Parameter Surface

Parameter Surface turns several complete instrument states into a playable two-dimensional space. Each cell holds a preset or captured state. Moving the X/Y cursor blends the continuous synthesis controls of nearby cells and selects discrete controls from the nearest cell.

Parameter Surface is available in Ambi Encoder Stochastic, Ambi Encoder Wrangler, Ambi Encoder Water, Ambi Encoder Wind, Ambi Encoder Pyrosphere, Ambi Encoder Cryosphere, and Ambi Encoder Insect. Each provides a SURF page plus automatable SURFACE X and SURFACE Y host parameters. Processor No Input Mixer does not provide a Parameter Surface or preset interpolation; complete recalls replace and reseed its single regenerative engine directly.

Workflow

Choose or edit an instrument state, open SURF, and press ADD. The new cell captures the current base state.
Add at least one more cell. Select a cell and use its menu to assign a factory preset, or edit the instrument and press CAP to replace that cell with the current state.
In EDIT, drag cell markers to arrange the performance space. DEL removes the selected cell.
Turn the surface ON, switch to PLAY, and drag the crosshair. Record or draw SURFACE X and SURFACE Y automation for repeatable movement.
Press POP to move the live SURF view into an attached utility panel while the main editor returns to FIELD. Press POP in the panel or its close button to dismiss it.

A surface supports up to 24 cells. It remains bypassed until at least two cells exist. Cell positions, assignments, curve, focus, glide, enabled state, and cursor position are stored with the host project.

The display follows the visual language of s3g-mc Snapshot Surface: smoothly clipped Voronoi regions use a restrained color sequence, outlined boundaries, circular cell nodes, and distance-sensitive influence halos. Cell hue is stable identity, not an ordered parameter value; see Interpreting Color. In PLAY with the surface enabled, participating toolbox sliders and menus visibly follow the effective interpolated state as the cursor moves; EDIT returns those controls to the base state used for capture.

The macOS POP panel is another view of the same surface, not a copy. Cell edits, play/edit mode, cursor movement, host automation, and interpolated toolbox feedback remain synchronized with the main editor. The panel follows the plugin window and is automatically hidden or destroyed with the CLAP GUI.

The Stochastic and Wrangler examples below show detached, synchronized SURF panels with six populated cells. The Water example shows the same shared SURF page inside the full encoder, where the surface remains visible alongside the instrument context.

Detached Ambi Encoder Stochastic SURF panel with six cells in an asymmetric diagonal Voronoi layout and the performance cursor — Ambi Encoder Stochastic with an asymmetric diagonal six-cell `SURF` layout in its detached, synchronized panel.

Detached Ambi Encoder Wrangler SURF panel with six cells in a ring-like Voronoi layout and the performance cursor — Ambi Encoder Wrangler with a ring-like six-cell `SURF` layout in its detached, synchronized panel.

Full Ambi Encoder Water interface showing six cells in a river-like asymmetric Voronoi layout and the surrounding encoder controls — Ambi Encoder Water showing a river-like asymmetric six-cell `SURF` layout inside the full encoder.

Interpolation Rules

Every active cell contributes according to its distance from the cursor. CURVE reshapes those normalized contributions: SOFT keeps more neighboring cells present, LINEAR preserves the direct distance weights, SMOOTH eases toward the dominant cell, and TIGHT makes the strongest cell take over more decisively. FOCUS changes the distance exponent: lower values create broad mixtures; higher values concentrate the result around nearby cells. Landing exactly on a cell recalls its continuous values exactly.

GLIDE sets temporal settling independently of the spatial blend. Its shared steps run from OFF through 2 seconds, and the displayed duration is the approximate time to settle 99% of the way to a new target. The automated or dragged X/Y position becomes a target (the diamond marker); the active crosshair glides toward it and drives the interpolated toolbox values. Sliders therefore move through intermediate values instead of adopting the target blend in one GUI frame.

Topology menus and other discrete controls still select a definite nearest cell—there is no meaningful fractional menu value—but the switch is made by the active gliding cursor rather than the target cursor. When that boundary is crossed, encoder topology geometry receives a second continuous transition: Stochastic morphs its internal topology graph before rebuilding neighborhood relationships; Wrangler glides its generated point targets; Water and Cryosphere crossfade their regime and environment fields; Wind and Pyrosphere crossfade their material or fuel fields; and Insect crossfades regime, call-type, habitat, and population changes. Shortest-path azimuth movement is used in the final ambisonic coordinate path. A topology name may change decisively while its field geometry and audio position continue moving smoothly.

VOICES remains an integer nearest-cell readout, but changing population is not a threshold event. Each potential lane receives a distance-weighted membership gain from the cells that contain it. Shared low-numbered lanes stay present, while surplus lanes fade into or out of both synthesis and the field drawing; output normalization follows the resulting fractional population. A point disappears only when its audible membership has reached silence.

Parameter kind	Surface behavior
Continuous synthesis controls	Distance-weighted interpolation across all cells.
Angles	Shortest-path circular interpolation, avoiding a long sweep through zero at the ±180° boundary.
Menus, toggles, counts, and other discrete controls	Value from the nearest cell.
`VOICES` population	Integer nearest-cell display with continuous per-lane membership for audio, drawing, and output normalization.
Final audition and routing	Remain live outside the surface so performance level and output format do not jump between cells.

Across these encoder instruments, OUT and ORDER are never interpolated. Wrangler's Listener controls also remain live so its auditory score is not replaced by the surface; Stochastic, Water, Wind, Pyrosphere, Cryosphere, and Insect store their listener selection with each cell and interpolate listener amount as part of the generator state. Pyrosphere and Cryosphere additionally interpolate PACE, OCCUPANCY, CASCADE, MEMORY, and REST, allowing a SURF gesture to move continuously between different event dramaturgies as well as different materials. Wrangler interpolates continuous per-voice curves while nearest-cell selection governs stepped curve modes.

Automation and Transport

SURFACE X and SURFACE Y use a normalized 0…1 range and appear under the host module Parameter Surface. They can be controlled by track envelopes, automation items, modulation, or any other host mechanism that writes ordinary CLAP parameters. The DSP evaluates automated cursor changes at their event position; the visual crosshair follows the current host-visible values.

The cells are the score and X/Y is the performance. Automating X/Y is therefore portable within the saved plugin state without creating a second internal sequencer or competing with the DAW transport.

Presets and State

A cell can reference a factory preset by name and index, but it also stores a complete parameter snapshot. This keeps the sound stable if a factory collection is reordered later. CAP stores the current base controls, not an already interpolated result, so repeatedly capturing a surface does not bake one interpolation into another.

RANDOM is an explicit whole-scene action. It bypasses an enabled surface so the newly generated base scene is immediately audible, but it does not delete or rewrite any cells. Turn the surface back ON to resume the saved map.

Portable single-preset files describe one instrument state; the complete multi-cell surface belongs to plugin/project state.