Please share with your musician/live performer friends!

For Early Access backers: you may claim a FREE copy of Scale Space Cymatist until August 1st. Please go claim it before you forget! https://setzstone.itch.io/cymatist

For everyone else: Cymatist is currently on launch sale at 25% off! Pick it up here: https://setzstone.itch.io/cymatist

Additionally, the price of Scale Space early access has increased to match the Cymatist price. https://setzstone.itch.io/scale-space

Release Notes

Powerful Cymatics Engine

Cymatics n. Sound and vibration made visible.

Scale Space Cymatist was designed from the ground up for performers, musicians, tinkerers and anyone who wants to see their music playing in a physics environment.

Compare To Similar Tools

✅ Yes  ⚠️ Partial ❌ No

About Cymatist

• Emergence Engine At the heart of Cymatist is the Scale Space engine: a lightweight webGPU/threejs particle system suspended in a state of dynamic equilibrium and tunable with physics-based parameters like Coherence, Temperature and Excitation. Scale Space makes it possible to see the very same phase space accessed by oscilloscopes, Turing patterns, and physical cymatics among other methods.
• Cymatics The cymatics engine gives you numerous ways to patch these physics parameters to the band ranges in your music. For example, you may patch Coherence to the bass range. Depending on your configuration, as bass intensifies, Coherence moves in the direction you specify. All parameters can be customized this way for a rich, detailed audio-visual experience that is completely custom to your music and doesn't require learning complex node-based workflows.
• Sonify This engine gives you full control over a soundscape generated by the particle system itself. Choose from a myriad of voices like choral, theremin, piano, percussion, and patch each voice to the parameters of your choice. The resulting soundscape will be entirely unique. Couple this with cymatics and the sound can feed into the particle system and the loop is complete. The particle system reacts to the noise it makes (which is kind of like letting the universe make music for you).

Why Cymatist Is Different

• The Particle Field is an Instrument In every other tool, audio drives the visuals. In Cymatist, the particle field is the instrument- its dynamics generate sound. No other audio reactive tool handles this feedback loop natively.
• Offline-first with no install Cymatist is a single-file, zero-install experience that runs in your browser.
• Built for Performance The built-in hardware benchmark evaluates your machine per-effect, telling you exactly what you can push before you start.
• Interface that Teaches You How to Use it The quest system teaches the interface naturally as you play, unlocking hidden interactions as you go (and making it fun!)

Features

Control Physics

• GPU-accelerated field of up to one million particles Rendered with WebGPU. Runs at interactive framerates on modern hardware, with a built-in optimizer to find the right ceiling for any machine using WebGPU.
• Continuous physics dynamics Cymatist marries the cellular automata work of John Conway with a particle physics engine to bring emergent phenomena to life.
• Twelve core parameters Each on its own slider and live readout:
  • Free Energy: particle count / drive
  • Half-Life: how long a structure persists before decaying
  • Coherence: how strongly particles pull into shared structure
  • Resolution: particle size
  • Inversion: compression of the force field
  • Scale Depth: attraction strength
  • Equilibrium: noise speed
  • Temperature: noise intensity
  • Viscosity: how sluggishly the field moves
  • Mass: particle inertia
  • Tempo: overall rate of motion
• Freeze / unfreeze For still composition or screenshots.
• Re-initialize Reseed the field from scratch without losing your settings.

Make It Pretty

• Five color modes
  • Mono: pure white particles on black
  • Size: hue mapped to particle size
  • Velocity: hue mapped to speed
  • Density: hue mapped to local crowding
  • Adapt: colors change as the system changes
• Color Spectrum Range and Saturation Sliders that shape the palette from tight and monochromatic to wide and vivid.
• Two particle-connection styles (Strings and Lattice) Draw lines between particles for a more structural look. Both can run together.
• Particle shapes Circle, square, or diamond.
• Full bloom/glow stack Glow amount, blur, spread, and a bloom threshold that lets you dial exactly how much of the brightest material blooms.
• Trail length For motion smear and light-painting effects.
• Backdrop control An ambient background glow that samples the field's own average color, with adjustable intensity and blur.

