BCC Wave

Category: BCC Warp

Effect Name: BCC Wave

The BCC Wave filter, part of the BCC Warp category, creates parallel waves across the source image.

Working with the Filter

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.

Effect Controls

Mocha Mask and Track

Continuum effects include integrated masking and matte tools that allow you to restrict the effect to specific regions of the image.

• Mocha masks: used to create custom spline masks. Mocha also includes Matte Assist ML and Matte Refine ML, which use machine learning to generate and track masks.
• Pixel Chooser: used to generate geometric shapes, gradients, or mattes based on channel, luma, or color-based selections. Additionally, an AI depth map generator and an AI-powered face detection model allow for precise control of masks and mattes.

For more information, see Mocha and Pixel Chooser.

Beat Reactor

The BCC Beat Reactor is an animation control system that drives effect properties using an audio track. This allows visual effects to sync automatically to sound without manual keyframing.

For more information on the Beat Reactor, Click Here.

• Process Alpha Only: Distorts the alpha channel without changing the underlying colors.
• Height: Determine the strength of the wave. Height controls the amount of displacement in the direction of the wave.
• Perpendicular Height: Sets the amount of displacement perpendicular to the direction of wave motion.
• Wave Width: Determines the distance between the peaks of the wave. The Wave Width does not affect the maximum displacement of each point in the image, but it does affect how fast the displacement changes from point to point in the image. Wave Width also affects the total number of waves visible in the effect, because as the waves become wider, fewer fit on the screen.
• Speed: Sets the motion of the waves as they move. If you look at any one peak in the wave, Speed controls the rate at which the peak moves.
• Phase: Sets the position of the peak.

The default Speed setting of 10 moves the waves at a rate of one wave width per second. A negative Speed value moves the waves in the opposite direction. When Speed is 0, the waves are stationary (unless Phase is interpolating to a different value during the effect).

• Wave Angle: Sets the angle between the direction of wave motion and the horizontal axis.

Chaos Group

The Chaos Group controls shape of the waves, change the look of the waves by adding distortion or chaos, and creates the appearance of waves that dissipate as they move.

• Waveform: Determines the shape of the wave. These choices fall into two categories: Shape waveforms and Spectrum waveforms.

Note: The Shape waveforms include Sine, Triangle, Square, Sawtooth, Circle, Semi-Circle, Uncircle, and Half-Sine. These names refer to the shape repeated on a graph that plots the displacement of each point in the wave on the Y axis and the distance of each point from the center on the X axis.

The Shape waveforms are mathematically derived and are not intended to look natural. For a more natural-looking alternative, experiment with the Spectrum waveforms. These waveforms are all variations of the sine wave that can produce less regular, more realistic looking waves.

• Chaos Wave: The Chaos Wave’s waveform is determined by the Chaos Wave value, which relates to the fourteen Spectrum waveforms listed in the Waveforms menu in the Basic tab. A Chaos Wave value of 10 uses the Spectrum 1 waveform as the Chaos Wave, 20 uses the Spectrum 2 waveform, and so on. Values between two multiples of 10 create a mix of the two adjacent Spectrum waves.
• Chaos Blend: Sets the mix of the specified waveform (determined by the WaveForm menu) with the Chaos Wave setting. If Chaos Blend is set to 0, the resulting wave conforms to the WaveForm setting. At a Chaos Blend value of 100, the filter uses only the Chaos Wave. Intermediate values blend between the two. You can change the Chaos Blend value to adjust the amount of chaos added to the basic waveform.
• Wave Distortion: distorts the shape of the wave, changing the displacement of pixels that are not at zero points (for positive values) or peaks (for negative values) in the wave.
• Peak Point: The Peak Point and Decay Distance interact to produce a wave that decays as it moves.
• Decay Distance: The Peak Point and Decay Distance interact to produce a wave that decays as it moves.
• Decay: Sets the ratio of the wave’s strength at its lowest point (at the Decay Distance) to the wave’s strength at its highest point (the Peak Point).
• Intensity: Determines the intensity of the waves.
• Normal: Has no affect on the Height and Perpendicular Height settings and is suitable in most circumstances.
• Low: Scales down the Height and Perpendicular Height values by a factor of 10, which can be useful if you are working with small waves and want fine control over the parameters.
• High: Multiplies the Height and Perpendicular Height values by a factor of 10 and can produce very exaggerated and unnatural-looking wave effects.

Light Parameter Group

The Light parameters adjusts the lighting of the wave in the filtered image.

• Light Level: Sets 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 value causes a wider part of the crest to be lit; decreasing it diminishes the lit portion of the wave.
• Light Focus: Sets the shape of the light over each wave. Increasing Light Focus causes the light to look wider and more diffuse; decreasing Light Focus makes the light bands sharper and narrower.
• Ambient Light: Adjusts the diffuse light on the image. The default setting of 100 does not add or subtract ambient light from the source image. Decreasing this setting makes the image darker before the other light is applied. Ambient Light illuminates or darkens the image evenly, and is unaffected by any other lighting parameters.

Note: The Pixel Chooser does not affect the Ambient Light setting. Ambient Light is applied to all pixels. This ensures that the Pixel Chooser does not create discrepancies in the overall lighting of the image before Wave is applied. Thus, at the default Ambient Light value of 100 (where no ambient light is added or subtracted), the PixelChooser behaves exactly as in other filters; at other values Pixel Chooser filters every parameter except Ambient Light.

• Apply Mode: Determines how the filtered image is composited with the source image. For descriptions of all the possible Apply Modes, Click Here.

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.