Special Effect options

Table of Contents | Appendices

Special Effect options

Electrifier Pro can apply a wide range of special illustration effects to actors, from adjusting the "camera" focus to common darkroom tricks to simulated film aging.

Electrifier's special effects are created on-the-fly during playback. This means that the special effects are extremely small in file size. This also makes it easy to experiment with effects without having to keep backups of your content.

The Special Effects dialog box includes a preview of each effect.

Alpha Gain: Changes the transparency of an actor with alpha channels. This effect is similar to Masked Translucent ink in that both can be used to reduce the opacity of actors with alpha channels, but Alpha Gain gives you a great deal more control over the way that an actor's opacity is adjusted.

Bottom Pin: The minimum value for the alpha channel
Top Pin: The maximum value for the alpha channel
Gain: The ratio to change the alpha channel values by
Offset: The fixed amount to change the alpha channel values by
Blur: Reduces contrast by softening edges, as if an actor were viewed through an unfocused camera lens.

Amount of Blurring: The extent of the blur effect
Brightness: The ratio of the brightness of the blurred actor to that of the original
Color Style: Provides a range of darkroom and printing effects.

Solarization creates a blend between the positive and negative versions of the image, simulating the effect produced by briefly exposing a photographic print to light during the development process. Posterization reduces the number of color levels, simulating the way hand-painted poster would be produced.

Solarize Amount: The intensity of the solarization effect
Solarize Point: The brightness at which the solarization takes effect
Posterize: The number of colors to use in the posterization
Color Tint: Draws an actor in a tinted duotone style. Duotones print grayscale images with two ink colors instead of one, and thus increase the tonal range of the image. Duotones are perhaps most familiar in daguerreotype photographs from the Civil War era in the US.

Tint type: The duotone tint style to use
Light Color: The color to use for light areas of an actor
Dark Color: The color to use for dark areas of an actor
Brightness: The fixed amount to change the brightness of an actor by
Contrast: The fixed amount to change the contrast of an actor by
ColorSync: Adjusts the color balance of an actor to match a particular ColorSync profile. You can us this to match the color of a scanned piece of artwork more precisely to the original, or to simulate the display of an actor on various output devices.

Source Profile: The ColorSync profile of an actor
Destination Profile: The ColorSync profile of the display device
Edge Detection: Identifies the areas of an actor with high contrast and emphasizes them. Such border areas generally correspond to edges of actors or within actors.

Edge Thickness: The size of the emphasized "edges" in an actor
Colorize Result: Displays the edges in color, based on the colors around them
Emboss: Draws an actor as if it were stamped onto a 3D surface, by drawing a highlighted and a shadowed version of an actor with an adjustable offset.

Amount of Embossing: The "depth" of the 3D stamping effect
Film Noise: Draws an actor as if it were shot on aged film stock. Options include hairs, scratches, dust, and film fading. Since film fading adjusts the color of every pixel in an actor, this can be highly processor-intensive and should be used with restraint.

Hair Density: The maximum number of hairs in an actor
Hair Length: The length of each individual hair
Scratch Density: The maximum number of scratches in an actor
Scratch Duration: The maximum time each scratch remains visible for.
Scratch Length: The maximum length for each scratch
Dust Density: The maximum number of dust particles in an actor
Dust Size: The maximum size for each dust grain
Film Fading: The type of film stock to simulate
General Convolution: Draws a convolved version of an actor. Convolutions perform a predefined mathematical operation on an actor whereby each pixel is replaced by a weighted sum of the color values for itself and the eight pixels surrounding it. The weighting values are given by the values in the corresponding cells of the convolution matrix.

This special effect is most useful to users with an understanding of the relevant mathematics.
HSL Balance: Adjusts the Hue, Saturation, and Lightness components of an actor. This can be used to shift colors around the color wheel, to change the brightness, or to change the color intensity in an actor.

Hue: The ratio to change the hue (position in the spectrum) of the colors in actor by
Saturation: The ratio to change the saturation (color intensity) of the colors in an actor by
Lightness: The ratio to change the lightness of an actor by
RGB Balance: Adjusts the Red, Green, and Blue components of an actor. This can be done to colorize an actor as if it were viewed under tinted light, or to change the brightness of an actor.

Red: The ratio to change the red component of the colors in an actor by
Green: The ratio to change the green component of the colors in an actor by
Blue: The ratio to change the blue component of the colors in an actor by
Sharpen: Increases contrast by emphasizing edges, as if an actor were shot under harsher lighting.

Amount of Sharpening: The extent of the sharpen effect
Brightness: The ratio of the brightness of the sharpened actor to that of the original