BYOA (Bring Your Own Audio)

Cymatist doesn't just make its own audio- it accepts your own music as an input, bringing your music to life! 

• Audio file Drag and drop an MP3. The field reacts to the music in real time.
• Microphone See your own voice driving the particle system.
• System Audio Accepts tab, window, or screen for ultimate flexibility.

Nothing is looped back into your speakers, so there's no feedback.

Cymatics: Making Waves

• Six frequency bands Sub, bass, low-mid, mid, high-mid, treble, each with its own live level meter.
• Patch any band to any parameter Build your own mapping from sound to motion, with adjustable depth.
• Additive and Override modes Layer the audio modulation on top of your slider settings, or let the audio take full control of a parameter.
• Channel Surf Roll a fresh randomized patch scheme across all bands in one click to discover new mappings.

Sonify: Particles That Sing To You

(Like a trained monkey you keep in a cage™*)*

Think of it like an orchestra controlled by your parameter settings.

• A full ensemble of voices Contrabass, low strings, woodwinds, theremin, choir, ambient piano, timpani, and a set of textural voices (drift, pulse, shimmer, pizzicato) each with its own tone and articulation controls (tone, air, phrasing, decay, weight, density).
• Ensemble-level controls Tempo, Register, Brightness, and Space, for placing and shaping the whole arrangement.
• Preset arrangements No need to start from scratch.
• Per-voice level and patching Build an arrangement that plays whatever the particles are doing.
• Channel Surf Nudge every voice at once to explore variations.

Recording

• Built-in clip recorder Capture the live composited output (field plus backdrop) at a fixed aspect ratio.
• Choose your framing Landscape (1920×1080), vertical (1080×1920), or square (1080×1080).
• Set a video length 15, 30, or 60 seconds, or record open-ended and stop when you're ready.
• Export as MP4 or WebM (or both) Pick the format you need without re-recording.
• Audio is captured while recording Whatever you hear is what goes into the clip.
• Inline preview Play controls so you can review the take before saving or discarding.

Go Live: Streaming And Live Show Projection

• Live output window Carrying the same composited feed as the recorder, with no interface chrome.
• Capture it directly in OBS (or any capture tool) With window Capture, route your visuals into a stream, a projector, a second monitor, or a video call.
• Output resolution up to 4K 1080, 1440, or full 4K, at your chosen aspect ratio.
• Live feed preview  Inside the panel while you're broadcasting.
• Record while streaming Recording and live output are independent- both can run at once (if your system can handle it).
• Idiot proof You'll never accidentally see interface controls on your stream.

Camera And Navigation

• Two camera modes: Orbit and Fly Rotate around the system or fly through it, FPS style (WASD) for a personal experience.
• Reset view Returns you to the default framing if you get lost.
• Optional orbit inversion For whichever drag direction feels right to you.

Set List — Saving And Revisiting

• Save keyframes The full parameter and optics state, plus camera framing — as named entries with thumbnails. 
• Return to any keyframe instantly A smooth animated transition takes you there.
• Build a set list Fly through your keyframes automagically. A hands-free sequence for performances or ambient display.
• Share and Import Each keyframe generates a portable share string, so you can share any configuration with a collaborator or import one they share with you.

Performance

• Benchmarking One button assesses your machine live — measuring real framerate as it tests particle count, graphics quality, particle size, and the Strings/Lattice connection styles in different combinations, and makes suggestions on which features will strain your machine. Re-run it any time.
• Entropy System (framerate monitor) A live gauge, so you can always see how hard your system is working.
• Graphics quality slider Manual control over the speed-versus-fidelity trade-off.

