Vector layers and glyphs

#Artwork

Add a Vector from + Add Layer with the Vector tile. The Particles tile makes a Vector too, already turned into a still hex lattice of particles. A layer's type is fixed once added, so a Vector stays a Vector: to swap it for a photo, delete it and add a Media layer.

What artwork can be

The artwork buttons are the same before and after a Vector has artwork: Upload SVG, + Generate SVG, + Add glyph, + Add string, + Add data and + Recipe. Each one adds a new object:

• SVG: an uploaded vector file, such as a logo or icon. Scripts and event handlers are stripped on the way in, and the artwork is trimmed to its own edges so it centres on the layer.
• Generated SVG: a shape described in a sentence and drawn for you (see Generate SVG).
• Glyph: a character from the Glyph library, a set of 146 symbols (stars, arrows, currency, maths, card suits, check marks, weather and more), drawn in the design system's font.
• String: your own text. The row takes plain words or live expressions in curly brackets, such as a number that counts up (see Live text). The Aa thumbnail opens the type settings: font, weight, italic, tracking and case. Its search reaches every Google Font, not only the brand and popular fonts listed.
• Data: a CSV or JSON file (up to 5 MB, as a file, a drop or a paste) that becomes a string cycling through the values, one per frame.

You can also drop an SVG straight onto the canvas: it becomes a new Vector layer where you dropped it.

The stack and the master

Every object sits in a stack under the artwork, one row each. A row's tile is the object as the particles show it, in its own colour, outline and turn. The first row is the master, marked with a star. With particles off, the master is what the canvas shows. The other rows come into play when the layer runs particles: each shown object is dealt across the particle field, so one layer can show a logo, a star and a price at once, on different particles.

• Click a row to select it. Picking a glyph in the library then edits that row and keeps its animation values.
• The star button makes a row the master.
• The eye shows or hides an object, the master too, and the canvas follows at once. A hidden row is dimmed and no particle shows it. With the master hidden, the next shown object is what the canvas shows; with every object hidden, the layer shows nothing.
• The trash deletes an object. Deleting the master makes the next row the master; deleting the last one leaves the Vector empty, ready for new artwork. On a Vector filled with media, the last object is the shape the media fills, so remove the media first.
• Hiding, showing and deleting are one undo step each.
• Upload SVG makes the new SVG the master and moves the old one down the stack, still On.
• With the layer's pose link on across linked States (see Link), everything in this panel is shared by those States: the artwork, the master's and every object's values, each object's eye and the particle settings. Each State keeps its own colours.

Colour and outline

Each row has a round colour swatch that opens an eyedropper; right-click resets it. The master's swatch sets the layer colour, and the other rows use it until you give them their own. Recolouring reaches the fills inside an SVG too. With SVG artwork, the master row has Outline only, which removes the fill and draws the outline in the layer colour. A single character master also gets Convert to outlines, which traces the character into an SVG.

Size the whole layer with Scale in Position and fit. Each row also has its own Scale (see Glyph slots).

#Generate SVG

Generate SVG draws vector artwork from a sentence. Type a description and press Generate (or Enter). The result is a true SVG with a transparent background, cleaned and centred exactly like an uploaded file, and it lands in the master row, keeping that row's settings. Generating uses credits, and you are only charged when a generation succeeds.

Where to find it

Click + Generate SVG in the Vector's artwork buttons. The Generate SVG panel opens under the artwork with the prompt ready to type in, and the button hides while the panel is there. The panel's Close button takes it away again; nothing on the layer changes when it closes. A layer that already has the panel keeps it.

The Shape card's SVG tab has a Generate SVG button too. It uses the same generator, but it shapes the particle formation rather than the layer's artwork (see Particle shapes).

Writing a good prompt

Describe one simple subject and its style: "a flat icon of a coffee cup with steam, bold outlines", "a minimal line drawing of a mountain range". Flat, bold subjects make clean shapes and good particle sources. Detailed scenes make busy files.

After it lands

The SVG behaves like any uploaded artwork: recolour it with the row's swatch, switch it to Outline only, scale, rotate, fade, replace or remove it. There is no path editing in Wildfield, so if you need a different shape, change the prompt and generate again.

#Glyph slots

Each row in the stack has its own sliders. They decide how that entry is drawn and, once the layer runs particles, which particles it lands on. The master row has only Scale, Rotate and Opacity, and its Rotate and Opacity act on the whole layer. Every other row adds Count, Index and Spread.

