Help guide

Pulse Dispatch node

Updated June 21, 2026

Pulse Dispatch node

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One pulse in, one of N channels out per pulse. `strategy` picks the dispatch rule. Replaces the accumulator + counter + router triplet.

Type pulseDispatchCategory inputsContext sharedDynamic ports yesCompound yes

Inputs

PortTypeDescription
valuefloatContinuous signal that auto-accumulates to pulses at `threshold`. Wire ONE of `value` or `pulse`, not both.
pulsefloatPre-formed pulse signal — drives the selector directly, skipping the accumulator. Wire ONE of `value` or `pulse`, not both.
resetfloatHold high to reset the accumulator and selector to their initial state.

Outputs

PortTypeDescription
--No ports declared.

Parameters

ParameterTypeDefaultDescription
strategyenum"roundRobin"How channels are picked for each pulse. Round Robin = cycle 0,1,...,N-1 (rhythmic, predictable). Random = pick a random channel (organic, less mechanical). Sequential = fire channels 0..N-1 once then stop (one-shot reveals). options roundRobin, random, sequential
thresholdfloat0.07Accumulated `value` required to fire one pulse (value-mode only — ignored when `pulse` is wired directly). Lower = more frequent pulses; higher = sparser. Example: 0.07 for cursor trail (fires every ~70 px of cursor velocity), 1.0 for slow ambient spawn. min 0.001; step 0.01
maxBacklogfloat1.5Caps how many "make-up" pulses can queue from a one-frame burst (e.g. cursor flicked across screen). 0 = no backlog (drop excess); 1.5 = up to 1.5× threshold worth of catch-up pulses. Prevents a single fast move from emptying every channel at once. min 0; step 0.5
countint1Number of output channels. Auto-derived from `forEach` match count when wired indexed — manual setting is only needed for non-forEach hand-wired graphs. Example: 18 for 18-flair trail, 4 for a 4-corner ripple. min 1; max 256
defaultRouteint-1Channel to fire when the selector returns an out-of-range index. -1 = drop the pulse (most common). Set to a specific channel index to use it as a fallback. min -1
seedint1Random strategy only. PRNG seed — same seed produces the same sequence on every load, useful for deterministic replay. Example: 1, 42, 1337.
avoidRepeatboolfalseRandom strategy only. When on, never picks the same channel twice in a row (rerolls). Useful for trails/spawns where back-to-back same-target reads as glitchy.

Use cases

  • Cursor / image trail spawn — feed `mouseVelocity.magnitude` to `value`, wire indexed `out` to a per-element `forEach` instance. Round-robin or random dispatch picks which element each pulse spawns.
  • Grid-stagger reveals — feed scroll / time progress as a pulse source, dispatch to N stagger slots in sequence.
  • Particle bursts — accumulate a continuous signal (audio, scroll velocity), fire random-channel pulses to scatter spawns across N targets.

Related nodes

Envelope

Use pulseDispatch as the node type inside a graph node envelope. Add id, optional params, optional connections, and optional activeWhen based on the guide context.

Generated source

Registry faster-motion-docs/node-registry.jsonCategory page /help/faster-motion/faster-motion-node-category-inputs/

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Sunny Arora

Written by

Sunny Arora

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