

Alias | Wavefront
Introduction
Composer is a visual effects and compositing software product used to create
image and audio sequences for use in video production, motion pictures, and
electronic game development.
Composer is available for use on general-purpose Silicon Graphics workstations,
from the entry-level Indy, to the deskside Onyx, to Challenge
servers.
Composer has been designed to work with smaller configurations, and optimized
to work with multiple CPUs.
This presentation will focus on:
User Interface
Indigo Magic User Interface
Composer's interface provides users with a look and feel
consistent with other Silicon Graphics applications. It
follows SGI schemes for Indigo Magic desktops. A Motif-
based interface allows users to customize various parts of the
program, including font, color, and other standard Motif items.

- Toolbar and toolbox.
- Resizable image swatches.
- Image events can be collapsed to simplify timeline.
- Many events can be selected at one time by using the mouse
to lasso them-great for doing overs, deletes, and other event repositioning.
- Resizable message window.
Programmable Toolbar and Icons

Color icons on the toolbar eliminate cumbersome searching
through nested menus for frequently used operations. Icons
can be created for user-defined macros and placed into the
toolbar or toolbox for site-specific applications!
Tear-Off Menus
Users can turn each of the main menus into floating panels
which can be placed anywhere on the screen. They can even
be placed outside of the main menu area. This greatly improves
the usability of the system.

- The Event/Image menu can be used to add or change events
without pulling down the main menu.
- Menus that are accessed often can be torn off. Their status
can be monitored throughout the compositing session.
- Composer's main window can be resized so that other
applications can be used simultaneously.
Mac-like Hotkeys and Shortcuts
With this interface, users can completely customize
the hotkeys and can re-program the function keys on the
SGI keyboard. This capability is well-known to Macintosh
users and appreciated by high-end power users because it
dramatically speeds up Composer work sessions.

- You can set up the function keys to automatically test
a frame or an entire series of image sequences.
- The preset Hotkey combinations can be changed for the site
or for individual users.
- The modified hotkey (a combo of Shift, Alt, and Control keys)
is shown right on the pull-down menu, making it easy to teach
the shortcuts to new users.
- There is no limit to the number of hotkey and function key
combinations that the user can implement.
Drag and Drop Pictures & Pixel

Images are located using this window that searches by image file type. Users
can select from many various numbering and naming conventions to accommodate
all image generation programs. Once selected, the image can be dragged to the
timeline and viewed interactively.

The Pixel Information window can be resized and gives info on X,Y,Z
including the HSV and RGB of any given area. The value can then be
'dropped' into any event.
There is no need to type long filenames. Just select an image
from disk and drag its name to the timeline. It is added to the
session immediately. Use the Pixel Information tool to select
colors and locations of individual pixels directly from any image.
Direct Manipulation of Images
The ability to manipulate images directly on screen gives
users greater control over their final sequences. Effects
such as Move3D benefit from this very intuitive way to move the
image around the screen. Combinations of hotkeys give the
user great flexibility to the on-screen controls.

- By working in full-screen mode, very accurate analysis of color
or position can be viewed easily.
- The white outline shows the user exactly where the image will be
cropped, scaled, or moved. The user just picks the line and then
moves it on screen. 2D motion is easily played back to see the
animation of the effect.
- All of the image positioning effects can be used with direct
manipulation. This makes it extremely easy to see exactly
where an image will be placed,scaled, or cropped.
Automatic Keyframing of Effects
With automatic keyframing and curve creation, 2D animation
has been greatly simplified. Anything can be animated by
either moving it to a new location in time, or by changing any
one of an event's attributes. The system creates the motion
or color data for the intermediate frames automatically.

- Here an entire sequence is being edited.
- By moving the timeline indicator to a different frame and changing
a value, the frame is saved implicitly. The curve that is
created can be either linear or spline based.
- Values can be input directly on the screen, or by using dials and/or sliders.
- Each of the keyframes can be viewed as tickmarks on the
timeline. The curve that is created can be edited directly,
with the results visible in the timeline window.

