Board tab
Where things start, where they land, and the pictures behind and in front of them. Set this up once at the beginning; you will rarely come back.
The tab has one button, Add element, and under it the stack of stage elements. Everything about the board itself, how many sources and pots there are, the switches, the grid, the background colour and one row per pot, sits inside the Board card of that stack. So the card grows or shrinks with the journey, and nothing about the board is left lying around it.
[board_01 - The Board tab open, full panel, 410 px wide, from the Add element button down. The stack has four rows: a "reel house" element card, element 0, the Board card open with Source count, Target count, Columns, Rows, its switches, the grid and background settings and the pot rows inside, and a locked "game screen" element card at the bottom. No highlights, this is the overview picture.]
Sources
Source count - how many of the source points are live, from 1 up to however many the grid has (fifteen on the usual 5 x 3, up to forty with Columns and Rows below). The readout beside it says 4 of 15. Only a live source is drawn on the stage, takes a coin from Launch All and flies; the others are parked. Coins journey only: a win line always reads the whole reel window, and the Atmospheric and Flow journeys have no sources.
4 or 6, to judge a heavy trail with a few coins in the air instead of all of them. The sources that stay are spread over the board rather than bunched in one row: 4 gives the middle and three corners, 5 the middle and all four corners, and every step up only adds a source, it never moves one.
Nothing is lost. A parked source keeps its coin and its position, so going back to every source brings everything back exactly as it was. If the source you had selected gets parked, the selection jumps to the nearest live one, and it comes back to your source as soon as that one is live again. The count is saved with your session file like the pot positions, and never goes into the export: which symbols pay is the game's decision.
Columns and Rows (the row under the counts) - the shape of the source grid: 1 to 8 columns and 1 to 5 rows, so up to 40 sources. The Rows readout says how many that makes, for example 3 (15 sources). In Win lines the grid is the reel window: Columns is the number of reels, and every win line gets one node per reel, up to eight.
6 x 4 to match a game with six reels and four rows. In Coins, 8 x 5 to see what a big win with forty coins does to the frame rate.
Changing either one lays the sources out again in an even grid, so a source you had dragged into place goes back to its new default spot. Coins keep their row and column where that row and column still exist, and so does the source you selected: a shape without it moves the selection to the nearest source, and a shape that has it again gives it back. Set the shape first, then drag. Older sessions open on the 5 x 3 they were saved on.
[board_05 - The stage only with Columns 8 and Rows 5: forty source points, each with its launch number (1 to 5 down the first column, 36 to 40 down the last), and the three pots above. About 1200 px wide.]
Targets
Target count - how many pots are on the board, from 1 to 8.
Three is the usual setup: one pot per coin colour. Each pot you add gets its own colour and position box at the bottom of the Board card.
Lowering the number hides the extra pots and their settings. Raise it again and they come back as they were.
Colour / X / Y (one row per pot, at the bottom of the Board card) - the pot colour and its exact position on the 1920 x 1080 stage.
Type numbers here when you need a pot in exactly the same place as in the real game. Otherwise just drag it on the stage.
Pot colour only colours the round target circle. It does not colour the trails - that is a separate setting on the Trails tab.
Moving things around
Source points, pots and the pictures you add as stage elements are dragged directly on the stage, but only while the Board tab is open. That is on purpose, so you cannot nudge your layout by accident while tuning an effect.
- Drag a source point - it moves in 10 px steps. Only live sources can be dragged; a parked one (see Source count) waits where it was.
- Click a source point - selects it (a bright teal ring over its coin) and puts a coin of the Selected coin target on it. Launch Selected fires this one.
- Shift + click several source points - they get a blue ring; dragging any one of them moves the whole group, keeping their spacing.
- Click empty stage - clears the selection.
- Drag a pot - it follows the grid settings in the Board card below.
- Drag a stage element - a picture that is not locked moves with the same grid settings. Tap it to select it, pull a corner square to scale it, nudge it with the arrow keys. All of that is under Stage elements below.