Look: Scale, Rotate, Opacity

Scale runs from 0 to 100% on the slider; click the value to type up to 1000%. 0% hides the entry. Rotate turns the glyph from -180° to 180° around its own centre. Opacity fades it from invisible to solid.

On rows other than the master, these three can carry a time offset. Click the value to open its editor, where the offset sits beside the number. An offset staggers the value across the copies, so glyphs grow, spin or fade one after another instead of all at once. Offsets are loop-safe: they wrap cleanly in a Perfect loop. A value with an offset shows in the accent colour, with a button to clear it.

Placement: Count, Index, Spread

These three deal the row across the particle field, so they need the particles on: add Count to the layer first (see Count).

• Count is how many particles show this row. 0 means auto: an even share of whatever the other rows leave. It can never exceed the layer's Count.
• Index pins the row to a particle by its number. 0 means automatic placement. With Count 1 and Index 7, the glyph appears once, on particle 7. Click the value for Random hop, which jumps the glyph from particle to particle each loop.
• Spread sets how far apart the row's copies sit along the particle order, from 0% (neighbouring particles) to 100% (evenly across the whole field). The same Count, Index and Spread always deal the same particles, so a layout never reshuffles between previews and export.

Strings spell along the run

Give a string row an Index or a Spread and it spells itself across its particles: the first copy shows the first letter, the next the second, repeating the phrase when Count is longer than the text. At Spread 0% the word reads across neighbouring particles, so it holds together inside the formation. At 100% its letters scatter evenly through the field. A string row with neither, or with a live expression, keeps the whole phrase on each copy.

Worked example

A 9:16 sale ad where the word SALE is spelled through a field of stars.

1. Add a Vector with a star glyph as the master, then add Count and set it to 300.
2. Press + Add string and type SALE.
3. On the string row, set Count to 4 and Spread to 0%, and give it an Index near the middle of the field.
4. The four letters now sit on four neighbouring particles and travel with the formation. Add Motion and the word ripples with the stars.
5. Give the star row a Scale time offset, so the stars pulse one after another around the steady word.

#Media fill

The Media slot is the Vector's Mask component: add it from + Add Component (it sits under Layout), since the shape masks the picture. Put a picture or a video in it and the Vector becomes a window: the shape stays, but instead of a flat colour it shows the media. With particles on, the media shows through every particle as it moves.

The slot has Cloud and Local buttons and a drop area. Picking from the Library or generating an image fills it too. The slot stays dimmed until the Vector has a shape, since there is nothing to fill yet: add a glyph, an SVG or a string first.

A filled Vector is still a Vector. Its card, its components and its particles all stay as they were, and its pose does not move. Its Mask card holds the Media and Fill sections. The slot's remove button takes the media out in one undo step and leaves a plain Vector; closing the Mask card does the same.

This replaces the old way of masking a media layer by its own vector, and it is the simplest way to get text or a logo filled with a picture. To show a separate Media or Gradient layer through a Vector instead, use Mask with a vector.

#Fill

The Fill section appears once the Vector has media in its slot, and it sets how the picture meets the shape.

• Shared image (the default) shows the picture once, full size behind the shape. The shape, or every particle, is a window onto part of it, so as particles move they reveal different parts of the same picture.
• Per particle puts a whole, small copy of the picture inside each glyph or particle. On a video, it needs the first frame as a still.
• Invert flips the window: the picture shows everywhere except the shape, which becomes a cut-out. The Shared image or Per particle choice is hidden while Invert is on.
• Feather softens the cut edge, from 0 to 40 px. Click the label to reset it to 0. It is hidden in Per particle, where there is no single edge to soften.

Worked example

A 1:1 ad for a photo printing service, where a gallery of thumbnails forms the brand's logo.

1. Add a Particles layer, then use Draw to trace the brand's logo SVG, so the particles form the logo (see Particle shapes).
2. Drop a customer photo into the Media slot.
3. In Fill, choose Per particle. Every particle now carries a tiny copy of the photo, and together they draw the logo.
4. Switch to Shared image to compare: the particles become windows onto one big photo.
5. For the end card, a second Vector with the headline and Invert on, with Feather at 8 px, cuts soft-edged letters out of a full-frame picture.