CoreMelt Luminous V2:
Introduction
Luminous is a set of twenty-two specialist glow and blur plugins, to enhance the work flow of motion graphics artists.
All plugins render using the graphics card of your computer for fastest performance and all effects can render in high precision float colour depth.
Whats New in V2:
Graphical Multi-sliders:
Many of the plugins in CoreMelt V2 products now use custom sliders to intuitively demonstrate exactly what the slider controls when thresholds or color based sliders are used.
These sliders allow quick setup to get the feel of creating a look for a plugin, but they cannot
currently be keyframed. If you need to keyframe these controls use the popup menu "Interface" menu to change the controls from "Custom" to "Standard" and you can then keyframe every parameter. You can hold down “ctrl” when dragging any slider to get increased input resolution.
V Twin FX Engine / Standalone installation:
All CoreMelt plugins now use the 2nd generation V Twin FX plugin engine and are now completely standalone and no longer require FxFactory to be installed first.
Graphical Texture/Mask Pulldowns:
Masks or built in textures such ad the Imageflow Fx frames now appear as thumbnails in the menu to allow you to select them easily. You can also add your own masks to the CoreMelt Masks menu by creating a folder in your home directory "~/Library/Application Support/ CoreMelt/V2 Vector Masks". Any PDF, AI or PNG image files placed in that directory will be available for all CoreMelt plugins to use as built in masks. You can customise other texture browsers in the same way, a full list of directories is in the full documentation.
Quick Start:
Final Cut Pro, Final Cut Express, Motion and After Effects CS3/CS4
- Create a new composition
- Drop in the content you wish to edit.
- Bring up the "filters" panel ("Video Filters" in Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Express)
- Browse to the "C2 Luminous - Glows and Blurs" folder
- Drag the filter you want onto your content
- Alter the settings until you have achieved the desired result.
List of Plugins and Parameters:
Beat Matte:
Wipe a matte over an image in time to a BPM rate.
Blowout:
This is a specific glow effect that is useful for when you want the whole screen to flash to solid white. Animate the single "power" parameter in order to go from subtle to eye ball searing.
Unique Parameters:
- Power:
- Controls overall brightness of the glow effect, changing both width and brightness.
- Red, Green, Blue Offset:
- The variation of each channel from the overall blur. Eg red -3 and blur strength 12 means red channel is blurred 8 pixels.
- Source Opacity:
- blend the original image back under the glow.
Blur Chroma: 
Blurs the color information of the image while keeping the luminance sharp.
Unique Parameters:
- Blur Strength
- the width of the blur effect in pixels.
Blur Luminance:
Blurs the luminance (black and white) portion of the image while keeping the colour information (chroma) sharp.
Unique Parameters:
- Blur Strength
- the width of the blur effect in pixels.
Blur RGB: 
Allows separate control of blur values on the Red, Green and Blue channels of an image.
Unique Parameters:
- Blur Strength
- the width of the blur effect in pixels.
- Blur Red, Blur Green, Blur Blue
- Red, Green, Blue Offset
- The variation of each channel from the overall blur. Eg red –3 and blur strength 12 means red channel is blurred 8 pixels.
- Toggle on and off blurring of each channel.
Camera Defocus:
Camera Defocus: Simulates a real camera lens defocus.
Camera Defocus Z mask:
Camera Defocus Z Mask: A camera defocus depending on the strength of a gradient or mask.
Chromatic Glow
Glows and seperates the chroma channels.
Chrono Trails:
Takes copies of the image in time and grows, shrinks and rotates them to create a decaying trail effect.
Contour Lines Over:
Places thick double edge contours over the image.
Can be useful as one stage to create a cartoon effect or to create an interesting text effect when combined with glow effects.
Unique Parameters:
- Thickness:
- Overall control to thicken the edges
- Softness:
- Softness of edges
- Manual Controls:
- When "Use Manual" is checked you can manually control the parameters used to generate the thick edges instead of using the simplified controls above.
Contours:
Turns the image into a version in which every edge is surrounded by a thick double contour. Useful for generating mattes to apply other effects to areas surrounding edges in images.
Unique Parameters:
- Thickness:
- Overall control to thicken the edges
- Softness:
- Softness of edges
- Manual Controls:
- When "Use Manual" is checked you can manually control the parameters used to generate the thick edges instead of using the simplified controls above.
Core Glow:
Glow effect which allows you to set separate colors for the inner and outer glow in order to create a "hot core" style of glow. A breakup option allows for "sparkling" styles of flare effects.
Unique Parameters:
- Inner, Outer Color
- Color of inner and outer sections of the glow effect.
- Inner, Outer Width
- Width of inner and outer sections of the glow effect.
- Inner, Outer Brightness
- Brightness of inner and outer sections of the glow effect.
- Source Opacity
- blend the original image back under the glow.
Depth Blur Z mask:
Blurs depending on the strength of a gradient or a mask layer.
Fast Angle Blur:
A very fast gaussian blur effect which allows you to create the blur at an angle.
Unique Parameters:
- Blur Strength
- the width of the blur effect in pixels.
- Angle
- Sets the angle of the blur.
Fastblur:
A very fast gaussian blur effect which allows separate control of X and Y blur values.
Unique Parameters:
- Blur Strength
- the width of the blur effect in pixels.
Fastblur XY:
A very fast gaussian blur effect which allows separate control of X and Y blur values.
Unique Parameters:
- Blur Strength X
- the width of the blur effect in pixels.
- Blur Strength Y
- the height of the blur effect in pixels.
Glow Waves
Applies a glow effect to the clip, then animates the glow based on a pulsating displacement map to create the effect of waves.
Godrays:
A more powerful form of Lightrays which allows more control over the length and emission point of the light rays. Can produce very nice effects on text or still images.