[board_02 - The stage only, showing three source points selected with blue rings mid-drag, and the grid overlay on. Arrow showing the drag direction. About 1200 px wide.]
Stage elements
A stage element is a picture, or a PNG sequence, placed on the stage to design against: a screenshot of the real game, the reel house cut out with transparency, a vignette, an animated character. They replaced the old Background image and Top image fields, and they do more: you can have up to twelve, in any order, moved, scaled, blended and animated. Like everything else on this tab they are a design aid. They are saved in your session file, pictures included, and never reach the export.
Add element (image or PNG sequence) - opens a file picker. One file is a still picture; several files at once are an animation, played in file name order and looping. The new element lands on top of everything, at its own pixel size, in the middle of the stage, and its card appears at the top of the stack.
Your game screenshot first. A full 1920 x 1080 picture covers the stage and arrives locked, so drag its card to the bottom of the stack, below the Board card, and it is the backing. Then the reel house PNG, dragged to sit just above the Board card.
The readout beside the heading counts the elements; the button greys out at twelve. A picture that is not 16:9 is neither cropped nor stretched when it arrives. The Fit row on its card decides that.
The stack
Under the button sits one list of cards, front-most first, like the layers panel of an image editor. Two rows are always there and never leave:
- Element 0, the dark row with a white 0: the effect you are designing. It says what draws there (the coin flights, the win line, the atmospheric system, the flow field) and, in the Atmospheric and Flow journeys, the Depth you set on the Paths tab. It is the one row you cannot drag; everything else moves around it.
- The Board card: the grid, the source points, the pots and the coins resting on them, as one element. Its body holds what the board itself shows (next section). Drag it above element 0 and the board draws over the flights.
Every picture you add is a card of its own, and where a card sits in the list is where its picture draws:
- Above both element 0 and the Board card: over everything. A vignette, a frame, a logo that must never be covered.
- Between them: over the board, under the effect. This is where the reel house belongs, so coins fly over it while the symbols sit behind it. In the Atmospheric and Flow journeys the Paths tab's Depth can send the system Behind these pictures, or Split a flow so only its far items pass behind.
- Below both: under everything. The game screenshot.
To move a card, press its header anywhere that is not a button or the name, and drag up or down. The card dims and a line shows where it will land; let go and the stage follows at once. A press without a move just selects the element.
The list is the truth. If you are not sure what draws over what, read the stack top to bottom: that is the order on the stage, front to back.
The Board card
Open it with the small triangle. It holds everything about the board itself: Source count and Target count at the top (see Sources and Targets above), then the switches that only change what you see while working, the grid, the background colour, and one row per pot at the bottom. None of it reaches the game.
Show source points - the small circles and the coins sitting on them. Only the live ones: a source parked by Source count is not drawn either way. In Coins every source shows a number: its place in the launch order, so 1 flies first and the highest number last (column by column, then row, while Random launch order is off). The pots show their own numbers too.
Show target circles - the big pot circles.
Turn both of these off for a clean look at the effect on its own.
Show grid overlay - draws the grid on top of the background colour and the pictures under the board. The grid runs out from the middle of the stage (960, 540), with a stronger line every fifth one, and the default board sits on those lines: the middle source on the centre, the sources 200 px apart, the pots in a row above them.
Separate from Snap to grid: this one only draws, it never changes where things land.
Snap to grid - pots and stage elements jump to the nearest grid cross while you drag them. The crosses are counted from the middle of the stage, so something snapped to the grid can always sit dead centre.
On, while you lay the board out. Off, for the last few pixels of fine placement.
Source points always move in 10 px steps whatever this says.
Grid size - how far apart the grid crosses are, in stage pixels.
40 px suits most boards. Use the symbol size of your real game if you know it.
Background colour - the flat colour behind everything, visible wherever no picture covers the stage. It starts on dark navy.
Pick the darkest colour of your game background. Glows read completely differently on dark red than on navy or black.
Background presets - six one-click colours. The first is the navy the tool starts on, the second the dark red of older versions.
