Kaleidoscope

Simulates the effect of viewing your video through a kaleidoscope.

This plugin has been completely redesigned in FxFactory Pro 6 to support advanced source and mask selection, chromatic aberration and animatable parameters.

The user interface encourages progressive discovery of the large number of features. Built-in presets offer shortcuts to popular styles and techniques. Master advanced techniques once and apply them to other plugins that share the same design.

Compatibility

Kaleidoscope is compatible with Final Cut Pro, Motion, Premiere Pro and After Effects.

Parameters

Presets

Presets contain a snapshot of your effect configuration. 4 built-in presets are available.

When you save parameter configuration to a file on disk, this file can later be loaded to recreate the same effect configuration. Presets generated in one video application can be used by the same plug-in running in a different video application.

Working with the Presets Menu

Preview

This parameter enables a canvas preview of the pixels selected through the Source and Mask parameter sections.

Previewing the Source and Mask

Kaleidoscope

Scale

Set to 1 by default. Only values between 0 and 2 are allowed.

Angle

Set to by default.

Reflections

Set to 5 by default.

The slider is limited to values between 0 and 100 but you can type values between 1 and 100 by clicking on the current value in the inspector.

Origin

A point parameter centered in the frame by default.

Initial location in the frame

While it is possible to change the X and Y coordinates via the inspector, it is far easier to interact with point parameters directly on-screen:

Adjusting Point Parameters in Final Cut Pro
Adjusting Point Parameters in Motion
Adjusting Point Parameters in Premiere Pro
Layer Selection in After Effects

Origin: Rig

When Source is set to either to use object tracking or face detection, this parameter lets you rig the origin of the effect to the center of a specific object or face.

Effects

Effects

This parameter allows you to apply a blur, exposure adjustment or vibrancy adjustment. The following options are available:

  • Off: all effects are disabled.
  • Apply to Output: apply the effects to the image that results from tiling the original image.
  • Apply to Original: apply the effects to pixels that are not slected by the current Source or Mask.

Blur Filter

This parameter controls the algorithm used to blur pixels. Each technique produces a distinct style. Beware that Variable blurring only applies when Source and/or Mask have been customized.

Compare different blurring techniques

Blur Radius

Control the amount of blurring.

Blur Angle

Controls the direction of the blur. This parameter is only available with a Directional bur.

Blur Contrast

Controls the visibility of each ray projected from the origin of a Zoom blur, or the sharpness of ring artifacts in a Bokeh blur. This parameter is not available with other blurring techniques.

Exposure

Adjusts the exposure of the output or of the original image, depending on the current selection made in the Effects parameter.

Vibrancy

Adjusts the vibrancy of the output or of the original image, depending on the current selection made in the Effects parameter. Vibrancy allows you to increase or decrease saturation while better-preserving skin tones.

Source

Parameters in this section allow you to choose a set of pixels to apply the effect to, based on a number of techniques:

  • Luminance Range: select a range of pixels based on their brightness.
  • Color Key: select a range of pixels through a keying algorithm.
  • Edges: select pixels according to an edge detection algorithm.
  • Person Contour: select the main subject in the video frame through an AI-assisted algorithm. Works best with human subjects.
  • Object Tracker: select pixels by tracking one or more objects across the frame.
  • Face Detection: select pixels by detecting the location of human faces and tracking them across the frame for the duration of the clip.

Choosing Source Pixels

Original (left), selecting the darkest pixels (center) and lightest pixels (right)

Original (left), selecting the darkest pixels (center) and lightest pixels (right)

Mask

Parameters in this section define a shape used to crop the output of the effect with. When using an object tracker or face detection, the same mask shape is replicated for each object or face that appears in the frame.

  • Off: no cropping occurs.
  • Rectangle: crop the output to a rectangular shape.
  • Oval: crop the output to a circular shape.
  • Gradient: crop the output to a linear gradient.
  • Bar: crop the output to a two-sided gradient.
  • Custom: crop the output to a shape defined by a custom graphic.
  • Text: crop the outut to a shape defined by a title.

Choosing a Mask

Rectangular mask (left), gradient (center), gradient mixed with Person Contour (right)

Rectangular mask (left), gradient (center), gradient mixed with Person Contour (right)

Relative to Face/Object

Off by default.

Chromatic Aberration

Parameters in this section allow you to apply color distortions inspired by lens geometry, but with greater artistic range.

Using Chromatic Aberration

Original (left), distortion of the red and blue channels (center) and of chroma (right)

Original (left), distortion of the red and blue channels (center) and of chroma (right)

Animation

Build In/Out

Build In/Out lets you enable and control animation progress.

When the animation is Off, no transition into or out of the effect occurs.

When the effect is set to build in and out by Trimming, the following parameters are displayed:

The Trim slider defines a range where the effect has been fully built. Any time outside this range is spent building the animation in or out. For example, if the Trim range is set between 20% and 80%, the effect builds in from the start of the clip up to 20% of its duration. The effects builds out from 80% to the end of the clip. If the clip were 5 seconds long, the build in and out animations last 1 second each.

When the effect is set to build in and out through a Duration, the following parameters are displayed:

The Build In (secs) and Build Out (secs) give you an exact way to decide how long each animation should last. Should your selection not be applicable to the current clip, a warning will appear in the output. For example, if your clip lasts only 3 seconds, it would be impossible to have the build in and out animations both last 2 seconds each (as the total would be 4 seconds).

When the effect is set to build in and out through Keyframes, a single parameter is displayed:

The Build In (Easing) and Build Out (Easing) parameters let you choose the animation curve when animating by Trimming the clip or by specifying a Duration.

The Progress parameter gives complete control over the animation to you. You will need to keyframe the Progress parameter using features of the video app.

Scale

Turn on to animate the Scale parameter.

Scale Animation

Angle

Turn on to animate the Angle parameter.

Angle Animation

Origin

Turn on to animate the Origin parameter.

Origin Animation

Aberration Amount

Turn this parameter on to animate the Amount value specified under the Chromatic Aberration section. A number of standard controls allow you to control the animation:

Aberration Amount Animation


Animating the Aberration Amount with Directional (left) and Radial (right) Fringing

Seed

A number that controls random aspects of the effect.

Click the New button to assign a new seed value. When the seed value is changed, the effect uses a different random sequence to produce a different output.

Motion Blur

Motion Blur

Enables motion blur at different quality settings. The higher the quality, the more samples are used. Multiple samples are blended together to produce a single frame of output.


Multiple samples are combined to produce a single output frame with motion blur

Shutter Angle and Offset

The Shutter Angle slider controls the size (aperture) of the shutter used to simulate motion blur. The size of the shutter determines how long light is allowed to pass through the lens. The angle is set to 360° by default. A shutter angle of 360° means that samples are collected for the entire duration of the frame.
Setting a value of zero means that you want the shutter to collect light only once, which is equivalent to turning motion blur off.

The Shutter Offset slider controls the moment in time when the shutter opens and closes, relative to the duration of the frame. The offset is set to 0 by default. An offset of zero means the shutter is perfectly centered over the moment in time when the frame occurs. The shutter is therefore open an equal amount of time before and after the current frame occurs.

The Shutter Angle and Shutter Offset parameters are only available when motion blur is enabled.