The 3D geometry family — meshes, materials, deformers, topology, lights, and cameras — and how a surface chain is built.

Surface operators build and render 3D geometry inside the node graph. They pass a Surface payload between them: geometry, materials, and lights travelling together down the chain.

Press Tab in the node graph and open the Surfaces tab.

The minimum chain

Two nodes:

Primitive ──► Output

A surface operator wired straight into the Output node renders itself. No camera and no light are required — Auragen supplies a default orbit camera and a key light when the chain carries none.

The full shape of a surface chain is:

Mesh or Primitive → Material → Deformers → Lights → Environment → Camera → Output

Every step after the first is optional.

Add a Camera and the geometry must reach the Output node through it, because the camera outputs a texture. A camera also broadcasts its pose to every other 3D render in the patch, so adding one changes what Hologram, Particles, and SDF chains see.

How deformers attach

Deformers and topology operators declare a Surface in and a Surface out, but they do not process the geometry where they sit. The mesh gathers them by walking forward from its own output.

The practical consequence: a deformer can hang off a mesh as a dead-end branch and still apply. It does not have to sit on the path to the Output node.

A wire has to land on a main chain input to count. Side ports — Origin Object, cloth Colliders, a camera's Target — are ignored by that walk on purpose.

Geometry

Operator	Inputs	What it does	Key parameters
Primitive	Material, Origin Object	Ten parametric shapes: sphere, box, plane, torus, cylinder, cone, capsule, torus knot, disc, ring.	Shape, Radius or Width/Height/Depth, Subdivisions
Mesh	Material, Origin Object	Loads an OBJ, FBX, or GLB, with embedded animation playback.	3D Model, Fit to Unit Size, Animation Clip
Image Plane	Image, Material	Turns a texture into an aspect-correct plane in 3D, unlit by default.	Blend Mode, Size, Lit
Extrude	Vectorizer In, Material	Turns a Vectorizer's paths into a real extruded mesh.	Depth, Bevel, Curve Segments
3D Graph	Material	Rebuilds the node graph itself as extruded geometry.	Extrusion Depth, Wire Radius
Reflector	Origin Object	A planar mirror that re-renders the scene from a mirrored camera.	Width, Reflection Quality, Tint
Kinect Mesh	Kinect Source, Mask, Material	Triangulates a live Kinect depth stream into a coloured mesh.	Mesh Resolution Scale, Depth Scale
Merge	Surface 1, 2, …	Combines any number of branches into one payload and applies a group transform.	Position X/Y/Z, Uniform Scale
Null	Surface 1, 2, …	A transform group. It publishes its frame even with nothing wired, so it works as an invisible parent.	Position X/Y/Z, Rotate Heading, Uniform Scale

Point any operator's Origin Object port at a Null to parent it. Nulls nest.

Materials

Material applies PBR shading to everything flowing through it. It has texture inputs for Diffuse Color, Roughness, Metallic, Normal, AO, Emissive, and Specular, plus a Mapping slot.

Glass Material does physically-based transmission with real refraction, dispersion, and absorption. Key parameters: IOR, Transmission, Aberration. Glass reads correctly without an Environment operator because a built-in studio environment is applied when the chain carries none.

Mapping has no inputs. It chooses how a material's maps project onto geometry — UV, planar, cubic, spherical, normal, perspective, or equirectangular — and plugs into a material's Mapping slot.

Material and Mapping slots only accept the right operator. A Material, Glass Material, or SDF Material can fill a Material port; only Mapping can fill a Mapping port. Everything else will not connect, on purpose.

Put a Material after a Merge to style every branch at once, or before it to style branches separately.

Deformers

Every deformer carries a shared Field block — Field, Field Shape, Field Size, Falloff, Invert Field, Field Follows Mouse — plus a Field Image input, which limits where it acts.

Field is off by default. Cull is defined by its field region, so it does almost nothing until you turn Field on.

