Bang
MASKS, GLOW AND INTERACTIVE LIGHTS
Bang has some incredible features that allow you to integrate muzzle flashes into your After Effects composites. For example, you can reference a layer and various channels as a mask. You might use the power of optical glow directly within Bang or have Bang interact with the light in your source footage once you’ve identified a reference matte. The possibilities here are dizzying.
Masking
If a flash is partially obscured by a foreground object, or the gun itself is obscured (as in the case of it being pointed away from the camera), you can use a mask to cut out a section of the flash. This is done before glow and interactive light are applied, so they render correctly .
- Mask Layer - Choose a layer to use as your mask source. Also choose whether to look at just the layer or any masks and/or effects drawn on the layer.
- Mask Channel - This control allows you to select which channel of information to view from your chosen Mask Layer. If you've drawn a shape mask on the Mask Layer, you’ll want to use the default alpha channel selection. However, you can also reference the red, green, blue, or luma channel of the layer.
- Invert Mask - Check this box to invert the Mask Layer being referenced.
Glow
Add a blazing fast, drop-dead gorgeous, photo-realistic glow to your flashes using the power of Bang’s Optical Glow.
- Glow Amount - This control adjusts the intensity of the glow effect, up to 100 percent.
- Glow Size - This parameter controls the overall glow radius. Note that brighter flash sources will appear to have a larger glow radius than dimmer ones, depending on the Falloff setting (below).
- Glow Falloff - This control modifies tthe brightness relationship between the inner and outer regions of the glow effect. The default value of 100 creates a realistic, inverse-square light falloff. Higher values increase the “tightness” of the glow, making the core brighter and the outer edges of the glow dimmer. Falloff values below 100 soften the glow effect, creating a more diffused appearance.
- Glow Quality - This control determines the smoothness of the glow effect. Higher quality settings may increase render times. Generally, you can leave this setting at Production and not worry about it. Only with very large or intense glows will you tend to see any difference at the various quality settings.
- Draft is the fastest setting and will typically look fine at smaller Amount and/or Size values.
- Production the best choice for most applications, providing a blend of speed and smoothness.
- Best is a good choice for very large and/or intense glows.
Interactive Light
The Interactive Light section applies color correction to every frame in which Bang renders a muzzle flash. It can render an overall “ambient” lift, which uses an averaging of color and brightness values for all concurrent flashes, and a secret-sauce correction localized to each flash. This section is active when, under the Render settings, Composite On is set to background. You can reference the luma or alpha channel of any layer in your composition.
- Interactive Light Matte allows you to choose a layer to use as your interactive light source. You can also look at any masks and effects on the layer.
- Interactive Light Matte Channel allows you to look at the luma or alpha channel of the referenced Interactive Light Matte layer.
- Interactive Light Amount is the brightness of the localized relight that is also determined by the Flash Brightness.
An image with no Interactive Light (left), and an image with Interactive Light active (right). - Interactive Light Size determines the spread of light that graduates from the flash origin's center.
- Interactive Light Restrict to Matte determines determines how closely the interactive light follows the edges of the matte source. Lower values will allow more light to spill out. In the example below, the subject has been masked and is the matte reference. With a low Interactive Light Restict to Matte percentage, the light spills beyond the edges of his hair and beard.
An example of interactive light with a low Interactive Light Restict to Matte percentage. - Interactive Light Shadow Fill is the brightness of the ambient lift (shadows) across the frame.