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From PlugInFinder

Contents 1 The Stats 2 Buy PHYX:EVO for Shake 3 Description 4 List of Effects

The Stats

• Developer: PHYX
• Version: 2008v2
• Platforms: Unix / Linux, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Mac OS X, Windows Server 2003, Windows XP x64, Windows Server 2003 x64, Windows Vista
• Host Applications: Apple Shake
• Mac Universal Binary

Buy PHYX:EVO for Shake

• PHYX:EVO
• PHYX:BUNDLE

Description

PHYX:evo is a collection of PPTs (PhyxProcessingTrees) designed to create and process imagery within Apple Shake. As Phyx Inc. does not currently offer 'demo' Shake products, PHYX:evo has been released as an 'introductory' package, bringing you over a dozen powerful generators and processors at a low cost. The fourteen plugins are included with EVO are: AntiAlias, BlurBlend, DeBand, DeInterlace, Glow, GridGen, InstantRain, Keyer3d, OldFilm, SelectiveDesat, SelectiveSharpen, Techni2Strip, TimeAverage, and UVBlur.

List of Effects

AntiAlias AntiAlias has no controls as none are needed. It simply resizes an image to twice its size with a Mitchell algorithm, then resizes it back to size using a Lanczos algorithm. This plugin may be used for 3d animation elements where a subtle amount of ‘harshness’ can be removed easily. Editors and motion graphics artists may use this plugin for design and text elements. This effect tends to be more subtle and yet more effective than a simple blur for 3d animation elements in composites, and for video and film originated elements without excessive noise or grain.

BlurBlend Blur Blend is an effective blur operator added to the ‘Phyx’ tab within Shake. Blur Blend adds an additional option beyond the blur operator in Shake: the amount of blur applied is variable. This processor may save additional steps when variable blur amount is needed. Blur Blend may be used to emulate various diffusion looks simply and efficiently.

Deband Deband is a processor which varies pixel color information and smoothes gradients to effectively *raise* color bit depth. Images stored at 8 bit-per-color RGB contain 3 color channels, each with 256 values (shades of grey) with which to store color information. 256 values may not be sufficient to reproduce smooth gradients in images, and the resulting image may appear stair-stepped with color-values flattened (or quantized) to the closest ‘step’. Deband raises the bit depth to 16 bit, smoothes gradients to avoid the ‘stair-stepping’, and adds mathematical variation to color pixels to ensure that pixels are no longer ‘stuck’ at their 8 bit values. This processor is extremely powerful, and vastly improves many images processed by it. Deband may be used by Cinematographer and Colorists within the DI (digital intermediate) or other post process to increase the bit depth of footage shot at 8-12 bit-per-color depth. Deband may also be useful for Compositors for matching elements. Deband may also be used by Motion Graphics artists or other designers looking to reduce banding on images and elements.

Deinterlace Interlaced video images are somewhat difficult to properly deinterlace in areas of motion. One method is to blur or blend two video fields together to form a single frame. This method has two advantages; the combing artifacts are lessened and it maintains full vertical resolution, but its drawback is that it creates a blurred 360 degree shutter effect, which makes video movement look artificially blurred and heavy.

Another method of deinterlacing video is to simply take one field (one half of the frame vertically) and double its lines vertically to create one frame. The resulting frame has only half of its original vertical resolution, but does not show combing artifacts from interlaced fields, and has a more realistic movement due to its shutter speed being closer to 180 degrees. A variation of video line-doubling is interpolation, which estimates the missing information in the missing field to create one frame. This method is used in many commercial deinterlacers.

In areas without motion, the interlaced image does not show combing artifacts. It does have the 360 degree shutter, but is not moving, so blur is not an issue. So we need to remove video combing artifacts without destroying vertical resolution. How do we do this ?

Motion A motion map allows the interlaced image to be used with full resolution for the majority of the image, and uses a blurred image for areas of motion. This processor is a full commercial quality plugin. You MUST use THREE SEPERATE instances of the input source (FileIn) for this plugin to deinterlace the images. The easiest way to duplicate the source is to copy-and-paste the first FileIn. For this node to function properly, the second FileIn is time-shifted +1 frame. Time-shifting activates the internal motion ‘engine’ to search for the difference between the FileIn nodes. With this reference, a motion mask is created for an interpolated deinterlaced image to be used only in areas of motion. This processor is designed used with video originated (interlaced) footage only.

GridGen GridGen is useful for creating 2d grids for 3d animation, video editing, composites, motion graphics, or other design applications. It has 3 controls: Width (controls the wdith of the generated grid), Height (controls height), and Size, which controls the size of the grid itself within the rendered image.

InstantRain InstantRain generates an image stream of vertically-blurred “precipitation”, which can be used to simulate rain/hail. The controls are: High and Low change the luma levels of the precipitation. PreSoften softens the precipitation. VerticalStreak alters the amount of faux motion blur, which gives the precipitation its shape. Color changes the color of the precipitation. This processor is useful for video or film editing, visual effects compositing, motion graphics, or other design applications. This processor can used with film or video originated, or 3d generated elements.

