1.3 | Adjusting compositing, effects and color grading

After finishing setup:

• Switch the view in Director from SETUP to PRODUCTION

Make live adjustments on running levels:

• Object panel - Allows you to easily change properties and make a transformation to objects in the level
• Video Composite panel - Allows you to make adjustments to the internal compositing
• Effects panel - Allows you to make adjustments to various post-processing effects
• Color Grading panel - Allows you to make adjustments to various color grading properties

Adjusting objects

The object panel lets you make adjustments to one or more objects.

1. Select one object or multiple objects from the Object browser
2. Make adjustments

 You can make the following adjustments:

• Transform objects
• Change exposed properties

  • If multiple objects are selected, only the common properties are selectable

    

    Learn more about how to expose properties.

These operations can be performed in both Live mode and Editor mode. The only difference is how adjustments are saved and applied.

Transform

Transform your objects by clicking the numeric boxes or typing in your desired number in the X-, Y- and Z-axes. To reset the transformation to the original values, click the reset icon. 

To get a list of all objects in your scene, open the Objects browser on the right side of the panel by clicking "Objects". 

Object browser

The Objects browser lists all objects, together with some additional information.

Here you can:

• select one or more objects and then adjust them in the "Object" panel
  • click "Adjust" to make adjustments to only one object
  • select multiple objects and click "Adjust objects"
• remove adjustments that were made earlier
  • select multiple objects and click "Remove Adjustments"

Visibility

Shows whether the object is visible in the Editor/Live mode.

Adjusted

Shows whether one or more values of an object were adjusted through the Adjustment panels.

Name

Shows the display name of each object and, if different, the unique Name (ID Name) in gray.

Object Type

Shows the type of the object.

Mobility

Shows whether the object is static or movable.

Render Layer

Shows the Pixotope-compositing-specific qualities of certain meshes, like AR Shadow Catching or Translucency.

Adjusting compositing

In the compositing panel, you can change the settings for how 3D graphics and video get composited together. The quality of the compositing depends on the chosen compositing color space.

These settings do not apply when the Compositing mode is set to External.

3D Graphics

Here you control the compositing effects of all 3D objects in the scene.

Backplate

When enabled, the routed camera system is used as a backplate.

Background blur

Controls how much the backplate is blurred before applying the light wrap.

Alpha blur

Controls the blur of the alpha stencil for AR objects. A higher value results in more blur.

Fade distance

Controls the fading of the blur (linear).

Gain

Controls the gain of the light wrap effect. A higher value results in a stronger effect.

Ambient occlusion (onto backplate)

Ambient occlusion is basically an effect that creates a more natural ambient lighting in the scene. It calculates how objects (occlusions) are exposed to ambient lighting and creates a diffuse non-directional shading effect in sheltered and enclosed areas. When enabled, you can make live adjustments to the ambient occlusion effect onto the backplate.

Strength

Controls the strength of ambient occlusion.

Shadows (onto backplate)

When enabled, you can make adjustments to the shadows cast by the 3D graphics.

Intensity

Controls the global shadow intensity.

Use colored shadows

When enabled, the inverse light color is used as a shadow color.

A custom shadow color can be set per light. See Shadows → Per light → Use custom shadow color.

Use luma mask

To improve the overlapping of virtual and real shadows, the luma channel of the backplate video is used as a mask for the shadows.

Luma mask multiplier

Controls the intensity of the luma mask effect.

Luma mask power

Controls the falloff of the luma mask effect.

Per light

Select one or more lights to apply the following settings:

Cast shadow

Enables shadow casting.

Intensity

Controls the shadow intensity.

Use custom shadow color

Overrides the shadow color. Needs the global "Use colored shadows" to be enabled.

Enable shadow falloff

Enable the shadow falloff.

Reflections (onto backplate)

When enabled, you can make adjustments to the reflections of the 3D graphics cast onto the backplate.

Strength

Controls the strength. A higher value gives a stronger/more defined reflection.

Transparency

Controls the transparency of the reflections. A higher value makes it more transparent.

Video

Input

Multiply fill input with key

Disable when using an external keyer.

Light wrap (from 3D graphics)

Light wrapping is used to prevent a sharp edge on the alpha mask so that the talent and/or real objects blend better in the scene. Note: Correct lighting in the graphics and on the talent/object is very important.

When enabled, you can make adjustments to the light wrapping effect on the alpha mask.

Multiplier

Controls the amount of light wrapping effect applied. A higher value produces a stronger effect.

Distance

Controls the distance (in pixels) that the effect works inwards on the alpha mask.

Blur radius

Controls the amount of blur added to the effect. A higher value results in more blur.

Respill

Respill can improve the visual integration of the keyed object into the scene. When enabled, sampled colors from the scene are applied to the edge of the keyed object.

Feather

Applies a feather on the internal compositing planes. This is done in world space. 

Near

The near limit of the feather effect.

Far

The far limit of the feather effect.

Width Multiplier

The aspect ratio of the feather effect.

Box feather

Enable box feather.

Plane specific

In this view, you can create and move:

• VS Internal compositing planes - used to place video into your scene
• AR Reflected planes - used to cast reflections onto 3D graphics

List of compositing planes

This table shows a list of all internal compositing and universal compositing planes in the level.