Swatch-Image Toggle
This new tool, Toggle, lets animators load two different images into one
swatch, creating a comparison image. A vertical or horizontal slider lets
users compare any part of the image with the altered pixels of the background
image. Toggle adds dramatic new functionality for subtle color correction
tasks.

- This new interface tool allows the user to split the screen to see the
effect of color correction and other image processing tools.
- Use it with the full-screen mode for accurate positioning, or in the small
swatch mode to see rapid changes in the pixels.
- The tool works in horizontal and vertical modes.
Color Chooser

This color chooser makes it easy to pick colors and
assign them to events. If an event requires a color, click
the color tile in the event editor to display the color chooser.
This single tool eliminates the guesswork from color editing.
Precise editing and control of matte opacity is possible too.
- This tool can be called up any time during a Composer work
session. It allows for the editing of colors in HSV and RGB modes.
- Colors are picked using the Pixel Information tool, then moved to
the chooser to change any one of the color components.
- There are two different ways to see the color that is being
changed.
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Audio Tracks
Creating Audio Tracks
Now users can import AIFF audio files for creating background sound effects,
or to synchronize composited graphics to audio sound effects. Users have
complete control over an unlimited number of audio tracks. The waveform
display lets animators isolate specific sound events for accurate
registration.

- The audio tool can be used to add sound to your compositions, or to add
'scratchtrack' audio for use in aligning audio and video together.
- The tracks can be viewed with or without a waveform display. They can be
mixed, or isolated, and individual tracks can be muted. Click tracks can be
created outside of Composer, using Soundeditor, and imported into the Composer
session.
- Users can control the pan (direction) of the audio, and the level (volume)
of an individual track, or all of the audio tracks together.
- The tracks can be trimmed, and repositioned anywhere within the
timeline.

Audio Playback and Mixing

This close-up of the interface shows a new piece of the timeline. The
yellow area shows the portion of the audio track that will be played back. You
can select a portion of the audio to playback, or scrub to give you real-time
control of the playback.
Temporary limits can be positioned on the timeline using the Alt key, to
select areas for closer scrutiny and analysis.

The Mixer tool gives every audio track its own control over level and pan, and
provides an easy interface to animate level or pan settings.
Audio is a key component of multimedia presentations. Now users can import
AIFF files and edit them, animate them, and save them directly from Composer.
Audio tracks that are stored in Avid OMF files, QuickTime files, and Silicon
Graphics Movie files can also be used within Composer's audio interface.
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Special Effects
Move3D - Digital Video Effects
This effect puts the functionality of a high-end post-production
studio in the user's hands. It allows for complete 3D motion of a
sequence of images. Images can be easily laid-back, rotated,
scaled, and spun around the screen. Move3D uses high quality
filtering for great anti-aliasing.

- The Move3D effect can be used to add the functionality of devices
such as the ADO and otherDVEs.
- With over 14 animatable controls, the user can easily move images
in all three dimensions. Images can be wrapped, repeated, and
layered so that there are different images on the front and back panels.
- This effect can be used with the z-depth information in the source
image. This single tool can cut down the total amount of time
spent creating images, as it reduces the need to do simple
moves, without using texture maps.
- Move3D uses the new Direct Manipulation techniques as well.
AdjustHSV - Color Correction
Using this tool in conjunction with the Pixel Information tool
and the on-screen palette, users can easily alter the Hue
and Saturation of an image, from a single pixel to a range
of pixels. This effect can be duplicated so that many visual
effects can be layered on top of one another.

- Use the Pixel Information tool to accurately select a pixel or
range of colors that are to be corrected.
- Once the Hue is selected, its range is set, from a very tight
area on either side of the color to manipulation of the entire color palette.
- The target Hue is then selected and the correction is achieved.
There is complete control over the Saturation and Value of the final pixel.
- This effect is easily animated using Automatic Keyframing.
This allows for very subtle pixel control over a range of frames.
Convolve - Image Processing
This collection of filtering tools allows for the creation of
most of the popular image processing effects. Sharpening,
blurring, embossing, and other effects are easily produced.
Special filters can be saved and recalled each time Composer
is used.

