5D.Pixfly

PURPOSE

Disintegrates the image into its constituent pixels, each of which then flies off independently under the influence of various forces.
The time at which a pixel comes 'loose' from the image can optionally be controlled by the luminance of a control image (the time matte).
The disintegrating foreground image can optionally reveal a background image.
All clips can animate the current input images at a frame being used to create the output image at that frame.
Although this shares a lot with the particle-based effects, it is a very special sort of particle system, which cannot be even approximated with other 5D Monsters.
Each pixel becomes a particle, and forces such as wind, gravity, turbulence etc act on each one as required, to disintegrate the image. The control clip (if activated) acts as a timing mechanism to phase the start of the movement.

See the demos and exercises at the end of this section for more help.

INPUT CLIPS
Clip to Fly: a clip to disintegrate.
Luminance Time Matte: the luminance of this clip can control when a given pixel begins to move.
Clip to Reveal: can be revealed as the first clip that fly's away.

CREATION
Restart
Fly=0: the motion of the pixels continues.Br> Restart=1: reset the pixels to their initial state, at their rightful place in the input image, ready to fly away again.

PREROLL
Doit
No=0: do not execute any preroll.
Yes=1: perform a preroll of loose particles (if any) before the first output frame is generated after a Restart flow. Useful to cut into the action.

Frames (Min: 0.0 Max: 1000.0 Default: 50.0)
How many preroll frames are computed when requested.

TIME MATTE
The time matte can control when a pixel comes loose from the input clip. Based on the luminance of this clip and the time elapsed, areas of the image move at different times.

Use Time Matte
Off=0: the Time Matte has no on effect on the image flow.
On=1: the luminance of the TM image will control the flow based on the luminance values. The brighter the luminance of time matte the sooner the pixels will start to move. See TMFullRangeFrom.

Invert (Default: Off)

On=1: reverses the role of black and white in the time matte; the brighter the luminance of the TM the later the pixels start to fly away.

Jitter (Min: 0.0 Max: 10.0 Default: 1.0)
Adds random jitter to the 'coming loose times' derived from the time matte. Again, it's recommended to prevent banding (though sometimes banding can be good too).

Stretch (Default: Off)
On=1: pre-processes the time matte image at every frame so that its darkest pixel maps to 0.0 (black) and its lightest to 255 (white). If the luminance of the TM is only over a limited range of values you can force it to cover the full range without pre-processing the clip before using Pixfly.

Luminance Fixed from (Min: 1.0 Max: 100 Default: 100)
Time matte luminance's above this value will be such that pixels won't come loose in those areas if Time Matte Fixed is On. e.g. if the LumFix is 80, then pixels of a luminance value of 80 or greater, will never fly away.

To Full (Min: 1.0 Max: 1000.0 Default: 25.0)
Number of frames, from restart, before all pixels can start moving. e.g. To Full=50. The time matte will be split into 50 intensity levels and it will take 50 frames for all the pixels to come loose.

Fixed (Default: Off)
On=1: causes pixels with time matte luminance's greater than TM Luminance Fixed, to never come loose. Therefore you can ensure that certain areas of your Foreground clip never fly away.

FORCES

SWIRL
Density (Min: 0.0 Max: 100.0 Default: 60.0)
Ye olde turbulence again - well, it does give nice results! How many bumps there are in the stuff a pixel flies through across the width of a frame.

Amplitude (Min: 0.0 Max: 100.0 Default: 1.0)
How much the path of the flying pixel will be changed by running in to a bump in the stuff it's flying through.

To Maximum (Min: 0.0 Max: 100.0 Default: 0.0)
Time in frames after coming loose, over which the bumpiness will build up in strength for a pixel.

GRAVITY
Strength (Min: 0.0 Max: 1000.000 Default: 100.0)
Acceleration due to gravity acting on loose pixels.

Angle (Min: 0 Max: 359 Default: 270)
Angle at which gravity acts on loose pixels, measured in degrees clockwise from zero at due east.

WIND
Style
Directional=0: the wind blow radially outwards from its source, in all directions equally with the Wind speed decreasing away from the source.
MultiDirectional=1: the wind blows from the source to the target with a cone of strength.

XY Source (Default: center left)
Co-ordinates of the source of wind.

XY Target(Default: center right)
Co-ordinates of the place towards which the wind is blowing.

Speed (Min: 0.0 Max: 180.0 Default: 0.0)
The speed of the wind.

Spread (Min: 0.0 Max: 180.0 Default: 10.0)
Sets the angle of a cone centred on the wind direction within which the wind acts. It is measured in degrees. Active with Directional wind.

SUCTION

XY Center (Default: center)
Co-ordinates of center of suction. Loose pixels will be sucked towards or repelled away from this point.

Strength (Min: -500.0 Max: 500.0 Default: 0.0)
How strong the suction is. Negative numbers repel the pixels.

Swirl (Min -100.0 Max 100.0 Default 3.0)
How tightly the pixels will swirl towards the suction center.

Outer Radius (Min: 0.0 Max: 1000.0 Default: 10.0)
Within this radius the pixels will be affected by any suction.

Inner Radius (Min: 2.0 Max: 100.0 Default: 1.0)
If a sucked pixel lands within this radius it is killed.

Tip:

Set Wind Speed to 0.0 for no wind.

Set Suck Speed to 0.0 for no suction.

