S_Glare Composites rainbow halos and/or glint-like rays at locations where the Source clip is brighter than the threshold. Lower the threshold parameter to produce glares in more areas. Use the Style menu to select different glare types. Set the Glare Res parameter to 1/2 for faster rendering with slightly softer glares. Use the Convolve option for smoother results, but possibly slower rendering. Glares are best observed on dark images with a few bright spots. In the Sapphire Lighting effects submenu. Inputs: Source:  The current layer.   The input clip that determines the glare locations and colors. Background:  Defaults to None.   The clip to combine the glares with. If no background is given, the Source is also used as the Background. Matte:  Defaults to None.   If provided, the source glare colors are scaled by this input. A monochrome matte can be used to choose a subset of Source areas that will generate glares. A color matte can be used to selectively adjust the glare colors in different regions. The matte is applied to the source before the glares are generated so it will not clip the resulting glares.

Parameters:

Style:   Popup menu,  Default: rainbow_rays.
The style of glare to apply. Custom glare types can also be made, or existing types modified, by editing the "s_glares.text" file.

rainbow_rays:  rays with rainbow.

rainbow_rays2:  rays with larger rainbow.

rays_60:  cluster of 60 rays.

rays_20:  cluster of 20 rays.

rays_16:  cluster of 16 rays.

rays_12_rand:  12 rays with random orientations.

rays_6:  cluster of 6 rays.

rays_4:  cluster of 4 rays.

rays_4_ring:  4 rays with ring and glow.

rays_multi:  several clusters of rays together.

rainbow_only:  rainbow.

rainbow2_only:  larger rainbow.

rainbow_double:  2 rainbows.

round_coin:  simple solid circle.

Convolve:   Popup menu,  Default: NO.
Determines the method for applying the glares to the Background.

NO:  by default, the center of each bright spot is found and a glare is rendered at that location. In this mode, if there are multiple moving bright spots that merge or separate, pops in the glare locations can occur.

YES:  the convolve option smoothly adds glares for each pixel of the source image above the threshold value. This gives a different look which can be preferable. However, if there are many bright areas needing glares, it can be unbearably slow, so in this mode the processing times are estimated and very slow frames are aborted.

Even if slow:  use this option if you are sure you want to convolve all the frames of a clip even if they might be slow to process.

Brightness:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
Scales the brightness of all the glares.

Scale Colors:   Default rgb: [1 1 1].
Scales the color of the glares. The colors and brightnesses of the glares are also affected by the Source and Matte inputs.

Saturation:   Default: 1,  Range: -2 to 8.
Scales the color saturation of the glare elements. Increase for more intense colors. Set to 0 for monochrome glares.

Threshold:   Default: 0.8,  Range: 0 to 1.
Glares are generated from locations in the source clip that are brighter than this value. A value of 0.9 causes glares at only the brightest spots. A value of 0 causes glares for every non-black area.

Threshold Add Color:   Default rgb: [0 0 0].
This can be used to raise the threshold on a specific color and thereby reduce the glares generated on areas of the source clip containing that color.

Threshold Blur:   Default: 2,  Range: 0 or greater.
Increase to smooth out the areas creating glares. This can be used to eliminate glares generated from small speckles or to simply soften the glares. Increasing this may put more highlights below the threshold and darken the resulting glares, but you can decrease the Threshold parameter to compensate.

Size:   Default: 72,  Range: 0 or greater.
Scales the size of the glares.

Rel Height:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
Scales the vertical dimension of the glares, making them elliptical instead of circular.

Rotate:   Default: 0,  Range: any.
Rotates the ray elements of the glares, if any, in degrees.

Glare Res:   Popup menu,  Default: Full.
Selects the resolution factor for the glares. Higher resolutions give sharper glares, lower resolutions give smoother glares and faster processing. This 'Res' factor only affects the glares: the background is still combined with the glares at full resolution.

Full:  Full resolution is used.

1/2:  The glares are calculated at half resolution.

1/4:  The glares are calculated at quarter resolution.

Affect Alpha:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
If this value is positive the output Alpha channel will include some opacity from the glares. The maximum of the red, green, and blue glare brightness is scaled by this value and combined with the background Alpha at each pixel.

Glare From Alpha:   Default: 0,  Range: 0 to 1.
Set to 1 to generate glares from the alpha channel of the source input instead of the RGB channels. In this case the glares will not pick up color from the source and will typically be brighter. Values between 0 and 1 interpolate between using the RGB and the Alpha.

Glare Under Source:   Default: 0,  Range: 0 to 1.
Set to 1 to composite the Source input over the glares.

Source Opacity:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 to 1.
Scales the opacity of the Source input when combined with the glares. This does not affect the generation of the glares themselves.

Bg Brightness:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
Scales the brightness of the background. This parameter only has an effect if the background input is provided, and is visible due to a partially transparent Source image or a reduced Source Opacity parameter value.

Invert Matte:   Check-box,  Default: off.
If on, inverts the Matte input so the effect is applied to areas where the Matte is black instead of white. This has no effect unless the Matte input is provided.

Expand Borders:   Check-box,  Default: off.
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 Size: Check-box, Default: off.
Turns on or off the screen user interface widget for adjusting the Size and Rel Height parameters.This parameter only appears on AE and Premiere, where on-screen widgets are supported.

See Also:

Glint Glow LensFlare Sapphire Plug-ins Introduction

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