BCC+ Light

Category: BCC Lights

Effect Name: BCC+ Light

The BCC+ Light filter, part of the BCC Lights category, allows light to be added to a scene where none existed before just as if you were adding light at the time of shooting. Realistic lighting and shadow is introduced using digital versions of lighting gobos.

Working with the Filter

FX Editor and Presets

• Use the FX Editor to load or save presets for reuse.
• To load a preset: Open the FX Editor, select a preset from the Presets panel, and click Apply to return to the host application.
• To save a custom preset: While in the FX Editor, click the Create Custom Preset icon in the parameter list, enter a preset name, and click Done. Additionally, a custom preset can be saved from the main menu bar by selecting File->Save Preset.
• To import custom presets from another drive: While in the FX Editor, select File->Import Preset from the main menu bar.

Effect Controls

Mocha Mask and Track

Continuum effects include integrated masking and matte tools that allow you to restrict the effect to specific regions of the image.

• Mocha masks: used to create custom spline masks. Mocha also includes Matte Assist ML and Matte Refine ML, which use machine learning to generate and track masks.
• Pixel Chooser: used to generate geometric shapes, gradients, or mattes based on channel, luma, or color-based selections. Additionally, an AI depth map generator, and an AI-powered face detection model allow for precise control of masks and mattes.

For more information, see Mocha and Pixel Chooser.

Compare Mode

The Compare Mode is used to view the filtered result alongside the original source layer. Several split-screen and side-by-side display options are available.

For more information, see Compare Mode.

Beat Reactor

The Beat Reactor is an audio-driven animation system that links effect parameters to an audio track. This allows visual effects to react dynamically to sound without manual key-framing.

For more information, see Beat Reactor Documentation.

• View Sets the viewer to display different aspects of the filter.

• Output: Displays the final result of the effect.
• Matte: Displays the matte view.
• Gobo: Displays the gobo.

Light Group

• Blend: Determines the blend mode to be used to add the light.

• Add: The light is added to the image.
• Screen: The light is combined with the image using a Screen blend mode. This looks kind of like the Add blend mode, but highlights are retained.
• Subtract: The light is subtracted from the image creating shadow instead of light.

Shadow Group

• Brightness: Sets the intensity of the shadows. The Brightness parameter will darken only those areas that are not being affected by the Light settings.

Gobo Group

The gobos are organized into various categories including: Abstract, Doors, Elements, Foliage, Snowflakes, Textures and Windows groups.

• Type:
• Gobo: Uses the gobo selected in the Presets window.
• Input: Select an image or sequence for use as the light source.

• Gobo: Load a custom image or sequence.
• Watch Folder: Directs the filter to a specific file location. Useful if the project is transfered to a different system.
• Display File Info: Displays the gobo file information rendered over the source image.
• Input: Selects the layer used as the light source.
• Blend Mode: The gobo can be added to a matte using a variety of Blend modes. Blend modes are used to combine images in a variety of different ways.

• Gobo Only: Displays the Gobo normally, without any blending.
• Add: The pixels of one image are added to another image.
• Subtract: Looks at the color information in each channel and subtracts either the blend color from the base color or the base color from the blend color, depending on which has the greater brightness value.
• Multiply: Looks at the color information in each channel and multiplies the base color by the blend color.
• Screen: Looks at each image’s color information and multiplies the inverse of the two images.
• Difference: Looks at the color information in each channel and subtracts values.
• Darken: Selects the darker color.
• Lighten: Selects the lighter color.

• Opacity: Sets the opacity of the gobo.
• Blur: Sets the softness of the gobo.

Transform Group

Gobos can be transformed using Position, Scale, Rotate, Corner-Pin, Shear and Crop controls

• Crop: Sets the amount of cropping of the image.
• Top: Crops the image from the top down.
• Bottom: Crops the image from the bottom up.
• Left: Crops the image from left to right.
• Right: Crops the image from right to left.
• Corner Pin: The image can be corner pinned by adjusting the Corner Pin sliders as well as dragging the four points on the corners of the screen.
• Upper-Left: Controls the X and Y position of the Upper Left Point.
• Upper-Right: Controls the X and Y position of the Upper Right Point.
• Lower-Right: Controls the X and Y position of the Lower Right Point.
• Lower-Left: Controls the X and Y position of the Lower Left Point.

Note: You may need to zoom the image out a bit to see the corner points. In addition, to see and adjust the corner points in After Effects, make sure that the effect title in the Effect Controls window is highlighted. For Final Cut Pro, you must activate the cross hair icon next to the corner position parameters to see and adjust the corner points on the screen.

• Position: Sets the position of the gobo along the horizontal and vertical axes.
• Scale: Sets the horizontal and vertical scaling.
• Rotate: Sets the rotation of the gobo image.
• Shear X: Skews left and right.
• Shear Y: Skews up and down.
• Anchor X: Defines the point on the X axis around which position, rotation, scaling or shearing takes place..
• Anchor Y: Defines the point on the Y axis around which position, rotation, scaling or shearing takes place.
• Filter: Determines the filtering method used when applying the transform to the image.
• Triangle: The Triangle filter is not the highest quality, but fine for scaled images.
• Quadratic: Quadratic is like triangle, but more blur with fewer artifacts. It offers a good compromise between speed and quality.
• Cubic: Cubic is the default filter in Photoshop. It produces better results with continuous tone images, but is slower than Quadratic. If the image contains fine details, the result may be blurrier than desired.
• Catmull-Rom: Produces good results with continuous tone images that are scaled down, creating sharp results with fine detailed images.
• Gaussian: Lacks sharpness, but is good with ringing and aliasing.
• Mitchell: A good balance between sharpness and ringing, making it a strong choice when scaling up.
• Sinc: Keeps small details when scaling down with good aliasing.

Matte Group

A matte can be used to create areas of light or limit where gobos will be added.

• Extract On: allows for the selection of the type of matte.
• Luminance: A matte is created based on the luminance of the image.
• Hue: A matte is created based on the hue of the image. Adjusting the Position parameter selects different hues.
• Saturation: A matte is created based on the saturation of the image.
• Average: A matte is created based on the average of the image’s RGB values.
• Red: A matte is created based on the image’s red values.
• Green: A matte is created based on the image’s green values.
• Blue: A matte is created based on the image’s blue values.
• Cyan: A matte is created based on the image’s cyan values.
• Magenta: A matte is created based on the image’s magenta values.
• Yellow: A matte is created based on the image’s yellow values.
• Position: Pinpoints the color values to be used in the matte.
• Range: Increases or decreases the range of values in the matte.
• Blur: The matte is blurred by a quality blur.
• GPU Rendering:Specifies how the effect is rendered.
• Default: Uses product-wide default of 16 bit half-float GPU rendering.
• 16 Bit Float: Manually force 16 bit half-float GPU rendering.
• 32 Bit Float: Manually force 32 bit full-float GPU rendering.
• Disabled: Forces CPU rendering.