madphase documentation
reference
The complete documentation for madphase. Find workspace guides, effects, animation, live inputs, and every control.
Workspace & projects
Overview
madphase is a media compositor for images and video. Combine layers and effects, animate controls, and export stills or video.
Workspace
Layers sets the order. The Effect Panel edits your selection. The canvas shows the result.
Projects
A .mphase project keeps your layers, media, masks, animation, and project settings together.
Canvas
The canvas is the large composition preview in the centre of the workspace. Its lower edge contains zoom, fit and on-canvas handle controls; the timeline sits below it in Video and Live modes.
Layers
Layers combine media and effects in order. Each layer can have its own visibility, blending, opacity, and mask.
Effect Panel
Select a layer to edit its controls. Open a section for more options, or use Advanced controls where available.
AI Credits and Setup
Set up your account, manage AI credits and review generation activity. Generation tools live in the GenAI effects category.
Build a composition
Masking
A mask controls which parts of a layer are visible. Each layer or group can have one mask folder.
Portal Layers
Portal Input captures the composition at one point in the stack. Portal Output composites that saved result later in the stack.
Assets and Stock Media
Keep reusable media in Assets, or browse Stock Media to find source material for a project.
Presets
Save a look once and reuse it. Presets can contain one layer, a group, or a full stack.
Colors and Palettes
Use shared palettes to keep color consistent across effects. Gradient Map gives you an editable color ramp.
Example Projects
Open a bundled example from the Welcome screen to explore an editable stack. Save creates your own copy.
Add motion & sound
Animation
Video mode plays your composition over time. Animate controls, place video clips, and add effects that use previous frames.
Keyframes
A keyframe saves a value at a specific time. Add two or more and madphase interpolates between them.
Animation Parameters
Set the length and timing of your animation in the canvas footer.
Motion and Modulators
Add reusable motion from a parameter’s function menu. Select its timeline region to edit it.
Audio and Audio Drivers
Use a soundtrack or live input to drive controls. Open Audio from the right toolbar to choose the source.
Work live
Live Performance
Live loops your animation while using fresh audio and video inputs. Play and Pause control the performance clock and attached live audio capture.
External Inputs
Use MIDI controllers or local OSC messages to control parameters, layer visibility, and playback. Live mode adds continuous input regions; Still uses direct assignments; Video supports playback control.
Canvas Output
Present the Live composition in a separate window or send it to another app as a virtual camera.
AI Control and Integrations
Connect a local AI client to inspect and edit madphase through MCP. The editor must stay open.
Finish & troubleshoot
Export
Export a still image or render the timeline as a video or GIF.
Preview and Performance
Lower preview quality while editing heavy stacks. Still export renders at full quality.
Settings and Account
Open Settings to change appearance, playback, AI setup, and your account.
Workflow Tips
Small workflow details that are easy to miss and useful every day.
Getting help
Send bugs, how-to questions, account help, or feature requests directly from madphase. Replies arrive by email. You can also contact [email protected].
Effects & layer tools
3D Scenes
Add 3D shapes, text, SVGs, or models to your composition. A 3D scene blends with the stack like any other layer.
Primitive
Build the stack from concrete layers: imported media, text, vector shapes, paint strokes, and editable 3D primitives.
GenAI
Create, edit, extend, and generate media with madphase AI credits, then treat the result like any other layer.
Layer
Layer-level finishing tools for borders, shadows, glows, blur, grain, edge extraction, and direct pixel operations.
Image Adjustments
Find colour and tone controls, LUT grading and gradient remapping tools in madphase.
Transform
Geometric tools for moving, resizing, cropping, changing resolution, and turning flat pixels into lit 3D surfaces.
Select & Mask
Selection, matte, and masking tools that isolate subjects, keyed colours, luminance ranges, or hand-built regions.
Texture & Pattern
Procedural patterns, print textures, pixel treatments, paint looks, and digital grids for building tactile surface character.
Optics
Light, lens, display, and highlight effects for bloom, flare, bokeh, scanlines, VHS/CRT looks, and relighting.
Distortion
Coordinate warps that bend, smear, refract, tile, liquify, or re-map the image geometry without just recolouring pixels.
Material
Physical-surface effects for glass, damage, organic growth, liquid fields, and other tactile image treatments.
Glitch
Signal, scanline, spectral, audio-domain, and byte-damage effects for controlled image corruption and digital breakup.
Particle
Deterministic GPU particle renderers for scattering pixels, field-driven grains, cymatic sand, stipple maps, and emitters.
Temporal
Animation-only effects that use previous frames and history buffers for echoes, trails, feedback, smears, and persistence.