, a single blend mode, and a single audio mapping.
That one indirection is what makes the interesting compositing possible: you can build an image that never touches the video, then decide how it meets the video. A group is also what turns an effect stack into a mask.
You can have up to two groups on a chain - Group 1 and Group 2.
Building a group
Groups sit in the chain rail alongside ordinary layers and behave like them: they occupy a numbered slot, drag to reorder, and can be bypassed.
- Nest a layer by dragging it onto the group row.
- Reorder inside the group by dragging its layers; they run top to bottom, exactly like the main chain.
- Move a layer out by dragging it back onto the chain, or straight into the other group.
- Dissolve the group with the button on the group row. The group disappears and its layers stay on the chain.
Selecting the group row opens the group panel, which is split into two sections: Stack (what happens inside the buffer) and Output (how the buffer meets the chain).
Stack
Start decides what the group's layers begin from:
| Start | The group's first layer sees |
|---|---|
| Black | An empty frame. The group is a pure generator - nothing of the video gets in unless a layer puts it there. Grid Room, Fill Layer, Shape Layer, and Pattern are typical here. |
| Clip | The raw playset clip, before the main chain touched it. Good for a second, differently-treated copy of the same footage. |
| Group 2 | The other group's finished buffer, so you can chain one group into the next. Only offered when a second group exists. |
| Chain | Nothing separate at all - the group's layers run inline on the main chain. This is the default for a new group. |
Chain is the odd one out: there is no buffer, so there is nothing to composite and the whole Output section disappears. In that mode a group is just a folder that keeps a chain tidy. Pick Black, Clip, or the other group the moment you want a group that composites.
Mix is the blend mode used inside the buffer - how each generated layer stacks onto the one before it. It defaults to Add, which is why a stack of glow-ish generators inside a group piles up into light. Layers inside a group always stack at full strength; each layer's own Amount already controls how strong it is.
Output
Output is the group's own audio-aware control, with the same Base / Audio depth / Trigger model as any other layer (see Audio bands & triggers). It answers one question: how much of this buffer reaches the chain, right now?
- Amount - the mix, resting at 0.65 on a new group. Map a band to it and the whole group breathes as a unit.
- Blend mode - the six standard blend modes, plus a seventh that only exists here: Mask. Picking Mask turns the group's buffer into a stencil and reveals its own set of controls, covered in Masks.
An output can be muted, in which case the panel offers to unmute it. A muted group still renders - you just can't see it on the chain.
Solo and the buffer preview
The group panel shows a live thumbnail of what the group is rendering on its own, independent of how it is being composited. Tap it to solo the group: the canvas shows the raw buffer instead of the finished chain. It is the fastest way to find out whether a group looks wrong or is merely being blended into invisibility.
Solo is a monitoring tool, not a scene state. Tap it again before you go back to performing.
Feedback inside a group
Drop a Feedback layer into a group and the group feeds back on itself rather than on the main chain: its buffer is recirculated through its own stack each frame. Trails, smears, and recursive builds then stay contained inside the group, and the Output amount decides how much of that runaway reaches the picture - which is usually the difference between a controlled bloom and a white-out.
Where to go next
- Blend modes - what Blend, Diff, Add, Mult, Layer, and Overlay actually do to the image.
- Masks - the seventh mode, and every other way to cut a hole in the frame.
- FX layers - the layers you put inside a group.