Camera Shake

Simulates erratic camera movements that would result from the camera being supported by a moving person, object or vehicle with no stabilization.

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

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

Parameters

Presets

Presets contain a snapshot of your effect configuration. 20 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 Browser

Preview

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

Previewing the Source and Mask

Camera Shake: X

X Amount

Determines how wide the camera can oscillate or vibrate horizontally.

X Frequency

Determines how often the camera oscillates or vibrates horizontally.

Timing

The following options are available:

  • Always on
  • Start on
  • Start off — default

Controls how often, and for how long, the camera begins oscillating.

By default, the animation is set to be Always on. Switch the Timing parameter to Start on or Start off to define time periods for playback and pause:

Start on means the animation starts with your clip, and will animate for a random period of time before it pauses. Start off is its counterpart: the animation is paused for a random period of time, then begins playback.

How long does the animation play for, and how long does it pause? The answer is determined by the On and Off ranges. The effect picks a random time value within each range.

For example, if your On range is set to 0.5 to 1 seconds, the animation lasts anywhere between a half-second and a full second before it pauses. The duration of the pause is similarly determined, at random, within the Off range.

You can set the lower and upper bounds of each range to the same value. For example, setting the On range to be between 2 and 2 seconds implies that the animation will always play back for 2 seconds before pausing.

While the On and Off ranges are visually limited to between 0 and 5 seconds, you can manually enter larger values when needed:

Entering an upper bound higher than 5 seconds.

Entering an upper bound higher than 5 seconds.

The following video helps visualize what happens when you define an intermittent animation through the On and Off ranges:


Intermittent animation with randomized play and pause periods.

The Offset (secs) parameter moves the start of the animation relative to the start of the clip. A positive value delays the start of the animation by the given number of seconds. A negative value moves the start of the animation before the start of the clip.

On its default configuration, Camera Shake uses a single set of Timing options to control movement horizontally, vertically and along the viewing angle. It is possible to use different timing for all three types of motion, by enabling the Custom Y Timing and/or Custom Angle Timing parameters to reveal additional options.

Continous

This parameter effects camera movement when Timing is set to Always on.

So while Timing set to Always on guarantees that your camera is animating at all times, this parameter flips between two main approaches to continous animation:

  1. When enabled, the camera oscillates or vibrates without interruption. There is no ramping up or down.
  2. When disabled, the camera oscillates in an uninterrupted sequence of oscillations or vibrations, each beginning where the previous one ends, each with potentially different duration and intensity.
An intuitive example of the first option is that of a paint mixer. An example of the second option is a vehicle traveling over a bumpy road: each bump with different shape and depth.

On

Set between 0.15s and 0.25s by default.

The slider lets you pick a range between 0s and 1s. Click the numeric controls to type a value in.

This parameter supports values up to +∞. Drag the right handle beyond the edge of the slider to pick values above the range represented by the slider.

Off

Set between 0.05s and 0.1s by default.

The slider lets you pick a range between 0s and 1s. Click the numeric controls to type a value in.

This parameter supports values up to +∞. Drag the right handle beyond the edge of the slider to pick values above the range represented by the slider.

Camera Shake: Y

Y Amount

Set to 3% by default.

Determines how wide the camera can oscillate or vibrate vertically.

Y Frequency

Set to 10% by default.

Determines how often the camera oscillates or vibrates vertically.

Custom Y Timing

Enable to access a second set of Timing options that only affect vertical movement.

Camera Shake: Angle

Angle Amount

Set to 3% by default.

Determines how much the camera can rotate clockwise or counter-clockwise.

Angle Frequency

Set to 1% by default.

Determines how frequently the camera rotates clockwise or counter-clockwise.

Custom Angle Timing

Enable to access a second set of Timing options that only affect camera rotation.

Advanced

Scale

Scales your media up, thus allowing you to compensate for any camera movement that leaves portions of your frame empty.

Delay Start (secs)

Set to 0 by default. Only values between 0 and 10 are allowed.

Delays the start of all animations by the given number of seconds. A value of 3, for example, means that any camera movement that would be applied to your clip given the other parameters to the effect, won’t start until the clip is three seconds in.

Note that the Build In/Out parameter still plays a role, in addition to the delay you have specified. While this parameter delays the start of animations that are specific to Camera Shake, the Build In/Out configuration affects the output as a whole, including Chromatic Aberration and Channel Selection.

Drawing Order

The following options are available:

  • Masked output above (default) — The masked portion of your media, to which the effect is applied, is drawn above the unmasked portion, to which the effect is not applied.
  • Masked output below — The masked portion of your media, to which the effect is applied, is drawn below the unmasked portion, to which the effect is not applied.
  • Masked output only — Only the masked portion of your media, to which the effect is applied, is visible in the output.
When applying the effect with a specific Source and/or Mask, this parameter controls whether the masked portion of your media, to which the effect is applied, is drawn above, below, or exclusively in the 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.

  • Off — Output frames are rendered without motion blur. This is the fastest setting.
  • Low — default
    Combine 4 samples to produce each output frame.
  • Medium
    Combine 8 samples to produce each output frame.
  • High
    Combine 16 samples to produce each output frame. This is the slowest, highest quality setting.

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.

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)

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

This section allows you to animate effect parameters over time.

Build In/Out

Enable and control animation progress through a set of parameters.

When the animation is Off, no transition in 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. Note that there are no easing options when manually animating via keyframes.

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.

Channel Mixer

This section allows you to limit the effect to specific channels, leaving others unmodified.

Limiting the Effect to Specific Channels