Diplom Thomas Schick

3.6. Plug Ins

Zusätzliche Funktionen, die sich per Software in ein bestehendes System integrieren lassen nennt man Plug-Ins ('Einstecker'). In der Regel werden diese Plug-Ins von Drittfirmen erstellt und sind für verschiedene (konkurrierende) Plattformen erhältlich.

Einige wichtige sind z.B. 'Tinder Tools', 'Keylight', von 'The Foundry', 'ICE FX' von 'ICE', '5D Monsters', 'Ultimatte', 'Sparks' für 'Discreet Logic' Produkte, 'Boris FX'.

Vor einigen Jahren noch gänzlich unbekannt gehören Plug-Ins heute selbstverständlich zur Ausstattung der Geräte. Das umfaßt die Hersteller- und Kundenwünsche. Plug-Ins können für eine Plattform programmiert werden. Der Hersteller gibt die nötigen Informationen an den Hersteller des Plug-Ins weiter, ohne dabei gleich das ganze Programm offenlegen zu müssen. Plug-In Hersteller ihrerseits bieten Ihre Produkte oft auch für verschiedene Plattformen an. Üblicherweise sind Plug-Ins als reine Software geschrieben. Damit sind sie flexibel einsetzbar und können, wie es einige Firmen praktizieren auch gleich selbst programmiert werden. Updates (Neue Versionen) und Bug Fixes (Korrekturen von evtl. Programmfehlern) sind ohne Zeitverzögerung einsetzbar. Auch die Kosten sind vergleichsweise niedrig. Alle diese Eigenschaften führen zu Trends in gerade aktuellen Plug-Ins. Erfolgreich ist wer es versteht seine Plug-Ins mit vielen Parametern zu versehen, die ein individuelles Anpassen an einen spezifischen Kundenwunsch ermöglichen. Dadurch wird kann man den Effekt öfters einsetzenohne einen Wiedererkennungseffekt zu haben. Reine Softwarelösungen habenden Nachteil langer Rechenzeit. Um den Effekt im laufenden Bild zu sehenmüssen die entsprechenden Bilder als neues Datenfile berechnet werden.Dieser Prozeß wird auch Rendern genannt (siehe Kap.3.8.). GerenderteFiles beanspruchenzusätzlichen Platz auf der Festplatte. Als Kompensationgibt es oft spezielleHardware, welche die Funktionen der Plug-Ins unterstützen.Das Ice Boardfür Avid und After Effects ist zum Beispiel eine solcheLösung.Aber auch für den 'Ultimatte' Keyer ist eine zusätzlicheHardwareerhältlich.

Dabei gilt es zu unterscheiden ob das Board 'nur' den Renderprozeß beschleunigt oder eine sogar eine Echtzeitausgabeermöglicht.

Quantel hat lange Zeit kein Interface für Plug-Ins gehabt. Mit 'Java on Quantel' hat sich dies geändert, dabei ging man einen völlig neuen Weg. Die Workstation (Editbox, Henry, Infinity) bleibt im wesentlichen unverändert. Die Plug-Ins werden von einem externen Rechner separat bearbeitet. Diese 'Render Engine' ist in den Arbeitsablauf nicht integriert. Wenn ein Effekt erstellt werden soll und die fertige Einstellung gefunden worden ist, rendert die Engine, während die eigentliche Workstation völlig unbelastet durch Berechnungen weiter an einem anderen Punkt des Projektes arbeiten kann. Zwischen reiner Software und einem externen Rechner erstreckt sich also die technische Bandbreite der Plug-Ins. Bezüglich der kreativen Effekte ist allerdings keine Grenze zu sehen. Es zeichnen sich aber gewisse Richtungen ab. Strahleneffekte, als wäre ein Licht hinter einem Text gehören ebenso zu einem guten Set von Plug-Ins wie 'LensFlare' Effekte, welche die eigentlich unerwünschten Lichtbrechungenin einem Kameraobjektiv künstlich erzeugen.

