Bang

SHAPE, LOOK AND HEAT BLUR.

Bang provides an incredible amount of control over the look of your flashes (adding Petals and Sparks, for example) using intuitive properties and visual graphs. Muzzle flashes can also affect the look (as with Heat Blur and Distortion) of elements/objects in the source footage to which it’s been applied. You can do even more to footage by using Masks, Glows, and Interactive Light.

Let's look at the controls in depth and how we can affect the look of our flashes and shots.

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Flash Shape

• Flash Shape Profile - This is a graph in which you can determine the top-half profile shape of the flash. (Imagine it revolves around the horizontal axis.)
  
  
  
  
• Main Shape Radius - Drag this up or down to make the flash fatter or thinner.
• Shape Handles - Drag these handles to change the shape of the profile. The amount of handles you have initially depends on the Preset Graph you select. Use ALT (OPT) to add a new handle and ALT-SHIFT (OPT-SHIFT) to delete a handle. Note: You can have up to 16 handles on the main shape.
• Shape Profile - Your Shape Preset selection and adjustments in the Main Shape Radius Slider and Shape Handles controls are represented here in the overall Shape Profile.
• Preset Graphs - Choose from five Preset Graphs to get started with your flash shape.
• Flash Length - This determines the pixel length of the flash as if it were positioned with a 0 z-axis value. Flashes have a length between 100 and 500 pixels.

Flesh Petals

Flash Petals are the star shaped flashes that come from the muzzle brake, usually on machine guns and assault rifles. Add petals to your muzzle shape be enabling and adjusting the properties below.

• Petal Configuration Choose from one of 10 Petal Configurations by clicking one of the icons. Each visible icon refers to the number of petals. Note: Icons with a triangle/arrow in the lower left-hand corner (three and four star) have more than one option. The choices are:
  • No Petals (Default)
  • One Up
  • Two Across
  • Three Star; Three T
  • Four Star; Four “X-Wing”
  • Five Star
  • Six Star
  • Eight Star 7
  
  
  Front view of Eight Star petal config (left) and a Three Star petal config (right). The Roll parameter under the 3D transform settings let you rotate petals to a desired angle.
  
  
• Petal Shape Profile - This control becomes active after choosing a Petal Configuration instead of having no petals. As per the Flash Shape Profile graph, you can move, add, or delete the handles (up to eight handles for petal shapes) to create the desired shape for your petals. Then simply adjust the radius with the slider.
  
  
  
  
• Main Petal Radius Slider - Drag this up or down to make the flash fatter or thinner.
• Petal Shape Handles- Drag these handles to change the shape of the profile. The number of initial handles depends on the Preset Graph you select. Use Alt/Opt to add a new handle and Alt/Opt + Shift to delete a handle. Note: You can have up to eight handles.
• Petal Shape Profile - What you choose as a Petal Preset and adjust in the Main Petal Radius Slider and Petal Shape Handles is represented in the overall Petal Shape Profile.
• Petal Preset Graphs - Choose from five Preset Graphs to get started with you petals shape.
• Petal Length - This control determines the pixel length of the flash if it were positioned with a 0 z-axis value. Petals have a length between 50 and 300 pixels.
• Barrel Radius - This control determines, in pixels, is how far out from the center axis petals render.
• Horizontal Offset - This control calculates, in pixels, how far back from the barrel's front petals render.
• Petal Angle - This control determines petals' angle. Values below 90 degrees will push petals forward.
• Relative Brightness - This control determines how much brighter or dimmer petals are relative to the main flash. A value of 100% is the same brightness as the main flash. This value goes up to 200 percent.
  
  
  Petals with various length, barrel radius, angle, and brightness values.

Flash Properties

Flash Properties affect the overall flash as well as petals if enabled.

• Flash Color - This control allows you to change flash color. The default is a desaturated orange. For realism, less saturation is better.
• Brightness - This control determines a flash's brightness. Value can reach up to 200 percent.
• Brightness Random- This control introduces brightness variation from frame to frame. Note that if using low-brightness flashes, a high value here might result in occasional flash “misfires.”
• Brightness Falloff - This option controls how the brightness (energy) of particles falls off from the middle of the flash outwards. Higher values result in a softer, less bright flash.
• Energy Affects Color Temp - The particles/elements of the flash are assigned an energy value depending on various factors (including the Brightness Falloff value). Setting this parameter to a high value will color high-energy particles (such as those in the “core”) a hotter blue and low-energy particles (around the edges, for example) a redder color.
  
  
  Energy Affects Color Temp at 0 (left) and Energy Affects Color Temp at 100 (right).
  
  
• Flash Shape Random - This control will vary the flash's shape settings (Shape Profile and Petals) based on a percentage value.
• Displacement - Add displacement/noise to the flash based on fractal Brownian motion, a continuous-time Gaussian process.
• Displacement Complexity - This control determines how much detail is in noise. Higher values create more detail.
• Flash Age - This control determines how old the flash is when it's triggered. Higher percentage values generate an older flash. For instance, the flash will slowly grow, then shrink while moving away from the Position property with increasing age. If petals are visible, they tend to separate from each other when older.
  
  
  A flash keyframed with a 90% Flash Age.
  
  
• Flash Age Random - Add a random percentage value to the flash's lifespan. For instance, a value of 100% will override the Flash Age.
• Random Seed - This control will take all random values and randomize them when changing this parameter to a different number.

Sparks

These below properties allow you to add sparks to the flash (usually caused by unburned gunpowder).

• Max Sparks- While the exact number of sparks per frame is randomized, there will never be more sparks than this value (max 100).
• Spark Dispersion - This controls the maximum spark dispersion angle, with values between 0 and 45 degrees.
• Spark Brightness - This control determines how visible sparks are. This is random per frame, but it will never be more than the specified value. Tip: While you can crank this value to see sparks more clearly, subtlety tends to be more realistic.
  
  
  Bang Shotgun preset with a Max Sparks value of 67, Spark Dispersion of 20, and Spark Brightness of 33 percent.

Heat Blur

Add an immediate or delayed heat blur to your muzzle flashes by adjusting the properties below.

• Heat Map Delay allows you to extend the duration of how the properties listed below, which normally appear on the frame immediately following a muzzle flash triggering, are implemented. The higher the percentage values, the more blur, distortion, and smokiness will show on the next frame. Having the value set to 100% will show the full strength of the values on the next frame.
• Blur Amount allows you to blur the heat map up to a value of 50. Tip: For this and the following Heat Blur controls, turn off the Brightness of the Flash Properties to see how this value affects your footage.
• Distortion Amount adds distortion to the Heat Blur based on a percent value.
• Smokiness adds smoke when the flash is triggered and can be delayed.
• Show Heat Blur Map allows you to visualize how the above heat blur properties of Smokiness, Distortion Amount, and Blur affect footage pixels that your flash travels across. Check the empty box generates a-two dimensional representation of this data through color.
  
  
  The Heat Blur Map of a Preset.