Unique Parameters:
- Rays Strength
- Brightness of the rays.
- Rays Length
- Length of the rays.
- Rays Center
- Center position of the rays.
- Composite Type
- Choose the way the rays are blended over the source clip from a popup.
- Src Opacity
- Change the opacity of the source clip.
LightWrap:
Simulates light wrapping around a layer by mixing the background image back over the foreground image around the edges of the alpha channel.
Note: will only work correctly on layers with an alpha channel.
Optical Glow:
A filmic glow effect which allows separate control of red, green and blue glow widths and has precise control of threshold and breakup.
Unique Parameters:
- Glow Brightness
- Brightness of the glow.
- Glow Width
- Width of the glow.
- Red, Green, Blue Offset
- The variation of each channel from the overall blur. Eg red -3 and blur strength 12 means red channel is blurred 8 pixels.
- Src Opacity
- Change the opacity of the source clip.
Optical Glow Across:
Applies the optical glow effect only on edges of images with adjustable controls for edge threshold and width.
Unique Parameters:
- Glow Brightness
- Brightness of the glow.
- Glow Width
- Width of the glow.
- Red, Green, Blue Offset
- The variation of each channel from the overall blur. Eg red -3 and blur strength 12 means red channel is blurred 8 pixels.
- Src Opacity
- Change the opacity of the source clip.
- Edge Options
- Controls the width and brightness of the edge detection.
Optical Glow Edges:
Applies the optical glow effect only on edges of images with adjustable controls for edge threshold and width.
Unique Parameters:
- Glow Brightness
- Brightness of the glow.
- Glow Width
- Width of the glow.
- Red, Green, Blue Offset
- The variation of each channel from the overall blur. Eg red -3 and blur strength 12 means red channel is blurred 8 pixels.
- Src Opacity
- Change the opacity of the source clip.
- Edge Options
- Controls the width and brightness of the edge detection.
Plasma Ribbon
Creates a flowing fluid stream of light with many controls for the type of twisting, colors, style of ribbon and speed. Ideal for use as a motion graphics element for titles, or as a lower third. You can select from one of several built in source textures which generate the ribbon or use an image well to use your own.
Plasmatic Waves
Generates a pulsating displacement map to be used as a mask, or blended with other layers.
RGB Trails:
Creates ghostly trails behind movement in the image with different lengths in each color channel.
Unique Parameters:
- R Length:
- sets the length of the trail left of the Red Channel of the image.
- G Length:
- sets the length of the trail left of the Green Channel of the image.
- B Length:
- sets the length of the trail left of the Blue Channel of the image.
- Accumulators:
- choose one to three accumulators to increase the strength of the trails effect.
- Subtract Original:
- when this is checked, the original image is subtracted from the result to attempt to produce a “trails only” effect.
Sparkle Edges:
Creates glint style highlights only from the bright edges of images.
Unique Parameters:
- Sparkle Angle
- Start angle of the sparkles. Note each sparkle is 60 degrees apart.
- Sparkle Brightness
- Brightness of the sparkle lines.
- Sparkle Radius
- Width of the sparkle lines.
- Source Opacity
- Change the opacity of the source clip.
Sparkles:
Creates glint style light flares from the highlights of images.
Unique Parameters:
- Sparkle Angle
- Start angle of the sparkles. Note each sparkle is 60 degrees apart.
- Sparkle Brightness
- Brightness of the sparkle lines.
- Sparkle Radius
- Width of the sparkle lines.
- Source Opacity
- Change the opacity of the source clip.
Thick Edges:
An edge detect with a super thick chunky formula. Works much better as a matte for applying various filters to edges of images than conventional edge detect filters.
Unique Parameters:
- Thickness:
- Overall control to thicken the edges
- Softness:
- Softness of edges
- Manual Controls:
- When "Use Manual" is checked you can manually control the parameters used to generate the thick edges instead of using the simplified controls above.
Customisation Options
User Created textures and gradients
VeeYou will make directories in your home directory preferences to allow new textures and gradients to be added. Any vector or raster images (JPG, PNG or PDF are recommended) added to that folder are made available in the image selector list for the appropriate texture type.
For example, to add a new gradient, copy the image into the folder: /Users/**your username**/Library/Application Support/CoreMelt/Assets/C2 Gradients/ (texture images are placed in the "C2 VU Bars Textures" folder)
You do not need to restart Motion, just hit the reload button on the left hand side of the selector list to refresh the list. User made images will appear at the top of the list.
Mask Options
Almost every effect has a mask option that limits the range of the effect to a portion of the image. You can either use a range of built in masks or use the image well to apply your own clip as a mask. Please note that in Final Cut Studio 2, the Mask Options group only appears when the "Use Mask" checkbox is ticked.
Note, on plugins which spread out from an area and expand the image (glows and blurs) the Mask area is the source area which the glow or blur will spread out from, not the outerlimit of the effect.
- Preview Mask
- Shows the mask instead of the final output so you can adjust it precisely.
- Invert Mask
- Inverts the black and white areas of the mask, so reversing the area of the mask.
- Choose Mask
- Use this drop down menu to select one of the 24 built in mask shapes. If you select "Use Image Well" then a mask image well appears which you can drop your own mask layer into.
- Blur Mask
- Tick this to soften the edges of the mask shape.
- Blur Strength
- Amount in pixels to blur the mask shape.
- Mask Position
- Move the mask around the layer with this control
- Mask Scale
- Scale the mask in both X and Y together.
- Mask Aspect
- Adjust the aspect ratio of the mask shape to stretch it in X.
- Mask Rotation
- Angle in degrees to rotate the mask.
Support Options
You can post support questions to the CoreMelt user forum or use the support form on the CoreMelt website.
We recommend you use the Forms as then other users can see your questions and their answers.