5D.Rays

PURPOSE
Rays of light from a bright light source behind a silhouetted shape. The rays are formed by finding a contour in the second input clip specified by the Threshold intensity. This can be shrunk using Erode and smoothed using Length Tolerance, to create rays of light coming from the light source position. The rays are then colored, softened and filtered through the atmosphere as required.

   

INPUT CLIPS
Foreground: the silhouetted shape.
Matte of Foreground: the rays will be created from this clip and used in the compositing of the foreground. It should therefore be as good as possible.
Background: the silhouette and rays are composited over this clip.
Light Colors: the color of the light rays can be taken from this clip.
Atmosphere: The rays can be modulated by the intensities of this clip to give the effect of smoke for example.

CREATING THE RAY CONTOUR

SHAPE
Threshold (Min: 0.0 Max: 100.0 Default: 50.0)
The intensity level of the 2nd input clip where a contour will be created to form the rays. Setting the threshold towards 0.0 will bias the contour towards the black of your matte and setting it towards 100.0, the white of your matte.

Hint:If no contours are found you will not get any light rays. Change the Threshold value and try again.

Length Tolerance (Min: 0.0 Max: 10.0 Default: 0.0)
As this value increases the ray contour becomes smoother and there are fewer segments to make rays of light.

Erode (Min: 0 Max: 16 Default: 0)
Measured in pixels the contour can be eroded to force it to be within the matte and thus creating a bleed edge to the silhouette. See Spill.

Spill (Min: 0.0 Max: 10.0 Default: 0.0)
Controls the brightness of the eroded edge.

BOX
Corner1 XY and Corner2 XY (Default: full screen)
Only the image within this area will be interpolated. Keeping it as small as possible, but covering the required image area,will speed up the contour finding phase of the processing.

LIGHT

Bright Radius (Min: 0.0 Max: 5000.0 Default: 16.0)
From the light source to this distance the light will be at the full given brightness.

Dim Radius (Min: 0.0 Max: 5000.0 Default: 32.0)
From the LightBright radius to this distance the light will fade out.

XY Center(Default: bottom left)
The light source center.

Brightness (Min: 0.0 Max: 100.0 Default: 10.0)
The maximum brightness of the light.

RAYS
Density (Min: 0.0 Max: 100.0 Default: 2.0)
The maximum density of the rays of light.

Red/Green/Blue (Default: White)
The light color which is used for the rays when Single Color is chosen.

Colour Source (Default: Single Color)
Single Color=0: all the rays will be set to the RGB values.
Image Colors=1: the color under the ray contour in the 4th input clip will be used. This can give you multiple color rays, depending of course on your input clip.

Shading Mode (Default: Segment)
These option define how the rays fade and for how far, combined with the Light Bright radius and Light Dim radius.
Flat=0:the rays goes on forever at the given brightness value.
Segment=1: the rays will fade out for each segment in the ray contour for distance of the difference of the two radii, Light Bright and Light Dim. The drop off echoes the shape of the ray contour.
Light=2: the rays will be a circular drop off for the distance from the Light Bright to the Light Dim.

Soft (Min: 0.0 Max: 50.0 Default: 10.0)
Blurs the rays to soften them. This will slow down the ray processing with large values.

Shard (Min: 0.0 Max: 100.0 Default: 100.0)
Each segment is split into shards of light, thus giving the appearance of more rays. A low Length Tolerance and a high Shard will give the maximum number of rays.

ATMOSPHERE
Use (Default: Off)
Off=0: no atmosphere.
On=1: the 5th input clip will be used to modulate the ray intensity. The darker the value of this clip, the thinner the density of the rays.

Invert (Default: Off)
Off=0: the atmosphere clip is used as is.
On=1: reverses the effect of the intensities of the 5th input clip when Use Atmosphere is on.

Index