An element card
[board_04 - One element card, expanded, panel width 410 px: the header with the thumbnail, the name, Hide, Lock, the duplicate and remove buttons, then the Image, Position (with the Fit row), Transform (folded) and Look groups. Numbered callouts: 1 = Hide, 2 = Lock, 3 = the Fit row.]
The header shows a thumbnail of the picture and its name (click the name to change it; it is only for you), then four buttons:
Hide - takes the picture off the stage without removing it. It stays in the saved session and is left out of a render while hidden.
Hide the screenshot for a moment to judge a glow on the flat colour, then bring it back. Isolate BG in the panel header hides every element at once.
Lock - the picture cannot be grabbed, moved or scaled on the stage. Its card still works, and it still draws.
Lock anything that covers the whole stage, or every click meant for a source point or a pot lands on the picture instead. A picture that covers the stage arrives locked for exactly this reason.
Duplicate (the two-squares button) and Remove (the cross) - a copy of the element with all its settings, placed just above the original; and gone for good.
Remove does not ask. Undo in the header brings the element back, picture and all, while the page stays open.
Open the card for four groups:
Image - the picture itself. Replace image(s) swaps it for another file, or a set of files for an animation; Playback and FPS work as in the image sequence controls. A sequence starts on Loop, because scenery keeps going.
There is no Start frame or Frames choice here: those are per particle, and a picture on the stage is one thing. An animated element runs on the board's own clock, so Pause and Speed apply to it but Scrub does not move it, and a render starts it at its first frame.
Position - X and Y say where the picture's pivot sits, in stage pixels. Under them the Fit row: Cover stage scales the picture up from its centre until it fills the stage, cropping what lies beyond 16:9 (what a backing screenshot wants); Stretch to stage makes it exactly 1920 x 1080 (a full-screen reel house PNG); Actual size undoes any scaling and rotation; Centre moves it to the middle and leaves its size alone.
Drag the picture on the stage instead of typing; the numbers follow. Type when the game gives you exact coordinates.
Stretch to stage distorts a picture that is not 16:9. Use Cover stage for photos and screenshots.
Transform - the same group every layer has: scale, aspect, rotation, pivot and mirroring, explained once in Controls you meet everywhere. Here it turns, mirrors and scales the picture you design against. Pulling a corner square on the stage changes the scale slider for you.
Look - Opacity and Blend mode (Normal, Add, Screen, Multiply). There is deliberately no tint: a tint multiplies, and it would wreck a photo or a reel house.
A vignette above everything on Multiply at 60% opacity. A glow plate under the board on Add.
On the stage
- Tap a picture to select it: its card opens, and an outline with four corner squares appears around it.
- Drag it to move it. Snap to grid applies, like the pots.
- Pull a corner square to scale it about its pivot.
- Arrow keys nudge the selected element by 1 px, 10 px with Shift, as long as the Board tab is open and no box has the keyboard.
- Source points and pots always win over a picture that sits below the board. A picture above the board that is not locked takes the click instead, so lock it once it is in place.
Older files
A session saved before stage elements existed, with a background image and a top image, opens with both as locked elements: the background at the bottom of the stack fitted with Cover stage, the top image just above the Board card stretched to the stage, pixel for pixel where they were. Nothing to press. The next Save Settings writes the new shape.
[board_03 - Side by side, two stage-only pictures at about 600 px each: left = flat dark background with a blue trail and its sparks, right = the same trail over an uploaded slot game screenshot. Caption bar under each: "flat colour" and "uploaded screenshot".]
Judging a glow on a busy background is hard. Use Isolate BG in the panel header to flip to plain black for a moment - it hides every stage element without deleting anything, and your background colour is untouched.
In the Atmospheric and Flow journeys there are no sources, pots or coins to place, so the Board tab shows the stage elements only, and the Board card is just the grid. That is where the reel house goes for weather behind the reels, or the lamp a genie's smoke wraps around: see the Atmospheric journey and the Flow journey.