Eine Liste der 'Tinder Tools' von 'The Foundry', soll die Vielfalt der Möglichkeiten deutlich zu machen. Auf der Internetseite findet sich zu jedem Effekt auch ein Bild zur Verdeutlichung. Ähnliche Beispielbilder bieten auch die Webseiten der anderen Firmen. Die Namen der Effekte sind oft selbsterklärend, oft aber auch nur durch Ausprobieren zu verstehen. Für die meisten Effekte gibt es zusätzliche Regler, an denen man Werte für Farbe, Intensität, 'Wolkenmenge' und was auch immer an Parametern vorstellbar ist, einstellen kann. Bei diesen Parametern kommt es nicht darauf an jeden einzelnen zu verstehen, wichtiger ist einspielerischer Umgang damit. Man sollte allerdings versuchen unlogische Einstellungenmit gesundem Menschenverstand zu überprüfen. Bei einem Strahleneffekt kann man lange am Regler für die Strahlenlänge drehen, wenn die Lichtintensität auf 0 gestellt ist...

Tinder 3.0 for Discreet Advanced Systems, The Foundry, London

Name

Description

Bandlimit

Filter that removes selected levels of detail from a clip.

Blob

Blobby shapes that stick and gloop with each other.

Blur

Time constant sub-pixel gaussian blur (or sharpen) process.

BlurChannels

Time constant sub-pixel gaussian blur (or sharpen) process on individual colour components.

BlurMasked

Time constant sub-pixel gaussian blur (or sharpen) process.

Caustic

Simulates the reflected light patterns seen at the bottom of swimming pools.

Chromatic

This effect blurs an image through a colour gradient to produce chromatic fringing at the edges of objects.

Clouds

Animatable cloud effect with parameters including fluffiness, colour, position, density, seed, size, gain, rotation and turbulence. Marbling effects also possible.

Composite

Compositor with blue spill suppression andmore built on top of Dilate.

Contour

Analyses an image and draws contours alonglines of similar luminance.

Copyflicker

Analyses the luminance variations in a clip and applies them to another.

Deband

Smoothes out colour banding on images.

Deflicker

Removes luminance flicker from a clip.

Degrain

Removes grain from film images.

Diffuse

Pixel scattering effect with radius and aspect controls.

Dilate

Matte manipulation process. Grow, shrink, halo, softness, clip and more.

DirBlur

Blur process with direction and amount control.

Distorto

Distorts one clip using the luminance of another.

Droplet

Single droplet ripple effect with amplitude, wavelength, phase, speed and other controls.

Etch

Charcoal etch effect with control over theedge lines and shading.

Flare

Lens flare with over 30 parameters controlling colours, highlights, pivot position, brightness, glow, primary and secondary rings.

Glass

Glass refraction with lighting control.

Glow

Animatable glow effect with size, burnout,spread and break-up controls.

Grad

Linear, circular, radial and polygonal gradients possible with this comprehensive process.

Grain

Adds grain to images.

HeatHaze

Heat Haze effect

ImageImport

Imports images of any resolution from diskand allows you to pan/zoom interactively.

Kaleid

Classic triangular prism kaleidoscope effect with size, rotation and position controls.

Laser

Laser bolt effect with control over direction, colour, fall off, break-up and more.

Lens

Fish-eye lens effect.

LensBlur

Accurately simulates camera defocus through mathematical modelling of the lens. Controls for the shape of the lens aperture give the blurred polygonal highlights characteristic of a camera lens.

LensBlurComp

Front/Back/Matte compositor with controls to LensBlur the foreground and background images.

MatteMan

Matte generator and wiper that allows you to build up complex matte shapes from layers of simpler shapes.

Mix

Blends two input images using one of 24 compositing methods to control the mixing (add, subtract, luminance, chroma,...)

Mosaic

Pixelation effect using squares, circles, triangles, octagons and jigsaw with offset, rotation and scale controls.

NightSky

Faithfully reproduces all the constellations in the night sky such as Orion and Taurus. Plus control over azimuth, roll, star size, spread, etc.

Noise

Adds noise to an image.

Pattern

Generates pattern mattes such as snakes, venetian blinds, stripes, circular venetian and many others.

Plasma

Creates animating fractal patterns.

Polar

Circular wrapping distortion with numerouscontrols.

Pond

Continuous circular ripple effect with amplitude, wavelength, phase, speed and other controls.

Pong

Classic Ping-Pong Game

PseudoColour

Maps the luminance of an image to a new colour range giving a false colour look.

RadialBlur

Radial and circular blurs with controls for position, amount, bias and blend controls.

