Jahshaka Effects Module By admin Published: June 30, 2005 PrintEmail
The Jahshaka effects module is evolving to be a first class, real time image processing application. The ability to stack and control multiple effects and save effects trees out to disk is accentuated by its ability to do both GPU and GPGPU image processing.
The Effects Module
The default panel that is opened with the effects module is the scene panel. This will let you load and save effect trees out, clear the tree, and modify the length of the animation by clicking and dragging in the ‘endframe’ box. You can also activate GPU effects (if available) and change the render mode.
The effects module uses the world layer as the base layer that effects are applied to. All effects are stacked on top of the world layer and each effect can have its own key-frameable animated values. To view the world layer, click the checkbox next to it in order to turn it on.
Step 1 – get an asset
In order to use the world layer you must first load an asset into the world layer from the desktop. You can do this by selecting the world layer and hitting the ‘Get Desktop’ button. Hitting the ‘Get desktop’ button will take you to the desktop where you can select an asset. If there are no assets on the desktop you can load an asset and select it before returning to the effects module.
To get an asset from the desktop you must first select it by clicking on it (this will highlight it) before returning.
Once an asset is selected on the desktop you hit the red ‘return’ button to return to the calling module – effects in this case. If the return button is no longer red – or visible - simply go back to the effects module and repeat the ‘get desktop’ procedure.
Step 2 – add a simple effect
We will start off by adding a basic effect, in this case we can use the Negative effect from the RT effects menu. To add it, simply click on the AddRT button, and click on RT Negative. You will see the Negative effect has been added to the list-box above the World layer and the image is now a negative.
You can take a photo of the new image by clicking the photo button located above the get desktop button. This will render a photo of the effect and place the output clip on the desktop. You will have to pop over to the desktop in order to check it out.
Jahshaka renders effects at video resolution by default. You can enable source image size rendering in order to render out your effects using the size of the base image. To do this set the ‘render using source res’ flag in the scene tab to true.
Step 3 – keyframes
We will now add another effect and animate it, this time we will use the real time fish eye. To add it to the tree click on the AddRT button and select Fisheye. Once you have done this you can experiment by dragging the Translate X and Y sliders around to move the fish eye, and the Rotate X slider to change the size of the fish eye.
To animate an effect you need to add multiple keyframes. Before doing this make sure the timeline slider (biggest slider on the screen located on top of the control panel) is at the far left (00:00:00). Then set the fisheye up and hit the ‘key’ button. This will record the current location of all the sliders at the current point in time.
Then move the timeline slider to the far right (00:03:09). Before setting another keyframe you will want to modify the fisheye values again – reposition it and adjust the size – and they hit the key button again. You can now scrub the timeline slider by clicking and dragging the tab on it and you should see your effect animate in real time. You can also scrub to the beginning and hit the render button to render the entire sequence out as a clip to the desktop.
You can also reposition and animate the world layer itself if you like in order to zoom in on a effect or just to get a different view. You can also keyframe the world layer’s attributes.
You can now save your effect tree out to disk. Simply select the ‘Scene’ panel and hit the save button and type a name in. Saved effects can be re-applied to any asset by simply loading them in and replacing the asset in the World layer.