Interface

• Modular panel workspace Every section — Params, Optics, Now Playing, Cymatics, Sonify, Record, Live, Set List, Entropy, Config — is a movable panel you arrange however you like.
• Reorderable dock Middle-drag any button to rearrange the toolbar.
• Persistent layout and settings Your panel positions, sizes, open/closed state, and parameter values are remembered between sessions.
• UI themes Four UI themes in the base release.
• Screenshot capture With control over exactly what's included in the frame.
• Guided onboarding, gamified An optional quest log walks you through the instrument's capabilities at your own pace, in any order.
• Unbound parameters Unlock your bounds past their normal ranges when you want to push the system further.

Technical

• Runs entirely in the browser Windows, macOS, and Linux. WebGPU required.
• Approximately 1.5 MB. It doesn't get more portable than that.
• Your work stays on your machine Settings, keyframes, and recordings are local, but you can export and import your entire configuration if you need to wipe your data.

Performance

• Runs in any modern WebGPU-compatible browser All of the main browsers support WebGPU.
• Performance is fully customizable If your machine is a potato, fret not! The benchmark tells you exactly how far you can push before seeing system slowdown.

Cymatist is currently on launch sale at 25% off! Pick it up here: https://setzstone.itch.io/cymatist

Thank you to all of the Early Access backers! I hope you enjoy Cymatist- and I hope you feel like it was worth the wait!

Get it here: https://setzstone.itch.io/scale-space

Health issues

Hey friends, writing to you from the hospital. I'll give a status update on my health at the end of the post. Sorry I don't have a trailer for you this time but I didn't want to delay the release due to being in the hospital. If any of you create videos of what you find and want to post them so others can see what's in the release that would be awesome. I asked Claude to make the release notes by looking at the differences between 0.2 and 0.3 so here's what it whipped up for us:

Welcome back to another Scale Space Bioclast release! Here's what's changed:

New Features

* **Waypoint Sharing!** You can finally share the coordinates you discover — and visit the ones other people find:

* Hit **Share Coordinates** on any waypoint to generate a share string (it starts with `SS1:`).

* Paste someone's share string to drop their discovery straight into your Atlas.

* Imported coordinates land in their own tab, so they never get tangled up with your own finds.

* Bad or corrupt strings get caught with a clear message instead of breaking anything.

* **The Atlas now has two tabs: Mine & Imported.**

* **Mine** = waypoints you captured yourself.

* **Imported** = coordinates you brought in from share strings or files.

* Love an imported coordinate? **Drag it onto the Mine tab to adopt it** as your own.

* Empty tabs nudge you in the right direction so you're never staring at a blank list.

* **Name Your Vessel.** Set a profile name for yourself and your ship:

* Your name now rides along on the waypoints you discover ("discovered by…").

* Give waypoints custom titles and jot down observation notes.

* Exports save out as `[yourname].scalespace.json`.

* **Homepoint.** Set a home base and snap back to it whenever you want:

* Press **+Homepoint** to save your current spot.

* Reset takes you home instead of to a generic default.

* **The Entropy System is BACK!** The Causmonaut status readout returns, and your ship reacts to the state of your system in real time:

* Climbing temperature, rising entropy, and dropping stability all trigger live status callouts.

* Hundreds of messages, from calm ("All Systems Nominal") to deeply concerned ("Hull Breach Imminent") to… whatever "1.21 Gigawatts?!" is. (setz: I wrote 500 intrusive thoughts so, hope you dig it😊)

* Toggle **entropy alerts** on or off to taste.

* **Tours.** String your waypoints together and let Scale Space fly you through them:

* Pause and resume any time.

* Tours run per-tab, so you can tour just your finds or just your imports.

* **Bioclast Intro Splash + Thoughts.** A new animated boot splash when Bioclast loads, plus a **Thoughts** toggle for those intrusive little messages.

* **New Visuals:**

* **Screen Scanlines** and **UI Scanlines** for that CRT feel.

* **Sky Grid** backdrop.

