Additive manufacturing [three-dimensional (3D) printing] methodologies for high–melting point metallic materials are being used in the advanced aerospace and biomedical sectors to fabricate high-value and geometrically complex parts in moderate production volumes. One barrier to more widespread applications is the gaps in the understanding of the processes that occur during the layer-by-layer buildup by beam heating and melting of powder or wire layers. For example, the absorption of energy in powder layers that are only a few particles thick is poorly understood. On page 660 of this issue, Khairallah et al. (1) used in situ x-ray synchrotron observations of powder dynamics coupled to thermal and hydrodynamic flow modeling to study energy absorption at the scale of powder particles. The presence of the powder, relative to a flat plate without powder, improves absorptivity at low laser power, but as power approaches 200 W, the details of the powder become far less important.