S_LensFlareAutoTrack Renders one or more lens flare images over the background clip, aligning various flare elements between the hotspot and pivot locations. In this AutoTrack version of LensFlare, the hotspots are automatically positioned on the brightest areas of the background clip. Increasing Blur For Auto will cause the input to be smoothed before the brightest locations are found and can help remove the effect of secondary bright spots. In the Sapphire Lighting effects submenu. Inputs: Background:  The clip to apply the lens flare over. Track:  Optional.   The lensflare hotspot is positioned on the brightest part of this image. If this input is not selected, the Background input (current layer) is also used for the tracking. Mask:  Optional.   The color of the flare is scaled by the color of this clip at the flare's hotspot location. A black and white mask can be used to create a flare that is obscured by foreground objects. A color mask will colorize the flare, which can give the appearance of the light source passing behind a partially-transparent object.

Parameters:

Lens:   Popup menu,  Default: 50 300mm Zoom.
The type of lens flare to apply. Custom lens flare types can also be made, or existing types modified, by editing the "s_lensflares.text" file.

50 300mm Zoom:  hotspot with ray cluster, red glow and red ring, and many other elements.

35mm Prime:  hotspot with ray cluster, red glow and red ring, and a few other elements.

105mm Prime:  hotspot with ray cluster, blue ring, blue glow, and other elements.

Anamorphic 1:  horizontal blue rays, diagonal blue ray, red glow and red ring.

Anamorphic 2:  horizontal blue rays and red glow.

Anamorphic Blue:  horizontal and diagonal blue rays with hexagonal blue/white glow.

Rays Only:  ray cluster with no other flare elements.

Rays Only 2:  ray cluster like 105mm_prime, but with no other flare elements.

Rays Only 3:  ray cluster like anamorphic1, but with no other flare elements.

Simple Hex:  four simple red and blue hexagon elements.

Blue Star Burst:  many long blue rays with a white-hot center and various reflection elements.

Orange Rays 6:  orange star with six rays and other elements.

California Sun:  yellow-orange hotspot with long soft double rays and reflection ring.

Space Telescope:  four pointed star with halo.

Red Laser:  intense red rays.

DVcam Vertical:  vertical CCD burnout effect.

White Sun:  white cluster of many rays with a rainbow reflection.

Hex Reflections:  bright center and rays with many blue-green reflection elements.

Diffraction Star:  six pointed white star with rainbow colored rays for a diffraction look.

Diffraction Rays:  white star with many rainbow diffraction rays.

Diffraction Rings:  multiple rings of textured rainbows around a hotspot.

Chroma Ring:  textured rainbow ring that scales with distance between hotspot and pivot.

Chroma Arc:  textured rainbow arc that scales with distance between hotspot and pivot.

Chroma Arc 2:  double rainbow arcs that scale with distance between hotspot and pivot.

Glint Rays:  similar to the default settings of Glint.

Scale Widths:   Default: 0.42,  Range: 0 or greater.
Scales the sizes of all the flare elements. This parameter can be adjusted using the Scale Widths Widget.

Rel Heights:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
Scales the vertical dimension of all the flare elements, making them elliptical instead of circular. This can also be adjusted using the Scale Widths Widget.

Blur Flare:   Default: 0,  Range: 0 or greater.
If positive, the flare image is blurred by this amount before being combined with the background.

Max Hotspots:   Integer,  Default: 1,  Range: 1 to 100.
Maximum number of flares to render. Rendering multiple flares can give different tracking results than rendering a single flare.

Hotspot Threshold:   Default: 0.6,  Range: 0 or greater.
When rendering multiple flares, flares are drawn at locations in the source clip that are brighter than ths value. If Max Flares is 1, has no effect.

Hotspot Shift:   X & Y,   Default: [0 0],  Range: any.
Adds this amount to the hotspot locations. This allows for a relative adjustment of the hotspots away from the auto-tracked locations if necessary.

Pivot:   X & Y,   Default: [0 0],  Range: any.
The elements of the flare will be in a line between the Hotspot and the Pivot locations. The Pivot location is in screen coordinates.

Blur For Auto:   Default: 0.014,  Range: 0 or greater.
The input is blurred by this amount before finding the brightest location.

Brightness:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
Scales the brightness of all the flare elements.

Color:   Default rgb: [1 1 1].
Scales the color of all flare elements.

Gamma:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 to 10.
Increasing gamma brightens the flare, and especially boosts the darker elements.

Saturation:   Default: 1,  Range: -2 to 8.
Scales the color saturation of the flare elements. Increase for more intense colors. Set to 0 for a monochrome lens flare.

Hue Shift:   Default: 0,  Range: -1 to 1.
Shifts the hue of the flare, in revolutions from red to green to blue to red.

Rays Rotate:   Default: 0,  Range: any.
Rotates the ray elements of the lens flare, if any, in counter-clockwise degrees.

Rays Brightness:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
Scales the brightness of the ray elements only.

Rays Num Scale:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
Increases or decreases the number of rays.

Rays Length:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
Adjusts the length of the rays without changing their thickness, or changing the size of the other flare elements.

Rays Thickness:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
Adjusts the thickness of the individual rays within the flare.

Hotspot Bright:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
Scales the brightness of the hotspot elements only.

Hotspot Color:   Default rgb: [1 1 1].
Scales the color of the hotspot elements only.

Other Brightness:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
Scales the brightness of all flare elements that are NOT at the hotspot location.

Other Color:   Default rgb: [1 1 1].
Scales the color of all flare elements that are NOT at the hotspot location.

Other Width:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
Scales the width of all flare elements that are NOT at the hotspot location.

Bg Brightness:   Default: 1,  Range: 0 or greater.
Scales the brightness of the background before combining with the flare. If 0, the result will contain only the flare image over black.

Combine:   Popup menu,  Default: Screen.
Determines how the flare image is combined with the Background.

Screen:  performs a blend function which can help prevent overly bright results.

Add:  causes the flare image to be added to the background.

Tint Bg Whites:   Check-box,  Default: off.
If this is enabled, the chroma of the flare is added only after the result is clamped to the maximum brightness. This allows the color of the flare image to still be visible even over bright white backgrounds. For the majority of backgrounds there will be no observable difference.

Affect Alpha:   Default: 0,  Range: 0 or greater.
If this value is positive the output Alpha channel will include some opacity from the flare. The maximum of the red, green, and blue flare brightness is scaled by this value and combined with the Background Alpha at each pixel.

Blur Mask:   Default: 0.0028,  Range: 0 or greater.
Blurs the Mask input by this amount before using. This can provide a smoother transition between the masked and unmasked areas. It has no effect unless the Mask input is provided.

Invert Mask:   Check-box,  Default: off.
If on, inverts the mask input so the effect is applied to areas where the Mask is black instead of white. This has no effect unless the Mask input is provided.

Mask Type:   Popup menu,  Default: Color.
This setting is ignored unless the Mask input is provided.

Luma:  uses the luminance of the Mask input to scale the brightness of the flares.

Color:  uses the RGB channels of the Mask input to scale the colors of the flares.

Alpha:  uses the alpha channel of the Mask input to scale the brightness of the flares.

Show Scale Widths: Check-box, Default: on.
Turns on or off the screen interface widget for adjusting the Scale Widths and Rel Heights parameters.

Show Pivot: Check-box, Default: on.
Turns on or off the screen user interface for adjusting the Pivot parameter.

See Also:

LensFlare

Glint Glare

Sapphire Plug-ins Introduction

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