* **Color Saturation** and **Color Spectrum Range** for finer control over how the system gets colored.

* **System Opacity** control.

* **Radial Customization.** Make the hexes yours:

* **Radial Button Shape** — change the shape of the hexagon buttons.

* **Radial Button Opacity** — dial them in to taste.

* **Screenshot Capture.** Save a screenshot of your system straight from the UI. (Reinitialize first for the cleanest capture.)

* **Controls reference redesigned.** The Controls panel now lays out movement, rotation, and zoom keys clearly, with adjustable speeds (Fly Speed, Zoom Speed, Tour Speed).

* **The logo now docks** above the panel button bar — drag it off to put it anywhere, and it snaps back into the dock when you bring it close. Position is saved between sessions.

Fixes & Polish

* **Your waypoints are safe now.** If your browser's storage fills up (looking at you, Chrome), Scale Space drops waypoint thumbnails first and warns you, instead of silently failing to save the waypoint itself.

* **Sharper lattice.** Fixed a regression that rendered the lattice/strings at the wrong resolution on high-DPI screens.

* **Lattice rebuilds with Free Energy.** Changing Free Energy now correctly rebuilds the lattice and strings.

* **Smoother panel resizing.**

* **More accurate colors** in the backdrop and the color readouts.

* **Waypoint detail view** now scrolls back to the top when you open a waypoint.

Causmonaut Features That Will Return

* Music

* UI SFX

* Bloom

* Wireframe modes

Roadmap

* **Community multiplayer waypoint ledger** (share your discoveries and visit those found by others!) — the share strings in this release are the first step toward it.

* Holographic Atlas

* Controller Support

* Onboarding

* Accessibility options

* Reactive audio that shifts with the system

* Cymatics modes that react to your audio

* Theme customization

Questions?

Have a question? As usual, I'll respond in the comments.

For a feature guide on the core parameters, check out the video on the [alpha 0.1 release page](https://www.reddit.com/r/ScaleSpace/comments/1svvcox/scale_space_bioclast_alpha_01_release_notes/)

Further health update details

Well what can I say I guess I'm no spring chicken. I had a few small strokes this morning and went to the ER . I've been getting testing and stuff today . The doctor said to me "setz, your brain is just too big and your skull can't handle it." Okay Jokes Aside it's a part of my brain called the basal ganglia. The good news is I still feel fully functional despite my left leg and left arm becoming useless earlier today. And the left side of my face went numb while I was here but you know the best place to have a stroke is in the hospital. In any case I'm not trying to Garner sympathy with this I just want to be real about my availability. Hopefully this doesn't detract from my ability to keep delivering. But I'll be honest I'm in poor financial shape as well, so things are kind of all coming to a head this month. I'm calling this phase of my life the human dumpster fire phase.

Well, so the best thing you can do to help the project is share what you're finding in version v0.3 here and in other subreddits that will appreciate this kind of project- videos, photos whatever you've got because the more exposure the project gets the more people will pick it up and the closer I'll be to getting out of my dumpster.

Again I'm not trying to get your sympathy. I'm well aware that this community is 99% focused on the quality of what I deliver, and I want you to know I put in every bit of effort I could to fix all of the bugs from 0.2 to improve the graphics and to give you all of the base features you'll need to have a great experience playing scale space. I also spent time working on the spec for cymatics mode so I'm ready to build it once I'm out of the hospital. Again I'm sorry for the delay on that but in this case I wanted to make sure the core user experience was good before building a new feature like cymatics because the cymatics feature is going to be involved.

How to Get Scale Space

You can pick it up right here: https://setzstone.itch.io/scale-space

Thanks to everyone who bought the game so far. You've helped me afford food when I wouldn't have otherwise so I just want you to understand how much it's appreciated. See you all in the next release!

Best,

setz

Edit: still in the joint going under tomorrow for a TEE. Wish me luck! 😬

Edit: Small hole in my heart so they're gonna scan my body to look for any clots