Wobble Presets Explained: Which Motion to Use, and Why

The four motion presets are nine numbers each. Knowing which number does what turns a preset from a label into a lever.

The preset buttons are not filters. They are starting points that set nine parameters at once. When you understand which parameter does what, you can predict how a preset will feel on a new image before you click it. The table below shows the actual values each preset sets, so you can see the differences at a glance.

The nine parameters behind every preset

These are the values the preset buttons set. Most are surfaced as the Fine tuning sliders in the UI; a few are deliberately hidden because changing them would change the visual identity of every preset.

Parameter	What it controls	Range
Input strength	How much external motion (drag, sensor, auto) pushes the frame.	0-100
Stretch	How far individual mesh points are allowed to travel from rest.	0-100
Bounce	Spring stiffness: how snappily the mesh returns to rest after a push.	0-100
Damping	Energy removed per second. High damping kills oscillation quickly.	0-100
Cohesion	How much the mesh resists internal shearing. Higher = the region moves as one object.	0-100
Gravity direction + Gravity strength	Which way simulated gravity points, and how hard.	enum + 0-2
Variation	Per-vertex random noise added each step. Low = smooth, high = jittery.	0-100
Max stretch	Hard cap on how far any single point can travel. Prevents tearing.	0-100

You almost never touch these directly. The four presets are just nine numbers each. Once you have the table above, the next table reads like a sentence.

The actual numbers behind the four buttons

Preset	Input	Stretch	Bounce	Damping	Cohesion	Gravity	Variation	Max stretch
Soft wobble	42	50	12	22	20	down 0.55	6	62
Spring bounce	80	52	96	7	70	down 0.80	0	55
Quick shake	28	6	55	72	92	down 0.25	90	18
Zero-G float	26	65	8	0	0	none 0	3	70

Read it row by row and the names stop being magic:

• Soft wobble: bounce at 12 (slow return), damping at 22 (moderate energy loss). The mesh drifts, settles, drifts again. Cohesion at 20 lets the material feel slightly loose.
• Spring bounce: bounce at 96 with damping at 7 — almost no energy loss. A small push produces a long, visible oscillation. Cohesion at 70 keeps the whole region moving as one mass instead of flapping.
• Quick shake: variation at 90 (each part of the painted area gets a slightly different nudge each step) with a tight cap of 18 on individual point travel. The mesh jitters inside its own bounding envelope, which reads as nervousness rather than swing.
• Zero-G float: gravity none, damping 0, cohesion 0. Without gravity to settle it and without damping to bleed energy, the region keeps drifting slowly until it runs out of room. Variation at 3 prevents the perfect stillness that would feel uncanny.

What the presets actually feel like

The numbers above translate into recognizable characters. These descriptions match the values, not a marketing pitch.

Soft wobble

A slow, loose sway. The painted area drifts, settles, and drifts again, somewhere between a wobbling pudding and a slow blink. It suits round, soft, or jelly-like things: drinks, desserts, blobs of liquid, plushies, slow-blinking eyes. Anywhere you want the motion to feel cute rather than physical.

If it feels too sleepy, raise Stretch a little and lower Damping. If the painted area loses its shape, raise Cohesion.

Spring bounce

A pronounced elastic bounce after each push. There is a clear impact, then a few visible bounces as the energy dissipates. Use it on solid things that should react like rubber or jelly: slime, a cartoon character's cheek, a stretching arm, a stress ball. Anywhere you want the audience to feel the impulse behind the motion.

If the bounces die too quickly, lower Damping. If the shape distorts past recognition, raise Cohesion. For a single hard slap and a clean rest, raise Damping instead.

Quick shake

A small, fast, continuous tremble. The painted area vibrates rather than sways. It works on tiny details that should look nervous or alive: a candle flame, an idle character, a text bubble, a sparkling highlight, a power-up glow.

This preset is mostly carried by Variation. Drop it to zero for a barely-there shimmer; push it higher for a frantic shake. Keep Cohesion high so the painted region reads as one thing. The cap of 18 means the tremor never escapes its bounding box — that is what makes it feel like vibration instead of motion.

