Gotchas

The handful of "why is nothing happening?" moments that catch almost everyone — and the one-line fix for each.

Most surprises in DNA aren't bugs. They're the graph doing exactly what you wired it to do. Here are the common ones, each as symptom → why → fix.

My simulation isn't moving

Symptom. You add a particle, cloth, or hair sim and everything sits frozen.

Why. A simulation only advances while time is playing. Paused, it holds the current frame — it doesn't step forward. Scrubbing the timeline doesn't help either: a sim moves forward one frame at a time, so jumping around won't make it evolve.

Fix. Press play. Let it run from the start so the sim builds up. If you need a sim to keep ticking even while paused (for live work), set its Cook badge to Always.

A sim that should stay warm during a live set — or anything sending signals out to lights or other apps — wants the Always Cook badge. See Cook policy.

My field shows nothing (or won't export)

Symptom. You built a noise or distance field and there's nothing to see, or a node downstream complains it wanted an image.

Why. A field is a formula, not a picture — it can hand back a colour at any point but it has no pixels yet. DNA turns a field into an image (it bakes it) automatically when something actually needs pixels, but until then it's just maths.

Fix. Feed it into something that needs an image — a display, a paint effect, or an export — and DNA bakes it for you. Most of the time this just happens. See Fields and Rasters (images).

A node shows nothing on screen

Symptom. A node is wired up and looks fine, but the viewport is empty.

Why. Usually one of two things. Either the node is Bypassed (switched off, so it passes its input straight through and does nothing), or nothing downstream is actually looking at it — DNA only cooks what's being shown, so a node feeding into a dead end never runs.

Fix. Check the node isn't bypassed. Then make sure its result reaches the viewport, an open panel, or a pinned panel. If it's a dead branch, wire it through to where you can see it. See The graph & cooking.

"Out of scope" is the same idea: if a node's output isn't reaching anything that's being displayed, DNA simply doesn't bother cooking it. Make it visible and it springs to life.

Mesh nodes do nothing on my points

Symptom. You scatter some points, then a node that builds or modifies a surface seems to ignore them.

Why. Loose points are just positions in space — they have no surface, no faces, no edges. A node that operates on a mesh has nothing to grab onto.

Fix. Give the points a surface first (copy geometry onto them, or build a mesh from them), or use a node meant for points. See Points and Geometry (meshes).

My image goes soft when I scale it up

Symptom. A logo or photo looks crisp small, but blurry once you blow it up.

Why. An image holds a fixed number of pixels. Stretch it bigger than it was captured and DNA has to invent the in-between pixels — there's no hidden detail to reveal. (Shrinking is always clean.)

Fix. Keep things procedural for as long as you can — shapes, analytic shapes, noise and fields stay razor-sharp at any size. Only turn something into an image when you genuinely need pixels, and bake it at the size you'll actually use. See Rasters (images).

If a blocky look is what you're after (pixel art), switch the image's smoothing to Nearest so it snaps to whole pixels instead of blending. See Rasters (images).

See also