- The Convolve effect is a tool for users to customize the way
an image is processed. By inserting numbers into a matrix,
seen on the right of the screen, individual pixels can be altered
by the weighting of the matrix.
- Shown are common effects such as brighten, blur, sharpen, edge
detection, and image gradients. The kernels can be any size
and custom kernels can be saved and used on a variety of projects.

AutoStar & AutoHalo
These tools were developed by the creators of Cosmic Pinball and other
location-based entertainment ride films. In an effort to add increased
realism to their animations, they created this plug-in to give users creative
control on highlights, halos, stars, and related image processing effects.

- This new pair of color image effects lets users position stars and halos
around various portions of an image, according to a range of brightness values.
- Each of the parameters of a star or halo can be animated, so that they can
spin, turn various colors, move around the screen, and change size over time.
- This is an effective way to add lighting effects in a post-production
environment, and save lots of time by not having to render these lighting
elements independently.
Displacement Layering
This layering technique is how experienced digital effects
artists are able to get heat-wave effects, refraction effects,
and other natural-looking images. Any image can be used
to alter the position of the color or pixels of another image.
Displacement layering is an important tool for compositing.

- The top series of images is from a sample Composer session.
A lit background has its colors animating from blue to yellow.
- The second row of images was created using Dynamation.
They are a series of bubbles that emit towards the camera. They
are scaled and blurred, and the series is then used for the displacement.
- The final row shows how the effect looks when animated over
time. The ripples are very realistic.
- Displacement layering is very useful for creating watery looks,
adding bubbles to a scene, or creating pseudo-refraction, by
using the original rendered images as a displacement layer over the
source frames. Used sparingly, it can create very subtle effects.
ChromaKey - Bluescreen
Any color can be `keyed' or removed from the scene. This
provides a great deal of user control over saturation and
density of the remaining color. It also simplifies the task of
complex bluescreen removal. Because it is easily animated,
ChromaKey is a very flexible matte-creation tool.

- The top image is a standard bluescreen shot used in the
creation of the BudBowl series of commercials by BOSS Film.
- The ChromaKey effect is edited, with complete control over the Hue, Range,
Gain, Saturation, and Value. Each of these fields can be very finely tuned to
achieve a perfect bluescreen extraction.
- The ChromaKey effect can be layered so that residual color can be removed
in multiple passes. As with other effects, it is easily animated.
Reduce - Palette Creation Tool
The Reduce tool adds an important capability to Composer.
With it, users can build special palettes from 1 to 64 bits of
color information. This is especially key for GameWare users
who will be taking the resulting image sequences down to video
game devices, Macs, and PCs.

- Reduce was created specifically for the GameWare version of
Composer. It is included in all Professional Composer packages.
- A sequence of images is used to create a new palette that uses
8 bits of color for the entire image.
- Users can reduce an image from the standard 64 bits/pixel down
to 1 bit/pixel. Palettes can be saved and used for other image sequences.
- The palette is easily edited by the user, and individual colors
can be `locked' or `reserved'. The images on the top show how diffusion blends
the reduced colors from the full color to the 4-bit image on the right.

Masking
A mask protects areas of an image from an operation being applied to it. The
mask itself is another image. Where the mask is full, the image is completely
protected. Where the mask is zero, the image is completely unprotected.
Otherwise, the image is partially protected according to the mask value.

- The Wavefront logo image is used as a mask in this series of images.
- Masking can be used with most of Composer's layering and image processing
effects.
- The mask image can be an entire series of images, a single image, or a
one-channel image created using the Extract command.
- A mask can be extracted from any existing image, using the red, green,
blue, matte, z, or luminance channel.
Interlacing Effects - Fields
The Deinterlace and Reinterlace effects are directly related to
Composer's ability to interpret and render to fields. This gives
users greater control over fast-moving foreground motion
elements. This technique resolves problems of doing full-
frame image effects on every other scanline.

