Assets
Using assets in a piece
Attach assets to a prompt, or drop them on the stage, and Perlin builds them into the piece.
Assets come into a piece in two ways. Attach them to a prompt and Perlin builds the files themselves into the piece: your logo on the glass, your headline in your font, your model in the scene, your track playing. Or drag them onto the stage or the timeline, and they go over the piece as layers and sound clips straight away, with no request to Perlin.
Attaching assets to a prompt
The attach button (the paperclip, Add reference images, files or your assets) beside the prompt box opens a menu of three:
| Item | For |
|---|---|
| Upload reference images | For style and ideas: images Perlin looks at, not ones it puts in the piece |
| Upload files | PDFs, web pages, code: for Perlin to read |
| Choose from your assets | Logos, fonts, models: used in the piece |
Choose from your assets
Click the paperclip, then Choose from your assets. Your assets opens over the studio, with the same folders and filters as the library, and Upload for anything not in it yet.
Pick them
Click each asset you want, or shift-click to take a run of them. Anything you upload from here is picked for you.
Add them to the prompt
Click Add 2 to prompt (the number is how many you picked).
Say what to do with them
Tell Perlin where they go and what they do, then send: "my logo slowly turning in the middle, lit from behind", "the title in my font, letter by letter".
Other ways to attach an asset:
- Select it in the Assets panel and click Use in prompt.
- Open it in the viewer and click Use in prompt.
- Click Use in prompt on something you've generated, in the Generate assets panel.
- Drop a font, 3D model, sound or video file from your computer onto the studio. It's uploaded to your library and attached in one go.
In the prompt box, attached images and videos sit with the reference images, marked Asset or Video; fonts, models and sounds show as small labelled chips. The × on each takes it off. A message can carry up to 12 assets. Perlin is shown a copy of each attached image, and frames from across an attached video, while the message has room for pictures (6 in all, with any reference images); any others go to it by name.
Assets and reference images
An attached asset is there to appear in the piece, as the file itself. Perlin uses every one you attach unless your message says otherwise, and doesn't redraw a logo or imitate a font. A reference image is only for the look: its colours, light and texture.
If you'd like a video as a guide to the look rather than in the piece, say so: Perlin can take its look and movement from the frames and leave the video itself out.
Once a piece uses an asset, Perlin knows about it in later messages, so there's no need to attach it again.
How Perlin uses each kind
| Kind | In the piece |
|---|---|
| Images | Logos, sprites and pictures on surfaces at their own shape, or textures for materials |
| Fonts | Text set in the font. Extruded 3D lettering needs a TTF, OTF or WOFF file; a WOFF2 is drawn as flat text |
| 3D models | Placed in the scene, centred and scaled to fit, with their animations ready to play. 3D pieces only |
| Audio | Sound effects that play on events, or music and ambience on a loop |
| Video | Playing muted and on a loop, on a surface in a 3D scene or drawn into a 2D piece |
Shader pieces can't use assets in their code, so when assets are attached Perlin builds in 3D or 2D, and a model always means 3D. Assets that only go in a piece's layers and sound clips work over any engine, shaders included.
Browsers let a page play sound only after the person playing it has clicked, tapped or pressed a key, so a piece with music starts it from that first touch.
Dropping assets on the stage
On a desktop, drag a tile from the Assets panel onto the stage while a piece is on it. The stage shows what the drop will do:
| Kind | The stage says | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Image | "Drop to put it over the piece" | An image layer where you drop it. The Motion panel opens |
| Video | "Drop to play it over the piece" | A video layer where you drop it |
| Font | "Drop to add text in this font" | A text layer saying "Your headline", set in the font |
| Audio | "Drop to play it under the piece" | It plays from the start, round and round to the end, fading out at the end. The timeline opens |
| 3D model | "Drop to give it to Perlin" | It's added to your next message: tell Perlin where it goes |
Layers and sound clips are part of the piece's motion, kept with the version on stage. See Text, image and video layers and Sound clips.
Dropping assets on the timeline
With the Motion panel open, drag a tile onto the timeline's lanes instead. A line follows the pointer saying what goes in and when, as in "Add sound at 2.40s":
- Audio becomes a sound clip starting there.
- Video becomes a video layer from there, for the video's length.
- An image becomes an image layer from there.
- A font becomes a text layer from there.
3D models don't go on the timeline. You can also drop music, sounds, videos and images straight from your computer onto the lanes: they're uploaded to your library first ("Upload and add"), then placed where you dropped them.
Deleting an asset a piece uses
Deleting an asset is for good, and every piece that uses it loses it: yours, the ones you've shared and published, and remixes of them. The piece keeps running without it:
- an image becomes a plain grey stand-in
- a font falls back to a plain sans-serif
- a model leaves an empty space
- a sound or video doesn't play
A standalone HTML file you downloaded before deleting carries its own copy and keeps working. Renaming an asset or moving it to another folder changes nothing in the pieces that use it.
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