Customize the visuals

Everything you see —and everything you export— lives in Medussa > Settings… > Scene. It's a single page with a row of icons at the top that jumps to each section: first the frame (Main, Camera Frame, Chords, Appearance Profiles) and then the layers, from back to front (Keys, Visualizer Background, Floor, Sustain Pedal, Waterfall, Particles, Curves / Plexus, Water Waves).

Set up the look while playing a passage that has soft notes, loud notes and chords. That way you can check how the effects respond to different moments in the music.

Start with an appearance profile

A profile is a complete look: the presets for each visualizer, which layers are on, the background, the floor, the scene glow and the color split between the hands. It's the fastest way to change everything at once.

1. Open Settings > Scene > Appearance Profiles.
2. Pick one of the twelve Built-in cards —from understated ones like Concert Hall or Paper to showier ones like Neon or Aurora— and look at the result on screen.
3. Then fine-tune whatever details you want in each section.
4. Click Save Current Look… and type a name.
5. To bring it back, select it under My Profiles.

Medussa always opens with the profile named Medussa: it's the look the app starts with and the one every new session gets, so you never start out on "Custom".

You can switch between the Thumbnails and List views. On one of your own profiles, Replace with Current Look updates it and Delete removes it; built-in profiles can't be replaced or deleted. Import… adds a profile you received as a file.

Save a single layer as a preset

Each layer section has its own preset bar at the top. A preset saves that layer —and only that layer—, so you can combine, for example, your particles with another profile's waterfall.

1. Set up the layer the way you like.
2. Click the save button on its bar and type a name.
3. To apply a different one, choose it in the picker: Built-in at the top, Mine below.
4. The checkmark shows the preset that matches your current settings; if you change any control, the picker switches to Custom.

The bar's menu has Rename…, Delete, Export…, Import… and Reveal Presets Folder. The dice button makes up a random look within ranges chosen so the result is watchable: it's a starting point, not an accident.

Show the layers you need

1. Go to Visualizer.
2. Turn each layer on or off from the button bar above the visualizer, from the View menu, or from the switch at the top of its section in Settings. They all control the same setting.
3. Play and watch the combination.
4. Save the session once you have a setup you want to keep.

Layers can be combined. If the scene looks too busy, temporarily turn some off so you can adjust each one on its own.

Tell the hands apart

With split hands, the left hand is drawn in its own colors on the keyboard and in the waterfall.

1. Open Settings > Scene > Main and turn on Tell the hands apart.
2. In Keys, choose the Key while sounding for each column: the left one and the right one.
3. In Waterfall, choose Fill, Border and While sounding for each hand.
4. Play a two-handed passage and check the contrast.

The column sets the hand, not the row name. With the switch off, the left column dims and is renamed Both hands: everything is drawn in the right hand's colors, and the left hand's colors are kept for when you turn it back on.

What you play live always uses the right hand's colors. The distinction applies to the piece's notes, which are split when you import or in the editor.

Set up the keyboard

1. Open Settings > Scene > Keys.
2. Choose the colors for the white and black keys and the Key while sounding.
3. Adjust Black Key Height %, the height of the black keys as a fraction of the white ones.
4. Leave Auto-fit to Window on, or turn it off to set the key width yourself.
5. If you work in Practice, also adjust the Guide Key Color, the Match Key Color and the Match Tolerance.
6. Check the result at the window size and aspect ratio you're going to use.

The three relief opacities

Three independent controls decide how much relief each key has:

The divider has its own control because it separates the keys instead of shading them: it doesn't depend on shadows or highlights being on. Shadows and highlights, on the other hand, are turned on with Show Shadows and Show Highlights.

Note names and velocity transparency

In the same section you can turn on Show Note Names, choose whether they're printed on every key or only on the Cs, and adjust their color and opacity.

Velocity Transparency makes softer notes look more transparent. Adjust its minimum and maximum so the notes you need to follow don't disappear.

Make the waterfall easier to read

1. Open Settings > Scene > Waterfall and make sure Enable Waterfall is on: the settings below only take effect while it is.
2. Adjust the note fill, border and border thickness.
3. Turn on Highlight Sounding Notes if you want to see the moment each note reaches the keyboard.
4. With Bar Width Matches Key, decide whether each bar is as wide as its key or as narrow as the black keys.
5. Adjust the Layer Opacity and then the note, fill and border opacities.
6. If you turn on Waterfall Glow, adjust its color, size and intensity.
7. Play a dense passage to check that you can tell the notes apart.