Operator	What it does	Key parameters
Transform Deformer	A rigid move, rotate, and scale of the vertices.	Move X/Y/Z, Rotate Heading, Uniform Scale
Noise Displace	Displaces along normals by animated 3D noise.	Amount, Scale, Speed
Texture Displace	Displaces by a wired texture's luminance.	Amount
Curl Noise	Divergence-free swirling displacement.	Amount, Scale, Speed
Turbulence	Fractal turbulent displacement.	Amount, Scale, Speed
3D Plasma	Spiky animated plasma displacement.	Amplitude, Frequency, Spikiness
Twist / Bend / Taper / Shear	Progressive rotation, arc, cross-section scaling, and skew about the operator axis.	Twist, Bend, Taper, Shear X/Z
Wave / Ripple	Animated sine ripple across the surface.	Amount, Frequency, Speed
Ripple (Expanding)	A radial ripple travelling outward with distance decay.	Amplitude, Speed, Distance Decay
Sine	Single-axis sine displacement.	Amount, Frequency, Speed
Ocean Wave	Gerstner ocean swell with choppiness.	Amplitude, Wavelength, Choppiness
Inflate / Spherify / Bulge	Push along normals, blend toward a sphere, radial bulge or pinch.	Inflate, Amount, Radius
Flatten (Plain) / Push	Collapse toward a plane, or push along a fixed direction.	Amount, Plane Height, Direction X/Y/Z
Quantize	Snaps vertices to a 3D grid, with smoothing.	Grid Step, Smoothing
Distortion / Glitch	Banded, time-quantized glitch displacement.	Amount, Band Scale, Time Quantize
Bevel	Rounds box-like corners. It adds no topology, so it only helps box-shaped meshes.	Box Size, Bevel Radius, Amount
Mirror	Folds the domain across an axis. Expect a shading seam at the fold.	Mirror Axis
Slice	Cuts the mesh into periodic bands.	Slice Axis, Period, Slice Width
Cull	Collapses geometry outside or inside the field region.	Boundary Inset, Field
Colour Ramp	Writes vertex colours from a gradient driven by height, distance, or noise.	Drive By, Cycles, Interpolation
Particle Deformer	Live particles dent or attract the mesh.	Strength, Radius, Mode
Audio (FFT)	Displaces by a chosen frequency band's live level.	Band, Gain, Amplitude
Cloth Deformer	A real cloth solver. The only deformer that carries state.	Simulate, Gravity, Pin Mode

Force Affector is a chainable force field — directional, repel, attract, vortex, turbulence, or wind. It does nothing on its own; wire it into a Cloth Deformer's Force Affectors input.

Topology

Operator	What it does	Key parameters
Subdivide	Adds resolution.	Levels
Smooth	Laplacian relaxation of vertex positions.	Iterations, Strength
Decimate	Reduces triangle count.	Reduce Amount
Extrude Faces	Insets and extrudes faces, optionally at random and in clusters.	Offset, Inset, Random Extrude
Separate Faces	Detaches each face and moves it independently.	Offset, Face Contraction
Wireframe	Turns every edge into a tube and every vertex into an optional joint.	Edge Width, Show Joints, Hide Flat Edges
Flip Polygons	Reverses winding and normals. It has no field or transform block.	—

Lighting

Operator	What it does	Key parameters
Light	A point light appended to the chain.	Intensity, Range, Cast Shadows
Directional Light	A sun-style infinite light aimed by a direction vector.	Direction X/Y/Z, Intensity, Cast Shadows
Area Light	A rectangular area light with an image gobo that also shows on the visible panel.	Width / Height, Brightness, Projection Map Amount
Environment	Sets image-based lighting from an HDRI, a wired image, or the built-in studio setup, plus an optional skybox.	Source, Env Intensity, Show Skybox, Sun Rotation X/Y/Z

A new Light spawns at the world centre, which is inside a centred mesh. Move it out before deciding it does nothing.

Environment casts a sun shadow of its own. Sun Rotation X / Y / Z aim that sun in degrees, which is easier than editing the Sun Direction vector by hand, and it moves the shadow without turning the sky. The three controls appear once Cast Shadows is on. Sky shadows default much softer than a direct light's, because a sky is a large soft source rather than a point.

Cameras

Camera renders the accumulated payload to a texture and outputs Output and Depth. It has Target and Focus Target inputs and a depth-of-field block. Key parameters: Mode, Distance, FOV.