Friction (Min: 0.0 Max: 100.0 Default: 0.0)
Controls how much velocity a moving pixel looses on each frame.

Velocity Jitter (Min: 0.0 Max: 10.0 Default: 1.0)
How much random jitter is added to the initial velocities of newly loose pixels. More than zero is recommended to break up the 'banding' effect that results if a bunch of pixels come loose at the same time, travelling at the same speed.

RENDERING
Black

Black=0: as the image starts to fly away then a black frame is revealed underneath.

Reveal=1: as the image starts to fly then the Background reveal clip will be revealed!

Style (Default: Pixel)
Controls how loose pixels are rendered and change in density, with time.
Pixel=0: Each pixel is a solid, pixel sized, lump. Each frame is rendered independently, with input pixels in motion adding up to form the output pixel, according to how they happen to lie at a given frame.
Smear=1: Moving input pixels add to an accumulating output image. The output image builds up over the sequence, usually into a smeary mess.
Single=2: Each output pixel is occupied by just one moving input pixel (the 'nearest') rather than all pixels that lie in an output pixel area having their colors added together to come up with the output color. Pixels are always arranged so that they effectively get 'nearer' to the viewer according to their original location on the input image. Bottom left is most distant. They get 'nearer', left to right, bottom to top, with nearest at top right. This order cannot be changed.
Evaporate=3:As Pixel, but the density of moving pixels decreases with time, so that they 'evaporate away'.

Smear Fade (Min: 0.0 Max: 1 Default: 0.50)
In Smear mode, the previous (accumulating) output image is first attenuated by this factor before new moving pixel colors are added to it.

Evaporate After (Min: 1.0 Max: 1000.0 Default: 25.0)
Number of frames for which a pixel will move before it evaporates away entirely (in Evaporate mode).

EXERCISES

Exercise 1 - the default contitions Gravity,Swirl and Velocity Jitter

load Pixfly
load 1 input clip
note Creation Restart is set to 1.0 on frame 0 and 0.0 for the rest of the sequence
set up shuttle marks
open the monitor
- play - the image breaks up and moves downward under gravity with a little swirl revealing black
set Forces Swirl Amplitude to 0.0
- play - the pixels no longer swirl. They all move down in a straight line at slightly different rates due to the Forces Velocity Jitter
set Forces Velocity Jitter to 0.0
- play - the picture moves as whole downwards

Exercise 2 - the Wind
steps 1-5 as exercise 1

set Forces Gravity Strength to 0.0
set Forces Swirl Amplitude to 0.0
set Forces Wind Speed to 5.0
- play - the pixels are blown from left to right in a cone; the force of the wind dropping off (Spread) from the wind direction (Source to Target)
change Forces Wind Style from 0.0 to 1.0
- play - the pixels blown away from the Source with equal force, slowing as they reach the radius of influence, the Target.

Exercise 3 - Suck
steps 1- 7 as exercise 2

set Forces Suck Strength to 15.0
set Forces Suck Outer Radius to 40.0
- play - the pixels are sucked toward the X/YCenter position, twisting round with a Swirl of 3.0 Pixels outside the OutRad are unaffected.
set Forces Suck Inner Radius to 10.0
play - once the a pixel falls within the InRad it is killed

Exercise 4 - The Time Matte
steps 1- 5 as exercise 1, but also load a second input clip. This will control when the pixels start to move based on the intensity level in the image.

set TimeMatte UseTM to 1.0
- play - the pixels over the darkest areas of the control clip move first
set TimeMatte Invert to 1.0
- play - the pixels over the brightest areas move first This is basically what the Time Matte control clip does; time the start of the movement in discreet areas of the image. The other Time Matte controls help you adjust the timing for the required effect.

Notes:

Jitter will use a few pixels either side of the current intensity so the banding of intensity levels is less obvious.
Stretch will force the range of intensities in the control clip to be between 0.0 and 100.0. If your control has no full brightness or darkness it ensures the movement will start immediately.
ToFull specifies how many frames it will take to build up the movement; i.e. how many intensity levels to use.
Fixed allows you to force all areas above the chosen intensity level to be unaffected.
LumFix is the chosen intensity level (and above) to unaffected.

Exercise 5 - a Reveal
steps 1-5 as exercise 4, and also load a 3rd input clip, the clip to be revealed.

set Render Black to 1.0
- play - as the pixels move away instead of black you see the 3rd clip.
set Render Style to 3.0
- play - this is the evaporation style and after a pixel starts to move it starts to fade out. The number of frames it takes to completely evaporate is controlled by Evaporate After.
set Render Style to 1.0
- play - as the pixels move they change colour using the Smear Fade value to bias the colour from the oringal image (100.0) to the revealed image colour (0.0)

Exercise 6 - a flying reveal

load Pixfly
load 1 input clip - the clip to blow away
turn off Gravity.
turn on the wind.
set the wind to blow from the bottom left to top right.
- play - the image should blow away. Adjust the timing to blow the image out of screen ( or there abouts ).
make a copy of Pixfly.
replace the input clip with the sequence to blow into screen.
revise the wind so it blows from top right to bottom left.
generate both output clips.
use a compositing technique to combine both clips.
flip one of the clips to reverse the action.
- play one clip blows out dragging the other in

Note: you can add in more forces and effects to suit. Combining forces is a matter of balancing the strength or influence of each force to get the desired result.

Remember you can use the Evaporation style of rendering to ensure the sequence completely disappears.

5D.Pixfly

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