Keyer3d Keyer3d is a variation of the 3d keyer, as described in Steve Wright’s excellent Digital Compositing for Film and Video (pages 23-26 in the Second Edition). This version of the 3dkeyer allows you to chose a color, which is then mathemagically referenced against the source image to generate the resulting map of the distance between the sampled color and each pixel’s value. This map is viewable in the alpha channel, as the matte for the input. The other controls are: MatteGamma, to control the gamma of the matte, MatteHigh and MatteLow, to control the level expansion of the matte. This keyer is usable as is; the matte is outputted as the alpha channel, and is multed within the plugin. You may use several instances of this keyer, and Mix or Max the alpha channels together to form a composite matte. This matte may be used as the matte input in a KeyMix node. We believe that the power and ease of use of our Keyer3d plugin will appeal to editors, designers, 3d animators, and professional compositors alike. This processor can used with film or video originated, or 3d generated elements.

OldFilm Old Film is a processor designed to simulate various ‘film damage’ effects. Camera / projector gate wobble, color grain, dirt splotches, and film scratches may be added to images with ease and control. This processor is designed to additionally shift color information to give a ‘yellowing’ effect, seen in archival color footage. Many grain effects simply add ‘light noise’, essentially noise screened over footage, which does not simulate the realistic latitude of film grain. Old Film’s realistic grain processor allows control over the softness and saturation of grain, while realistically integrating grain with the processed images.

SelectiveDesat SelectiveDesat is essentially a basic chroma keyer plus a saturation control. The controls are: ColorSampleHigh and ColorSampleLow, to vary the sampling area, and Saturation to vary the amount of saturation in the selected color band. The processor is simple to use, yet gives powerful control over selective color saturation for editors, cinematographers, motion designers, visual effects compositors, 3d animators, and other designers and artists. This processor can used with film or video originated, or 3d generated elements.

SelectiveSharpen SelectiveSharpen is similar to Selective Desat (above) with a slight difference: it uses an edge-detection engine to selectively mask edges of objects, and to sharpen only the edges of objects within the image. This effectively sharpens the image without increasing grain/noise, etc.. In the past, designers and artists have had to blur images in hopes of softening grain before sharpening the image. This resulted in what was known as “grain soup”-- where grain wasn’t really removed, but the image was distorted by blur, then overly sharpened to attempt to compensate. This processor enables selective sharpening where it is needed, removing the need to over-process the image. The controls are: PixelRange, which varies the pixel-width of the sharpening filter, and EdgeBrightness, which controls the brightness of edge details. This processor can used with film or video originated, or 3d generated elements.

Glow Glowcreates a ‘glow’ within an image. Glow effects have been used throughout film history. Many glow filters were made by stretching ‘netting’ (aka stockings/hosiery) over the lens of the camera to soften the image. This effect is simulated within Shake by blurring the expanded image, then screening the result over the original image. This effect can be used very subtly, or may be used to create very atmospheric glows, like those used in the Ridley Scott film ‘Blade Runner’. The controls are: GlowHigh and GlowLow, to control the luma levels of the glow, GlowSaturation to control the saturation of the glow layer, GlowSoftness to control the softness of the glow layer, GlowAmount to control the amount of the glow effect. Film and video editors and/or cinematographers may use this filter to process entire projects with, or for dream-like sequences. Compositors may find this effect useful for creating a softness and diffusion to match shots and elements. This effect may also be useful in 3d animation, motion graphics, or other design projects. This processor can used with film or video originated, or 3d generated elements.

Techni2strip Techni2Strip simulates the Technicolor 2-strip process first introduced as the Technicolor System 1 Additive Color Projection in 1917, Technicolor processes were made extremely popular (legendary) through films such as “Gone With the Wind”, “Ben-Hur”, “The Phantom of the Opera”, “The Wizard of Oz”, etc.. This processor uses two algorithms to simulate the 2-strip process with 2 methods; the first combines blue and green channels into one record (as they were stored in the Technicolor process) and combines their sum with the red channel. The second method reorders the luma record to replace the green channel. The second method is less authentic, but offers a unique look of its own. The controls are: ProcessBlend, which blend between the two simulation methods, and Saturation, which controls the output Saturation. Again, editors and/or cinematographers may use this filter to process entire projects looking for a unique or authentically vintage look. This effect may also be useful with motion graphics elements. This processor can used with film or video originated, or 3d generated elements.

TimeAverage TimeAverage requires *three seperate* FileIn nodes of the same image sequence to function properly. This processor will not work with only one FileIn plugged into all three inputs. The easiest way to do this is to copy-and-paste the preferred FileIn, twice. These copies can be routed into inputs two and three. This processor internally time--shifts two of the FileIn nodes, and averages the result together. This plugin can be used for noise reduction, or for subtle time-manipulation effects. No controls are included as none are needed.

UVBlur UVBlur is extremely useful for processing images created or stored with chroma subsampling at 4:2:2, 4:1:1, or 4:2:0. This includes DV, HDV, DVCProHD, and many many other digital origination formats. The primary trouble with chroma subsampling is chroma keying, as the chroma channels are subsampled, at a loss of resolution. The most popular fix for this caveat is to blur the UV channels in the YUV stream (Y is the luma channel, U and V are chroma). The result from keying subsampled imagery is that the edges of the mattes generated by chroma keying tend to be noisy and blocky, due to the lack of information in the chroma channels. UVBlur can be used to repair DV/HDV/other keys in Shake by smoothing the blocky artifacts to create cleaner mattes. The single control is: BlurSize, which controls the size of the blur applied to the chroma channels. Phyx recommends starting with a default blur size of ‘4’ pixels with DV footage, or ‘8’ pixels for HDV 1080, then fine-tuning to taste.