Layer Opacity dims notes and glow together, without changing the balance between them. Waterfall Glow is independent of the particle and connection glow, and also of the Scene Glow (HDR).

To see more or fewer bars at once, hold Cmd and turn the scroll wheel over the visualizer.

Set up the sustain pedal

1. Open Settings > Scene > Sustain Pedal.
2. Turn on Show Pedal Indicator and choose its colors at rest and pressed.
3. In Sustain Mode, choose whether a lit key goes dark when you release it or stays lit while the pedal is down.

This setting only changes what you see: the sound's sustain isn't affected in either mode.

Create a particle effect

1. Open Settings > Scene > Particles and turn on Enable Particles.
2. Choose a shape: circle, seed, sparkle, star, square or triangle.
3. Adjust size, speed and spread angle.
4. Adjust density and lifetime. A longer lifetime keeps more particles on screen at the same time.
5. Choose a single color or the color mode you prefer; use Edit Gradient… when it applies.
6. Adjust opacity and glow.
7. Turn on wind to steer the movement and turbulence to add variation.
8. Play single notes and chords to check both cases.

If too many particles pile up, lower density or lifetime first before raising other effects.

Draw curves and Plexus connections

1. Open Settings > Scene > Curves / Plexus and turn the layer on.
2. Play a passage with several notes: connections need nearby activity.
3. Adjust the maximum distance between elements that can connect.
4. Set color, thickness, opacity and lifetime.
5. Turn on Bézier Curves if you want curved strokes instead of straight ones.
6. Adjust the connections' own glow.
7. If you need a lighter view, lower the visual density, connection distance or update rate.

A very low distance value can leave few connections; a high one can form a web that's hard to read. This layer's glow is set separately from the particle glow.

Create waves that react to the music

1. Open Settings > Scene > Water Waves and turn the layer on.
2. Adjust color, number of layers, height and movement.
3. Turn on speed sync with the tempo if you want the movement tied to the piece.
4. Under the response to note hits, choose the direction and adjust the strength of the impulse.
5. Set up wind, glow and drops for the effect you're after.
6. Choose the Water Quality and play a passage to check smoothness and detail.

The water is drawn pixel by pixel on the GPU: quality doesn't cap the frame rate, it decides how much work each pixel does. The waves are a layer of their own; you don't need to show the particles to use them.

Turn on the scene glow (HDR, bloom)

The glow —bloom, which is what the export panel calls it— takes everything in the scene that's brighter than a threshold, blurs it and adds it back on top: light spills onto whatever is next to it, the way a camera would. It applies to the whole frame —keys, waterfall, water, particles— and looks the same in the video.

1. Open Settings > Scene > Main and turn on Scene Glow (HDR).
2. Adjust the Glow Threshold: at 1, only what's already saturated glows; as you lower it, things at half light start to glow.
3. Adjust the Glow Softness so things don't light up all at once when they cross the threshold.
4. Adjust the Glow Amount of light added back and its Glow Spread.
5. Play a loud passage and check that the notes are still readable.

When you export with an alpha channel, this glow can't travel inside the video: it comes out as a second file. See Export.

Add a background image or video

1. Open Settings > Scene > Visualizer Background.
2. Choose the Waterfall Background, the color of the area above the keyboard.
3. For the visualizer image or video, click Choose… and select the file.
4. Adjust the Visualizer Media Alpha to balance the image or video against the notes.
5. Play the piece to review the composition and the video's movement.
6. Use Clear to remove media you no longer want to show.

If you've loaded both an image and a video and the result isn't what you expected, clear the one you don't want to use. To move the project between computers, see how to keep its linked files.

Change the floor under the keyboard

1. Open Settings > Scene > Floor.
2. Choose the Floor Color and the Wood Border Color around the keyboard.
3. In the floor image picker, choose one of the included images or load your own. It's the same picker for both.
4. Adjust the Floor Image Alpha.
5. To work with color only, leave the picker without an image.

Show chord names

In Settings > Scene > Chords, turn the display on, choose the Chord Source and adjust position, size, font, color and shadow —with its color, opacity, distance, angle and blur—. Also decide whether the label should hold while the sustain pedal is down. You'll find the full walkthrough and the difference between detection and charts in Chords and charts.

Once the look is ready, continue with Export.