- These tiled images are easily recognized as scaled down
fields. Composer can read any field-rendered sequence.
- This range of fields was created by making an event twice as long as
necessary. A duration event, Reinterlace, was used to break the event into fields.
- The Interlace events, both to break down or convert fields,
are easily distinguished on the screen by their purple color. Notice that the
final events are shorter because they are to be computed on fields.

New Special Effects and Tricks
More new effects added to the 3.5 release:
Tile
Breaks an image into small tiles that can be animated.
Mirror
Reflects portions of an image in over eight different orientations.
BroadcastColor
Verifies that pixels conform to NTSC or PAL color limitations.
Extract
Pulls a one-channel image from an RGB image for use as a mask.
Solarize
An effect similar to exposing film to light during developing.
Common
New layer effect for comparing two separate images.
More Special Effects and Tricks
Unlimited Layering
Composite any number of elements.
Warp and Morph
Included with all Professional Composer systems.
Sketch
Mosaic
Convert images into a mosaic of colored squares.
Move2D
2D animation of image sequences.
Blur, Sharpen, Emboss
Arithmetic
Change colors using any arithmetic expression.
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Support for Industry Standards

Movies - Image Compression
You specify a movie file for input or output just as you would any other image
file. When you use a movie file for input, Composer extracts individual frames
from it. When you use a movie file as the output file type, you can also
include an audio track. Movies can easily be sent on the Internet for client
approval.

- This interface allows you to select from the several different types of
compression formats available.
- There is Avid OMF, QuickTime, and support for native Silicon Graphics
Movie files. To use your COSMO compress board, simply create an SGI Movie with
JPEG encoding.
- Images can be compressed with or without audio included.
- MultiFlip image sequences that are created during a Composer session can
be saved as compressed movies for playback later.
- Movieplayer on the SGI desktop can be used to playback sequences.
Image Formats
Standard Image Formats Supported:
Alias QuickTime
Aurora Sega
Avid OMF Silicon Graphics
GIF Softimage
IFF-ILBM Sony Playstation
JPEG Targa
Kodak Cineon TIFF
PICT Vista
Pixar Wavefront
Postscript Wavefront Explore
Quantel

New Image Formats
Formats added in 3.5:
Aurora
GIF
Support for the Compuserve standard format.
JPEG
Support for standard JPEG file compression.
SEGA
For users of GameWare, a convenient way to convert images for
use on the SEGA Saturn console-based game system.
Sony Playstation
For users of GameWare, a convenient way to convert images for
use on the Sony console-based game system.
Video Devices
Device support:
Abekas A60, A65, A66, Diskus
Accom Workstation Disk (WSD)
Chyron Centaur
Diaquest ImageNode, Diaquest II
Lyon/Lamb IVAS, MiniVAS, MicroVAS
Silicon Graphics Galileo, IndyVideo, Indigo2Video
Silicon Graphics VideoCreator, VideoFramer, VideoLab
Silicon Graphics Sirius and COSMO Compress
Sony LVR, Hi-8
Tektronix Avanzar
Videomedia VLAN
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Power-User Options
Additional Enhancements
Power Additions:
User Interface Customization
Pixmap is included in this release. It allows users to create their
own custom color icons for use in the toolbar and the toolbox.
Plug-Ins
External code uses dynamic shared objects (DSOs). This allows
for greater flexibility in adding custom file formats and image effects.
Internationalization
This version now supports various flavors of English, French, and
Japanese.
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Closing Thoughts
You will notice that Composer's new look is at once compelling and attractive.
The time spent adding and implementing feature and enhancement requests that
we have received from our users has been satisfying. We have focused on new
ways of speeding up routine, day-to-day tasks.
We are often asked how Composer compares to other compositing programs.
Composer is not a still-frame tool like Photoshop, or a hardware-specific
tool like Flame. Instead, it is an optimized tool that can be used with any
3D animation software, including Alias, Softimage, Prisms, and will offer
important time-saving capabilities, whether it is used for creating
high-resolution film frames, broadcast video images, or creating the next
best-selling video game.
Have Fun! And send us your images! And comments!
Or send us electronic mail to
composer@wti.com.