UV Camera draws the mesh's UV unwrap filled with the material's base colour map. It bypasses deformers and lights. Key parameters: Zoom, Flip Vertical.

Troubleshooting

A deformer does nothing. Check that its wire lands on the main Surface input, not on Origin Object or another side port — side ports are ignored by the modifier walk. Then check whether the effect needs Field turned on.

A deformer does nothing on a loaded model — deformers and the Material operator do not apply to rigged or animated model meshes. Only a trailing run of Transform Deformers is folded in.

Merged branches sit inside each other — give each branch its own Position before the Merge.

Two different Opacity controls — Image Plane and Material each have their own, and neither is the node's universal composite opacity.

Surface operators build and render 3D geometry inside the node graph. They pass a Surface payload between them: geometry, materials, and lights travelling together down the chain.

Press Tab in the node graph and open the Surfaces tab.

The minimum chain

Two nodes:

Primitive ──► Output

A surface operator wired straight into the Output node renders itself. No camera and no light are required — Auragen supplies a default orbit camera and a key light when the chain carries none.

The full shape of a surface chain is:

Mesh or Primitive → Material → Deformers → Lights → Environment → Camera → Output

Every step after the first is optional.

How deformers attach

Deformers and topology operators declare a Surface in and a Surface out, but they do not process the geometry where they sit. The mesh gathers them by walking forward from its own output.

The practical consequence: a deformer can hang off a mesh as a dead-end branch and still apply. It does not have to sit on the path to the Output node.

A wire has to land on a main chain input to count. Side ports — Origin Object, cloth Colliders, a camera's Target — are ignored by that walk on purpose.

Geometry

Operator	Inputs	What it does	Key parameters
Primitive	Material, Origin Object	Ten parametric shapes: sphere, box, plane, torus, cylinder, cone, capsule, torus knot, disc, ring.	Shape, Radius or Width/Height/Depth, Subdivisions
Mesh	Material, Origin Object	Loads an OBJ, FBX, or GLB, with embedded animation playback.	3D Model, Fit to Unit Size, Animation Clip
Image Plane	Image, Material	Turns a texture into an aspect-correct plane in 3D, unlit by default.	Blend Mode, Size, Lit
Extrude	Vectorizer In, Material	Turns a Vectorizer's paths into a real extruded mesh.	Depth, Bevel, Curve Segments
3D Graph	Material	Rebuilds the node graph itself as extruded geometry.	Extrusion Depth, Wire Radius
Reflector	Origin Object	A planar mirror that re-renders the scene from a mirrored camera.	Width, Reflection Quality, Tint
Kinect Mesh	Kinect Source, Mask, Material	Triangulates a live Kinect depth stream into a coloured mesh.	Mesh Resolution Scale, Depth Scale
Merge	Surface 1, 2, …	Combines any number of branches into one payload and applies a group transform.	Position X/Y/Z, Uniform Scale
Null	Surface 1, 2, …	A transform group. It publishes its frame even with nothing wired, so it works as an invisible parent.	Position X/Y/Z, Rotate Heading, Uniform Scale

Point any operator's Origin Object port at a Null to parent it. Nulls nest.

Materials

Put a Material after a Merge to style every branch at once, or before it to style branches separately.

Deformers

Field is off by default. Cull is defined by its field region, so it does almost nothing until you turn Field on.

