Capture
Stack successive frames over time into trails and echoes.
What it does
Capture stacks what flows through it over time. An image input builds a flipbook of recent frames for trails, echoes and time-smear. Animated geometry or points are baked instead: their motion across a frame range becomes a compact animation lookup that other nodes replay per instance, without re-running the original animation.
Two modes drive the image path. Realtime keeps a rolling buffer that fills as the timeline plays, sized by Buffer Size. Bake samples a fixed frame range once, offline, and holds the result, which suits a precise, repeatable capture rather than a live trail.
When to use it
Trail, echo, motion-smear or ghosting effects from live frames: Realtime.
A precise, repeatable capture of a fixed frame range: Bake.
Topology-stable animated geometry or a point cloud whose motion must replay on many instances (flocks, foliage, crowds) without re-simulating each one.
A scrub-and-reopen bake that survives file reload: turn on the disk cache.
| Parameter | Type | Default | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
image | Raster or Geometries or Primitives or Points | — | Image to capture each frame, topology-stable geometry/points to bake as a VAT, or a CRC path to anchor-bake |
capture_mode | String | "Realtime" | Realtime: live capture as timeline plays. Bake: offline sampling of frame range. One of: Realtime, Bake. |
buffer_size | Number | 64 | Number of frames to keep in rolling buffer |
capture_enabled | Boolean | true | Toggle frame capture on/off |
start_frame | Number | 0 | First frame to sample |
end_frame | Number | 100 | Last frame to sample |
frame_step | Number | 1 | Sample every N frames |
bake | Boolean | false | Start baking frames in background |
disk_cache | Boolean | false | Save the bake to disk and reload it on reopen (auto-invalidates on any upstream edit) |
cache_version | Number | 0 | Manual override — the bake already auto-invalidates on upstream edits; bump only to force a distinct bake when upstream is unchanged |
resolution | Number | 64 | Volume resolution: 64 = fast, 128 = balanced, 256 = high quality |
bounds_size | Number | 100 | World-space size of the volume bounds |
capture_source | String | "Input Only" | Input Only: capture raw input pixels. Canvas: render input with transform to canvas-sized frame (uses project Settings resolution). One of: Input Only, Canvas. |
vat_playback | String | "Live" | Live: instances animate, phase-offset. Frozen: static pose fan across instances. One of: Live, Frozen. |
Gotchas
Disk Cache saves a geometry, point or shape bake to disk so scrubbing or reopening the file does not force a re-bake. It re-keys automatically whenever anything upstream changes. Bump the cache version only to force a distinct bake deliberately.
Capture Source controls what is captured for image input. Input Only stores the raw incoming pixels. Canvas renders the input through its transform into a canvas-sized frame first, which bakes moving or rotating content into one fixed, aligned frame.
Geometry and point-cloud inputs need a stable topology, the same vertex or point count every frame. If the count changes frame to frame, the bake cannot be replayed correctly.
With geometry, points or a shape path wired in, Capture always bakes across the Bake-mode frame range and trigger, even when Capture Mode is set to Realtime. The Realtime rolling buffer applies to plain image input only.
Worked example
Add a Capture node and wire an image into it.
Leave Capture Mode on Realtime and turn on Capture Enabled to start filling the rolling buffer as the timeline plays.
Raise Buffer Size for a longer trail, lower it for a tighter echo.
Read the output as a frame sequence downstream: earlier frames give the trail, the newest frame is the current image.
For a precise, repeatable capture, switch Capture Mode to Bake, set Start Frame, End Frame and Frame Step, and fire the Bake trigger.