Overview

The Ripple Dissolve filter creates a rippling distortion similar to that generated by a raindrop or pebble falling onto a smooth pond.  The distortion amount automatically animates as your transition progresses to obscure the underlying dissolve between clips.

Function

Presets and Common Controls

BCC filters come with a library of factory installed presets plus the ability to create your own custom presets and preview them with the BCC FX Browser™.

BCC filters also include common controls that configure global effect preferences and other host-specific effect settings.

For more information about working with presets and other common controls, Click Here.

Layer to Reveal: This layer selection popup is not relevant when you have applied the filter as a true NLE-style transition and it will be hidden or disabled in that context.  When applied as a normal “effect” as opposed to a transition, however, this menu is used to select the Incoming or Reveal layer for the transition.

Animation: Menu controlling what drives the animation of the transition.

• Auto – automatically generates a transition based on the transition length (when used as a transition) or the clip length (when used as a filter.)
• Percent Done – requires the user to set keyframes to control the transition progression.  Can be useful in customizing the exact timing of the transition or when applying the filter as a stylized effect as opposed to a direct NLE-style transition.

Percent Done:  Disabled/Hidden by default.  When the Animation menu is changed to Percent Done then this slider can be manually keyframed to control the transition progression.

Radius Peak:  Set the maximum radius achieved by the ripple shape before it fades away.  Higher values produce ripples that grow more rapidly in size and more quickly cover the full image.

Center:  Defines the center point from which the ripple emanates.

Height:  Set the perceived height or amplitude of the waves, with higher values producing more pronounced displacement in the direction of the wave motion.  Note that if the effective amount of distortion is increased substantially you may need to adjust the Pin Width parameter to minimize any holes in the alpha channel that might appear near the image edges.

Perpendicular Height:  Control the amount of displacement perpendicular to the ripple’s direction of motion.  Larger values produce a more twisting or zig-zagging appearance to the wave distortion pattern.  Note that if the effective amount of distortion is increased substantially you may need to adjust the Pin Width parameter to minimize any holes in the alpha channel that might appear near the image edges.

Wave Width:  Set the wavelength of the ripples with higher values producing more widely spaced wave peaks and smaller values producing more tightly bunched waves.

Width Percent Increase:  Control how the Wave Width changes over the course of the transition.  Higher values cause the effective Wave Width to increase as the transition progresses which works well when combined with Speed Deceleration to produce the feel of the wave gradually fading out.

Speed:  Controls how rapidly the ripples travel out from the center point (or effectively how values the waves cycle up and down).  This is independent from how fast and large the outermost wave front grows (which would be controlled by the Radius Peak setting).  Higher values produce more rapidly oscillating ripples.

Speed Deceleration:  Controls how much the ripple Speed slows down over the course of the transition.  Higher values tend to enhance the feeling of the waves fading out gradually.

Phase:  Adds an additional offset to the wave cycle, effectively shifting the pattern of which areas are at a wave peak versus a wave trough.

Inside Radius:  Controls damping of the wave intensity in the center of the wave pattern which helps simulate the appearance of the ripples gradually fading away naturally towards the end of the transition.  Higher values will increase the size of the damped inner region thus reducing the amount of distortion in the middle.  Note that if the Inside Radius becomes much larger than the Radius Peak that the outer edge of the ripple shape may become very abrupt.

Fall Off:  Controls the rate at which the wave height drops off beyond the edges of both the inner and outer radius.  Increasing Falloff causes the wave height to decrease more slowly (thereby creating a wider, smoother falloff area), and decreasing this value makes the wave height decrease more abruptly.

Light Parameter Group

The Light parameters adjust the lighting of the ripple in the filtered image.

Light Level:  Controls the amount of light applied to the image.  At a value of 0, no light is applied.  As the value increases, the light becomes more intense.

Light Color:  Sets the color of the applied light.

Light Width:  Affects the size of the lit area on the wave crest. Increasing this parameter value causes a wider part of the crest to be lit; decreasing it diminishes the lit portion of the wave.

Light Focus:  Adjusts the shape of the light over each wave. Increasing Light Focus makes the light wider and more diffuse; decreasing Light Focus makes the light sharper and narrower.

Light Angle:  Sets the angle of the light source origin.

Light Elevation:  Determines the distance between the light source and the image plane. As Light Elevation increase, the light hits a larger portion of the ripple.

Apply Mode:  Controls the blend mode used to composite the light with the underlying image.  For descriptions of all the Apply Modes, Click Here.

Pin Width:  Controls the edge treatment for the distortion.  If distortion amounts are increased significantly it can cause some areas near the edge of the image to pick up transparency from neighboring regions outside the image.  When this occurs, increase the Pin Width to suppress the amount of distortion near the edges until the alpha holes dissappear.

Distortion Pinning

The BCC Distortion Pinning controls are used to fine tune edge treatment in situations where a distortion effect might cause regions from outside the image edges to be remapped inside the boundary.

For more information on the BCC Distortion Pinning controls, Click Here.

Color Group

Controls for color enhancements that auto-animate along with the transition – for example boosting (or reducing) the Brightness or Contrast during the peak of the transition to maintain greater contrast, boost intensity, or create stylized variations of the basic dissolve.

Brightness Peak: Defines the maximum change to the Brightness at the midpoint of the transition.  Auto-animates so that it has no effect at the beginning or end of the transition and peaks in intensity at the middle.

Contrast Peak: Defines the maximum change to the Contrast at the midpoint of the transition.  Auto-animates so that it has no effect at the beginning or end of the transition and peaks in intensity at the middle.

Extras Group

Contains additional advanced controls for further fine tuning the details of the effect.

Apply Ripple To: Determines how the distortion is applied to the source and reveal layers.

• Dissolve – dissolve the two layers first and apply the distortion to the output of the dissolve
• Source Layer – apply the distortion prior to the dissolve, but only to the source layer
• Reveal Layer – apply the distortion prior to the dissolve, but only to the reveal layer
• Source and Reveal – apply the distortion to both the source and reveal layers separately prior to dissolving between them
• Off – disable the distortion completely and just show the result of the basic dissolve
  

A Height Scale:  Scale the master Height amount applied to the Source Layer.

B Height Scale:  Scale the master Height amount applied to the Reveal Layer.

A Width Scale:  Scale the master Width amount applied to the Source Layer.

B Width Scale:  Scale the master Width  amount applied to the Reveal Layer.

A Speed Scale:  Scale the master Speed amount applied to the Source Layer.

B Speed Scale:  Scale the master Speed  amount applied to the Reveal Layer.

Animation Tuning Group

These parameters control the overall timing of the transition.  On hosts which permit on-screen heads up display widgets (such as AE, Premiere, and Avid) you should never need to modify these sliders directly since they can be configured in a more convenient and intuitive manner by manipulating the widgets directly in your comp/preview pane.  On hosts without heads up display widgets you can use these sliders directly to fine tune your animation timing, taking advantage of the View Ease Curve option to help visualize the animation rates.

Ease In:  Control how quickly or slowly the effect amount increases at the beginning of the transition.

Ease Out:  Control how quickly or slowly the effect amount decreases at the end of the transition.

Dissolve Duration:  Control the timing of the underlying dissolve relative to the timing of the rest of the transition.

View Ease Curve:  (Only visible/enabled in hosts that don’t support heads up display widgets for manipulating these controls directly on screen.)  Enable this control to display a preview graph of the the animation curves rendered into in the composite window.