Rays

Backlighting effect through a matte using streaked light rays that pick up colour from the foreground image.

Rewire

Component extraction and rewire for the 3 input clips.

Ripple

Linear ripples with direction, wavelength and many other parameters.

Shape

Generates shape mattes including circles, stars and squares.

Sky

Amazingly realistic sky simulator with controls for the 3D camera position, clouds, sun and 6 presets to get you started.

Split

Simple way of viewing 2 clips side by sidewith a variable amount of wipe from left to right.

Starburst

Lens filter that adds radial streaks of light to the highlights. Includes parameters to change number of rays and rotation.

StarField

An infinite plane of stars with parameterscontrolling everything from size and spread to flicker rate and scatter toproduce amazing starfields.

Stutter

Randomly rearranges frames in a clip.

Swirl

Swirl distortion effect.

Tile

2D tiling process useful for backgrounds.

TimeSlice

Temporal vertical slicing effect.

Tint

Colour tinting effect.

Trail

Motion blur effect created through the blending of temporal frames.

Turner

A painterly artistic effect is achievable with this process.

Wipe

Simple horizontal and vertical (or any angle) wipe with edge softness control.

WipeMan

Simple horizontal and vertical (or any angle) wipe matte generator with edge softness control.

Wobble

Applies camera shake with motion blur to aclip.

Anvil 2.0 for Discreet Advanced Systems.

Name

Description

Look

Three different colour looks are provided in this single spark. Bleach Bypass exactly mimics a film lab bleach bypassprocess where the silver in the negative is retained giving a very stylisedresult. PrintLook gives video or 3D sourced material a more cinematic look.TechnoCol mimics a well known three strip printing process that gives a richdepth to images.

Cleanup

Removes dust particles and field flicker to provide a cleaner image.

ColCorrect

This spark models telecine type secondary colour correction. It has six vector channels that are selected from the screenand variable using a spread control. Colours once selected can be changedin hue, saturation and luminance just like in a telecine suite.

Colourist

Colourist uses statistical analysis of theimage to provide various forms of automatic technically perfect colour correction for normal colour balancing.

ColourWash

ColourWash removes all colour information then washes up to 4 colours back in to give that retouched black and white movie look. No mattes are required and it is fast.

CleanLights

This desaturates highlights and shadows with controls to vary how quickly the effect ramps in.

EdgeGlow

This edge diffusion effect identifies lines in an image and mixes colour into them giving a very stylised look.

Filtration

Selectively blurs parts of an image to give that "vaseline on a lens" effect.

