S_DropShadow Generates a shadow on the Background clip using the alpha channel of the Foreground, then composites the Foreground over the Background to give the final result. In the Sapphire Lighting effects submenu. Inputs: Foreground:  The current layer.   The clip to use as foreground, and the alpha channel of this clip is used as the matte to generate the shadow. Background:  Defaults to None.   The shadow is drawn onto this Background clip. Matte:  Defaults to None.   If this is provided, its alpha channel is used instead of the Foreground to generate the shadow. This input can be affected by the Invert Matte or Matte Use parameters.

Parameters:

Shadow Color:   Default rgb: [0 0 0].
The color of the shadow.

Shadow Opacity:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
The opacity of the shadow, use values near 0 for subtle transparent shadows, or values near 1.0 for stronger shadows.

Shadow Blur:   Default: 8,  Range: 0 or greater.
Determines the softness of the shadow.

Shift:   X & Y,   Default: [15 15],  Range: -360 or greater.
The horizontal and vertical offset of the shadow.

Fg Opacity:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 to 1.
Scales the opacity of the Foreground without affecting the shadow. Lowering this can be used to fade out the Foreground, or setting it to zero prevents the Foreground from being composited over the result at all.

Comp Premult:   Check-box,  Default: on.
Disable this if you have provided a separate Matte input and the Foreground pixel values have not been pre-multiplied by this Matte.

Matte Use:   Popup menu,  Default: Alpha.
Determines which Foreground or Matte input channels are used to make the shadow.

Luma:  the luminance of the RGB channels is used.

Alpha:  only the Alpha channel is used.

Invert Matte:   Check-box,  Default: off.
If enabled, the black and white of the Foreground alpha channel are inverted before use.

Expand Borders:   Check-box,  Default: on.
If enabled, transparent borders are added to the input image before processing. This allows the result to include soft edges beyond the original image size. When off, the effect only occurs within the frame and the result will retain an edge at the borders. This parameter does not appear in FCP or DF because those applications don't support image expansion.

Opacity:   Popup menu,  Default: Normal.
Determines the method used for dealing with opacity/transparency.

All Opaque:  Use this option to render slightly faster when the input image is fully opaque with no transparency (alpha=1).

Normal:  Process opacity normally.

As Premult:  Process as if the image is already in premultiplied form (colors have been scaled by opacity). This option also renders slightly faster than Normal mode, but the results will also be in premultiplied form, which is sometimes less correct.

Show Shift: Check-box, Default: off.
Turns on or off the screen user interface for adjusting the Opacity parameter.This parameter only appears on AE and Premiere, where on-screen widgets are supported.

See Also:

Blur Sapphire Plug-ins Introduction

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