BCC+ Smoke and Fog Dissolve

Category: BCC Transitions

Effect Name: BCC+ Smoke and Fog Dissolve

The BCC+ Smoke and Fog Dissolve filter, part of the BCC Transitions category, adds a realistic auto-evolving fog and smoke over the course of a dissolve transition. The transition includes individual control over the color of both the fog and the smoke as well as the speed and direction of the animation. Users can also select from a variety of hand picked image sprites to alter the look of the generated smoke.

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.

• Animation: Menu controlling what drives the animation of the transition.
• Auto: Automatically generates a transition based on the transition length (when used as a transition) or the clip length (when used as a filter).
• Manual: Requires the user to set keyframes to control the transition progression. Can be useful in customizing the exact timing of the transition or when applying the filter as a stylized effect as opposed to a direct NLE-style transition.
• Layer to Reveal: This layer selection popup is not relevant when you have applied the filter as a true NLE-style transition and it will be hidden or disabled in that context. When applied as a normal “effect” as opposed to a transition, however, this menu is used to select the “Incoming” or “Reveal” layer for the transition.
• Percent Done: Disabled/Hidden by default. When the Animation menu is changed to Percent Done then this slider can be manually keyframed to control the transition progression.

The Smoke Group

• Smoke Sprite: Used to select a different sprite image to alter the look of the smoke.
• Speed: Used to adjust the overall speed of the smoke’s movement. Higher values will result in faster movement.
• Opacity: Used to adjust the overall opacity of the smoke layer.
• Contrast: Used to control the overall contrast of the smoke. Higher values create a more intense contrast between light and dark pixels than lower values.
• Color: Used to set the color of the smoke. In it’s default state the glow is white. By selecting a color with the color chip, the smoke can be set to any RGB value. With the eyedropper, the smoke color can be selected directly from the image pixels.
• Coherance: Used to adjust the movement and evolution of the smoke pattern. Higher values result in a smoother oscillation , whereas lower values result in a more chaotic movement.
• Scale: Used to adjust the maximum size of the smoke pattern.
• Density: Used to adjust the complexity of the smoke pattern.
• Sprite Softness: Use to soften the edge of the selected sprite

The Fog Group

• Opacity: Used to adjust the overall opacity of the fog layer. fog
• Scale: Used to adjust the maximum size of the fog pattern.
• Contrast: Used to control the overall contrast of the fog. Higher values create a more intense contrast between light and dark pixels than lower values.
• Color: Used to set the color of the fog. In it’s default state the glow is white. By selecting a color with the color chip, the fog can be set to any RGB value. With the eyedropper, the fog color can be selected directly from the image pixels.
• Level: Used to adjust the complexity of the fog pattern.
• Speed: Used to adjust the overall speed of the fog’s movement. Higher values will result in faster movement.
• Blend Mode: Determines the blend mode to be used to create the fog effect.
  • Normal: The fog layer is blended evenly into the image.
  • Add: The fog is added to your image.
  • Screen: The fog is combined with the image using a Screen blend mode. Similar to Add blend mode, but highlights are retained.
• Random: Used to add randomness to the fog layer.

The Prism Group

The Prism group offers a way to generate chromatic aberration where the RGB light is split in a way that emulates poor quality glass or plastic lenses and is great when adding that extra level of spookiness to the result.

• Enable: Used to enable/disable to the prism effect.
• Amount: Used to adjust the overall amount of the prism effect.
• Weight: Sets the smoothness of the prism with lower values generating a more visible stepped offset and higher values yielding a smooth continuous prism
• Short Color: Sets the color of the short color waves. The default is blue.
• Mid Color: Sets the color of the medium color waves. The default is green.
• Long Color: Sets the color of the long color waves. The default is red.

Color Correct group

• Hue: Used to control the overall hue of the transition.
• Saturation: Used to control the overall saturation of the transition. Higher values create a more intense color saturation than lower values.
• Brightness: Used to control the overall brightness of the transition.Higher values create more intense highlights than lower values.
• Contrast: Used to control the overall contrast of the transition. Higher values create a more intense contrast between light and dark pixels than lower values.
• Gamma: Used to control the overall gamma of the transition.
• Temperature: Used to control the overall temperature of the transition. Moving the Temperature slider to the left (negative values) will yield a cooler result, while moving the slider to the right will warm up the shot.
• Cyan/Magenta: Used to control the overall amount of cyan/magenta in the image.. Moving the slider to the left (negative values) will add a cyan tint, while moving the slider to the right will add a magenta tint.
• Red: Used to control the overall value of the red color channel. Higher values increase the overall influence of the red color channel than lower values.
• Green: Used to control the overall value of the green color channel. Higher values increase the overall influence of the blue color channel than lower values.
• Blue: Used to control the overall value of the blue color channel. Higher values increase the overall influence of the red color channel than lower values.

Animation Tuning group

These parameters control the overall timing of the transition. On hosts which permit on-screen heads up display widgets (such as AE, Premiere, and Avid) you should never need to modify these sliders directly since they can be configured in a more convenient and intuitive manner by manipulating the widgets directly in your comp/preview pane. On hosts without heads up display widgets you can use these sliders directly to fine tune your animation timing, taking advantage of the View Ease Curve option to help visualize the animation rates.

• Ease In: Control how quickly or slowly the line advances at the beginning of the transition.
• Ease Mid: Controls the rate of change of the effect during the middle of the transition.
• Ease Out: Control how quickly or slowly the line advances at the end of the transition.
• OSC Enable: Only visible in hosts that support heads up display widgets for manipulating these controls directly on screen. Enables/Disables on screen controls.
• View Ease Curve: (Only visible/enabled in hosts that don’t support heads up display widgets for manipulating these controls directly on screen.) Enable this control to display a preview graph of the the animation curves rendered into in the composite window.
• 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.