S_LensFlareAutoTrack

Renders a lens flare image over the background clip, aligning various flare elements between the hotspot and pivot locations. In this AutoTrack version of LensFlare, the hotspot is automatically positioned on the brightest area of the background clip. If there are multiple areas with the same maximum brightness, their locations are averaged. Increasing Blur For Auto will cause the input to be smoothed before the brightest location is found and can help remove the effect of secondary bright spots.

In the Sapphire Lighting effects submenu.


Inputs:

Background:  The current layer.   The clip to apply the lens flare over.

Track:  Defaults to None.   The lensflare hotspot is positioned on the brightest part of this image. If this input is not selected, the Background input (current layer) is also used for the tracking.
        

Parameters:

Lens:   Popup menu,  Default: 50_300mm_zoom.
The type of lens flare to apply. Custom lens flare types can also be made, or existing types modified, by editing the "s_lensflares.text" file.
50_300mm_zoom:  hotspot with ray cluster, red glow and red ring, and many other elements.
35mm_prime:  hotspot with ray cluster, red glow and red ring, and a few other elements.
105mm_prime:  hotspot with ray cluster, blue ring, blue glow, and other elements.
anamorphic1:  horizontal blue rays, diagonal blue ray, red glow and red ring.
anamorphic2:  horizontal blue rays and red glow.
anamorphicBlue:  horizontal and diagonal blue rays with hexagonal blue/white glow.
rays_only:  ray cluster with no other flare elements.
rays_only2:  ray cluster like 105mm_prime, but with no other flare elements.
rays_only3:  ray cluster like anamorphic1, but with no other flare elements.
simple_hex:  four simple red and blue hexagon elements.

Scale Widths:   Default: 150,  Range: 0 or greater.
Scales the sizes of all the flare elements. This parameter can be adjusted using the Scale Widths Widget.

Rel Heights:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
Scales the vertical dimension of all the flare elements, making them elliptical instead of circular. This can also be adjusted using the Scale Widths Widget.

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

Hotspot Shift:   X & Y,   Default: [0 0],  Range: any.
Adds this amount to the hotspot location. This allows for a relative adjustment of the hotspot away from the auto-tracked location if necessary.

Pivot:   X & Y,   Default: [0 0],  Range: any.
The elements of the flare will be in a line between the Hotspot and the Pivot locations. The Pivot location is in screen coordinates.

Blur For Auto:   Default: 5,  Range: 0 or greater.
Used only if the effect is set to AutoTrack. The input is blurred by this amount before finding the brightest location.

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

Color:   Default rgb: [1 1 1].
Scales the color of all flare elements.

Gamma:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 to 10.
Increasing gamma brightens the flare, and especially boosts the darker elements.

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

Hotspot Bright:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
Scales the brightness of the hotspot elements only.

Hotspot Color:   Default rgb: [1 1 1].
Scales the color of the hotspot elements only.

Rays Brightness:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
Scales the brightness of the ray elements only.

Other Brightness:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
Scales the brightness of all flare elements that are NOT at the hotspot location.

Blur Flare:   Default: 0,  Range: 0 or greater.
If positive, the flare image is blurred by this amount before being combined with the background.

Bg Brightness:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
Scales the brightness of the background before combining with the flare. If 0, the result will contain only the flare image over black.

Combine:   Popup menu,  Default: Screen.
Determines how the flare image is combined with the Background.
Screen:  performs a blend function which can help prevent overly bright results.
Add:  causes the flare image to be added to the background.

Tint Bg Whites:   Check-box,  Default: off.
If this is enabled, the chroma of the flare is added only after the result is clamped to the maximum brightness. This allows the color of the flare image to still be visible even over bright white backgrounds. For the majority of backgrounds there will be no observable difference.

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

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 Scale Widths: Check-box, Default: off.
Turns on or off the screen interface widget for adjusting the Scale Widths and Rel Heights parameters.This parameter only appears on AE and Premiere, where on-screen widgets are supported.

See Also:

LensFlare
Glint
Glare
Sapphire Plug-ins Introduction


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