Operator	What it does	Key parameters
Transform Deformer	A rigid move, rotate, and scale of the vertices.	Move X/Y/Z, Rotate Heading, Uniform Scale
Noise Displace	Displaces along normals by animated 3D noise.	Amount, Scale, Speed
Texture Displace	Displaces by a wired texture's luminance.	Amount
Curl Noise	Divergence-free swirling displacement.	Amount, Scale, Speed
Turbulence	Fractal turbulent displacement.	Amount, Scale, Speed
3D Plasma	Spiky animated plasma displacement.	Amplitude, Frequency, Spikiness
Twist / Bend / Taper / Shear	Progressive rotation, arc, cross-section scaling, and skew about the operator axis.	Twist, Bend, Taper, Shear X/Z
Wave / Ripple	Animated sine ripple across the surface.	Amount, Frequency, Speed
Ripple (Expanding)	A radial ripple travelling outward with distance decay.	Amplitude, Speed, Distance Decay
Sine	Single-axis sine displacement.	Amount, Frequency, Speed
Ocean Wave	Gerstner ocean swell with choppiness.	Amplitude, Wavelength, Choppiness
Inflate / Spherify / Bulge	Push along normals, blend toward a sphere, radial bulge or pinch.	Inflate, Amount, Radius
Flatten (Plain) / Push	Collapse toward a plane, or push along a fixed direction.	Amount, Plane Height, Direction X/Y/Z
Quantize	Snaps vertices to a 3D grid, with smoothing.	Grid Step, Smoothing
Distortion / Glitch	Banded, time-quantized glitch displacement.	Amount, Band Scale, Time Quantize
Bevel	Rounds box-like corners. It adds no topology, so it only helps box-shaped meshes.	Box Size, Bevel Radius, Amount
Mirror	Folds the domain across an axis. Expect a shading seam at the fold.	Mirror Axis
Slice	Cuts the mesh into periodic bands.	Slice Axis, Period, Slice Width
Cull	Collapses geometry outside or inside the field region.	Boundary Inset, Field
Colour Ramp	Writes vertex colours from a gradient driven by height, distance, or noise.	Drive By, Cycles, Interpolation
Particle Deformer	Live particles dent or attract the mesh.	Strength, Radius, Mode
Audio (FFT)	Displaces by a chosen frequency band's live level.	Band, Gain, Amplitude
Cloth Deformer	A real cloth solver. The only deformer that carries state.	Simulate, Gravity, Pin Mode

Force Affector is a chainable force field — directional, repel, attract, vortex, turbulence, or wind. It does nothing on its own; wire it into a Cloth Deformer's Force Affectors input.

Topology

Operator	What it does	Key parameters
Subdivide	Adds resolution.	Levels
Smooth	Laplacian relaxation of vertex positions.	Iterations, Strength
Decimate	Reduces triangle count.	Reduce Amount
Extrude Faces	Insets and extrudes faces, optionally at random and in clusters.	Offset, Inset, Random Extrude
Separate Faces	Detaches each face and moves it independently.	Offset, Face Contraction
Wireframe	Turns every edge into a tube and every vertex into an optional joint.	Edge Width, Show Joints, Hide Flat Edges
Flip Polygons	Reverses winding and normals. It has no field or transform block.	—

Lighting

Operator	What it does	Key parameters
Light	A point light appended to the chain.	Intensity, Range, Cast Shadows
Directional Light	A sun-style infinite light aimed by a direction vector.	Direction X/Y/Z, Intensity, Cast Shadows
Area Light	A rectangular area light with an image gobo that also shows on the visible panel.	Width / Height, Brightness, Projection Map Amount
Environment	Sets image-based lighting from an HDRI, a wired image, or the built-in studio setup, plus an optional skybox.	Source, Env Intensity, Show Skybox, Sun Rotation X/Y/Z

A new Light spawns at the world centre, which is inside a centred mesh. Move it out before deciding it does nothing.

Cameras

UV Camera draws the mesh's UV unwrap filled with the material's base colour map. It bypasses deformers and lights. Key parameters: Zoom, Flip Vertical.

Troubleshooting

A deformer does nothing on a loaded model — deformers and the Material operator do not apply to rigged or animated model meshes. Only a trailing run of Transform Deformers is folded in.

Merged branches sit inside each other — give each branch its own Position before the Merge.

Two different Opacity controls — Image Plane and Material each have their own, and neither is the node's universal composite opacity.

Surfaces

The minimum chain

How deformers attach

Geometry

Materials

Deformers

Topology

Lighting

Cameras

Troubleshooting

SDF

Particles

Cloners

Output Node

On this page

Surfaces

The minimum chain

How deformers attach

Geometry

Materials

Deformers

Topology

Lighting

Cameras

Troubleshooting

SDF

Particles

Cloners

Output Node

On this page