Zero-G float

A slow drift with no pull from gravity. The painted area wanders and gently returns to center on its own. It suits space scenes, dreamy stickers, ghost or spirit effects, anything that should read as hovering rather than being pushed.

It is the easiest preset to mess up: pair it with Gravity direction: None in Fine tuning, otherwise the preset's drift fights a constant pull. Damping controls how long the float lingers after each nudge.

Where presets and Fine tuning meet

The presets set the shape of the motion. Fine tuning adjusts how strong that shape is. Use this short list to choose where to spend the next slider change:

• Wrong mood: switch preset.
• Right mood, wrong size: adjust Stretch.
• Right mood, dies too fast: lower Damping.
• Right mood, shape is falling apart: raise Cohesion.
• Right mood, too quiet or too jittery: adjust Variation.

The reason this list works is that each preset has a different dominant parameter. Quick shake is dominated by Variation; raising its Stretch barely changes anything. Spring bounce is dominated by Damping; tweaking its Variation does almost nothing because the preset sets Variation to 0. If you change a parameter that is not load-bearing for the current preset, you will not see what you expect. That is usually the moment people conclude the slider "does nothing."

If you ever get lost, Reset to this preset under Fine tuning snaps the sliders back to the values in the table above.

What Fine tuning deliberately cannot reach

• Mesh resolution. We did not expose it because it would change the visual identity of every preset. The mesh density is part of what makes Soft wobble look like Soft wobble.
• The fixed time step. Physics runs at 60 updates per second internally; we render and export at 16 fps for GIF and 30 fps for video. Decoupling render rate from physics rate is what keeps a slow device from feeling laggy when you drag.
• Per-vertex properties. How much each point of the mesh weighs, how much it resists motion, and how quickly it loses energy are all set automatically based on distance from the mask center. Points near the painted edge move less; points near the center move more. This is invisible most of the time but is why the edges of your mask stay anchored while the middle wobbles.

Where the preset idea stops working

• Very thin regions. A very thin painted region does not have enough internal structure to deform convincingly. The output looks like a sliding stripe, not a wobbling object. Solution: paint a slightly larger region.
• Regions that include a lot of background. Background pixels inside the mask will deform with the foreground, producing a visible halo. The model has no concept of "background"; it sees a region, not a subject.
• High-resolution stills with very small subjects. A 4K source has the same mesh density as a 1K source. A 200-pixel subject ends up with too few mesh points to wobble convincingly. Crop the source first.
• Long recordings with low damping. Low damping means energy accumulates. A 4-second recording on Spring bounce can end with the mesh visibly drifting because the camera-follow export cuts a moving frame.

Preset does not change file size

This surprised us when we measured it. The four presets produce files within a 5% spread on the same source, same mask, same duration, same format:

Preset	1 s GIF, 1024×1536 source
Soft wobble	1.76 MB
Spring bounce	1.78 MB
Quick shake	1.79 MB
Zero-G float	1.71 MB

If you are choosing a preset for size, you are optimizing the wrong knob. Preset affects character, not bytes. Spend the budget on duration, dimensions, and format instead.

A repeatable way to compare presets

Keep the painted mask and input gesture constant while you compare. Choose one looping motion, watch at least two full cycles with Soft wobble, then switch to the next preset without changing anything else. This isolates the preset's character. If you change the mask, preset, stretch, and gesture at the same time, it becomes hard to tell which decision improved the result.

Judge the motion at the size where it will be delivered. A large preview makes tiny movements obvious; a reaction image in a chat may need a clearer silhouette change. Look at four things: whether the attachment point stays believable, whether the subject keeps its identity, whether the mood matches the message, and whether the loop becomes tiring after several repeats.

Once one preset is closest, open Fine tuning and move only one control at a time. Make a visible change, observe a full cycle, then keep or undo it. This sequence turns experimentation into a controlled comparison and makes successful settings easier to recreate on a similar image.