Transform

Location

Move the selected plane on the corresponding X-, Y- or Z-axis by the desired increment.

Rotation

Rotate the selected plane on the corresponding X-, Y- or Z-axis by the desired increment.

Scale

Adjust the scale of the selected plane on the corresponding X-, Y- or Z-axis by the desired increment

Settings

Adjusting effects

Unreal Engine provides high-quality lens and image effects that simulate how a real camera works and that can be used to enhance the realism of graphics and make integration with video easier.

Effects applied to Graphics

Chromatic aberration

Chromatic aberration manifests itself as "fringes" of color along boundaries that separate dark and bright parts of the image.

Intensity

Offset

Lens flare

Simulates the lens flare effect that happens on real-world cameras when viewing bright objects. When enabled, you can make adjustments.

Intensity

Brightness scale of the image-based lens flares (linear).

Threshold

Defines the minimum brightness of pixels that contribute to the lens flare. Setting a high threshold prevents very dark content from being blurred; it also improves performance, as the fill rate cost increases linearly with the number of pixels passing the threshold.

Dirt Mask

The bloom dirt mask effect uses a texture to brighten up the bloom in some defined screen areas. This can be used to create a dirty look or a more impressive HDR effect, or to simulate camera imperfections.

Intensity

Scales the color of the bloom dirt mask effect (linear). This property is used to tweak dirt mask brightness.

Bloom

Bloom is a rendering effect used to simulate the real-world phenomena seen on bright objects on much darker backgrounds, and helps to add realism to the scene.

Method

Intensity

Scales the color of the whole bloom effect (linear). Possible uses: fade in or out over time, darken.

Threshold

Defines how many luminance units a color needs to have to affect bloom. In addition to the threshold, there is a linear part (one unit wide) where the color only partly affects the bloom. To have all scene colors contributing to the bloom, a volume of -1 needs to be used. Possible uses: tweak for some not real HDR content, dream sequence.

Vignette

Vignette simulates the effect that occurs with real-world camera lenses, seen by loss of light (darkening) near the edges of the image.

Intensity

Motion blur

If the graphic elements seem staggered in fast camera movements, apply motion blur.

Amount

Screen space reflection

Screen space reflection alters the reflected appearance of objects on surface materials based on screen space. 

Intensity

Quality

Screen percentage

Screen percentage is a resolution-scaling technique used to render a lower- or higher-resolution image than what is actually being presented. Adjusting the screen percentage allows you to maintain a balance in your scenes between performance and image resolution quality.

Undersampling/Oversampling

Effects applied to Video

This effect is applied to the main video source.

Bloom

Intensity

Color grading

The color grading panel allows control to make live adjustments to the video, the 3D graphics and the final output. It is used to tweak the output for realism, but also permits artistic freedom.

• "Video" - the color grading of the camera system projection
• "3D Graphics" - the color grading of all 3D objects including mapped input media
• "Final output" - color grading on everything combined

White Balance

White balance is used to correct the lighting so that white is displayed as "true white". If the white balance is on the cold side, white appears more blueish.
When enabled, it allows you to adjust the white balance (graphics/video/both).

Temperature

Controls the white balance temperature. A higher value results in a warmer white.

Tint

Controls the color tint of the white balance. A higher value adds more cyan and magenta to the color range.

Color Grading

Color grading is used to adjust the overall color representation in the scene. 

Mode

• Global - adjust the color globally
• Shadows - adjust the color values for shadows in the scene
• Midtones - adjust the color values for midtones in the scene
• Highlights - adjust the color values for highlights in the scene

Saturation

Controls the intensity of the colors. A higher value results in more pure colors. Use the arrow to reveal individual RGB sliders.

Contrast

Controls the tonal range of light and dark color in the level/scene. A higher value will tighten the highlights and darken the level/scene. Use the arrow to reveal individual RGB sliders.

Gamma

Controls the luminance intensity of the mid-tones color. Use the arrow to reveal individual RGB sliders.

Gain

Controls the luminance intensity of the whites (highlights). Higher values result in more washed-out highlights. Use the arrow to reveal individual RGB sliders.

Filmic tone mapper (3D graphics only)

Tone mapping is used to map the colors in a high dynamic range and convert them to a limited dynamic range that a regular display can output.
The purpose of the Tone Mapping function is to map the wide range of high dynamic range (HDR) colors into low dynamic range (LDR) that a display can output. This is the last stage of post-processing that is done after the normal rendering during post-processing. The process of tone mapping can be thought of as a way to simulate the response that the film has to light.

Slope

Controls the steepness of the S-curve. A higher value results in a steeper curve (darker).

Toe

Controls the dark color. A higher value results in darker colors.

Shoulder

Controls the bright color. A higher value results in brighter colors.

Black clip

Controls the cut-off point for black. In general, this value should NOT be adjusted.

White clip

Controls the cut-off point for white. This will appear as a subtle change in most cases.

Ambient Occlusion (3D graphics only)

Ambient occlusion is basically an effect that creates a more natural ambient lighting in the scene. It calculates how objects (occlusions) are exposed to ambient lighting and creates a diffuse non-directional shading effect in sheltered and enclosed areas.
When enabled, you can make live adjustments to the effect.

Intensity

Controls the amount of the effect applied. A higher value results in more shading effects.

Radius

Controls the radius from the occlusions where the effect is applied.