# Liquid Metal

Chrome · aberration

Molten chrome is a mirror that won't hold still. Liquid Metal turns the bright parts of your picture into a raised, flowing metal surface and lets it reflect a room, a sky or your own picture.

## Controls

### Metal

- **Height** (hero knob, 0 to 100, rests at 55). The hero. How tall the relief stands. Low is a shallow emboss, high is deep, rolling chrome.
- **Smooth** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 50). How soft the forms are. Low keeps detail and sharp creases, high melts everything into round blobs.
- **Ripple** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 40). Waves running across the surface. They also wobble the picture behind.
- **Flow** (Select: 1× / 2× / Still). How fast the ripples move. Once a loop, twice a loop, or Still.
- **Drip** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 0). The metal sags and runs downward from the bright parts.
- **Splash** (Pulse button). Press it and a ring runs out from the middle, like a drop landing in the metal.

### Surface

- **Surface** (Select: Hammered / Brushed / Pitted). The finish. **Hammered** is dimpled, **Brushed** is fine streaks, **Pitted** is scattered pocks.
- **Texture** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 0). How deep the finish goes.

### Light

- **Reflects** (Select: Studio / Sky / Sunset / Neon / Picture). What the metal reflects. Studio is soft lights in a gray room, Sky is a clear day with a sun glint, Sunset is purple into orange, Neon is a dark room of magenta and cyan strips, and Picture is your own picture.
- **Highlight** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 0). A sharp hot spot where a light catches the metal.
- **Light angle** (Knob, 0° to 360°, rests at 45°). Which way that light comes from, around the full circle.

### Finish

- **Aberration** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 50). Color fringes along the curves, red on one side and blue on the other.
- **Mask** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 15). How bright the picture must be to turn to metal. Raise it and only the highlights become metal.
- **Tint** (Select: Chrome / Gold / Oil slick / Copper). The metal. Chrome, Gold, Oil slick for a rainbow sheen that follows the curves and moves through the loop, or Copper for a hot copper orange.
- **Rim** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 0). Darkens the steep sides, so each form gets a dark outline.
- **Background** (Knob, 0 to 100, rests at 12). How much of the picture shows where there's no metal. At zero it's black.

## Presets

- **Hammered Gold**: Beaten gold with a warm highlight.
- **Brushed Steel**: Brushed metal reflecting a clear sky.
- **Neon Chrome**: Chrome in a dark room of neon strips.
- **Mirror World**: The metal reflects the picture itself.
- **Molten Drip**: Metal sagging and running, flowing twice a loop.