zurück zum Inhaltsverzeichnis

Name	Description
Bandlimit	Filter that removes selected levels of detail from a clip.
Blob	Blobby shapes that stick and gloop with each other.
Blur	Time constant sub-pixel gaussian blur (or sharpen) process.
BlurChannels	Time constant sub-pixel gaussian blur (or sharpen) process on individual colour components.
BlurMasked	Time constant sub-pixel gaussian blur (or sharpen) process.
Caustic	Simulates the reflected light patterns seen at the bottom of swimming pools.
Chromatic	This effect blurs an image through a colour gradient to produce chromatic fringing at the edges of objects.
Clouds	Animatable cloud effect with parameters including fluffiness, colour, position, density, seed, size, gain, rotation and turbulence. Marbling effects also possible.
Composite	Compositor with blue spill suppression andmore built on top of Dilate.
Contour	Analyses an image and draws contours alonglines of similar luminance.
Copyflicker	Analyses the luminance variations in a clip and applies them to another.
Deband	Smoothes out colour banding on images.
Deflicker	Removes luminance flicker from a clip.
Degrain	Removes grain from film images.
Diffuse	Pixel scattering effect with radius and aspect controls.
Dilate	Matte manipulation process. Grow, shrink, halo, softness, clip and more.
DirBlur	Blur process with direction and amount control.
Distorto	Distorts one clip using the luminance of another.
Droplet	Single droplet ripple effect with amplitude, wavelength, phase, speed and other controls.
Etch	Charcoal etch effect with control over theedge lines and shading.
Flare	Lens flare with over 30 parameters controlling colours, highlights, pivot position, brightness, glow, primary and secondary rings.
Glass	Glass refraction with lighting control.
Glow	Animatable glow effect with size, burnout,spread and break-up controls.
Grad	Linear, circular, radial and polygonal gradients possible with this comprehensive process.
Grain	Adds grain to images.
HeatHaze	Heat Haze effect
ImageImport	Imports images of any resolution from diskand allows you to pan/zoom interactively.
Kaleid	Classic triangular prism kaleidoscope effect with size, rotation and position controls.
Laser	Laser bolt effect with control over direction, colour, fall off, break-up and more.
Lens	Fish-eye lens effect.
LensBlur	Accurately simulates camera defocus through mathematical modelling of the lens. Controls for the shape of the lens aperture give the blurred polygonal highlights characteristic of a camera lens.
LensBlurComp	Front/Back/Matte compositor with controls to LensBlur the foreground and background images.
MatteMan	Matte generator and wiper that allows you to build up complex matte shapes from layers of simpler shapes.
Mix	Blends two input images using one of 24 compositing methods to control the mixing (add, subtract, luminance, chroma,...)
Mosaic	Pixelation effect using squares, circles, triangles, octagons and jigsaw with offset, rotation and scale controls.
NightSky	Faithfully reproduces all the constellations in the night sky such as Orion and Taurus. Plus control over azimuth, roll, star size, spread, etc.
Noise	Adds noise to an image.
Pattern	Generates pattern mattes such as snakes, venetian blinds, stripes, circular venetian and many others.
Plasma	Creates animating fractal patterns.
Polar	Circular wrapping distortion with numerouscontrols.
Pond	Continuous circular ripple effect with amplitude, wavelength, phase, speed and other controls.
Pong	Classic Ping-Pong Game
PseudoColour	Maps the luminance of an image to a new colour range giving a false colour look.
RadialBlur	Radial and circular blurs with controls for position, amount, bias and blend controls.
Rays	Backlighting effect through a matte using streaked light rays that pick up colour from the foreground image.
Rewire	Component extraction and rewire for the 3 input clips.
Ripple	Linear ripples with direction, wavelength and many other parameters.
Shape	Generates shape mattes including circles, stars and squares.
Sky	Amazingly realistic sky simulator with controls for the 3D camera position, clouds, sun and 6 presets to get you started.
Split	Simple way of viewing 2 clips side by sidewith a variable amount of wipe from left to right.
Starburst	Lens filter that adds radial streaks of light to the highlights. Includes parameters to change number of rays and rotation.
StarField	An infinite plane of stars with parameterscontrolling everything from size and spread to flicker rate and scatter toproduce amazing starfields.
Stutter	Randomly rearranges frames in a clip.
Swirl	Swirl distortion effect.
Tile	2D tiling process useful for backgrounds.
TimeSlice	Temporal vertical slicing effect.
Tint	Colour tinting effect.
Trail	Motion blur effect created through the blending of temporal frames.
Turner	A painterly artistic effect is achievable with this process.
Wipe	Simple horizontal and vertical (or any angle) wipe with edge softness control.
WipeMan	Simple horizontal and vertical (or any angle) wipe matte generator with edge softness control.
Wobble	Applies camera shake with motion blur to aclip.

Name	Description
Look	Three different colour looks are provided in this single spark. Bleach Bypass exactly mimics a film lab bleach bypassprocess where the silver in the negative is retained giving a very stylisedresult. PrintLook gives video or 3D sourced material a more cinematic look.TechnoCol mimics a well known three strip printing process that gives a richdepth to images.
Cleanup	Removes dust particles and field flicker to provide a cleaner image.
ColCorrect	This spark models telecine type secondary colour correction. It has six vector channels that are selected from the screenand variable using a spread control. Colours once selected can be changedin hue, saturation and luminance just like in a telecine suite.
Colourist	Colourist uses statistical analysis of theimage to provide various forms of automatic technically perfect colour correction for normal colour balancing.
ColourWash	ColourWash removes all colour information then washes up to 4 colours back in to give that retouched black and white movie look. No mattes are required and it is fast.
CleanLights	This desaturates highlights and shadows with controls to vary how quickly the effect ramps in.
EdgeGlow	This edge diffusion effect identifies lines in an image and mixes colour into them giving a very stylised look.
Filtration	Selectively blurs parts of an image to give that "vaseline on a lens" effect.