Glossary

Hydra and triode terms

• Chain: A composable sequence of generators/transforms that compiles to shader/passes.
• Output (o0, o1, ... ): Render target pipeline endpoint.
• Source (s0, s1, ... ): Input texture/media slots.
• Continuous mode: Live eval mode that keeps one runtime instance and reconciles edits.
• Restart mode: Live eval mode that rebuilds runtime state on each eval.
• Global mode: Helpers installed on global scope (osc, stage, etc.).
• Non-global mode: API accessed via triode.synth namespace.
• Stage: triode helper that creates a scene and can apply camera/lights/world/render presets.
• Scene graph: Hierarchical object model used for 3D composition.
• Render-to-texture: Rendering a chain/scene into a texture for reuse (.tex()).
• Material bridge: Converting chain output into a material (.basic(), .lambert(), .phong(), .texMat()).
• Auto clear / accumulation: Clear behavior controlling trail/fade persistence between frames.
• Runtime modules: Namespaced helper APIs such as geom, mat, tex, compose, random.