Universe

ECTO

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Getting Started

• In Premiere, After Effects, Final Cut Pro X, Motion, Sony Vegas Pro, and Hit Film, drag the uni.Ecto effect onto your clip.
• In Resolve, you'll need to follow a few extra steps:
  • Have your text on a video track above your footage's video track
  • Create a Compound Clip from your text, select it, and head into the Color view of Resolve's interface.
  • Within the Node window of Resolve, sever the default link between the text's node and the output.
  • Add a new Corrector node and Alpha output within the Node interface.
  • Create links from the Text's RGB and Alpha outputs to the newly created Corrector Node's RGB and alpha inputs
  • Then create links from the Corrector node's RGB and Alpha outputs to the final outputs for RGB and alpha, respectively.
  • Right-click in the Node interface and select Use OFX Alpha
  • Apply Ecto to your Text node, and enable the Unmult option.
  • Apply uni.Unmult to your Corrector node.

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Modifying the Effect

• Browse Presets… brings up an animated gallery of presets, which are applied by either double-clicking the preset, or highlighting your preset and clicking Select .
  
• Source twirls down an array of controls which affect the source of the effect including:
  
  • Unmult removes all black from the background of your source.
    
  • Tint lets you adjust the tint of the source using a color swatch as a reference.
    
  • Tint Strength adjusts how heavily the tint overlays the source.
    
  • Distort Source adjusts how much an overlaid invisible fractal field distorts the source.
    
  • Distort Detail adjusts the amount of detail within the invisible fractal field created from the Distort Source parameter above; 0 results in no detail in the fractal field (resulting in no distortion), 100 results in maximum detail within the fractal field resulting in more distortion.
    
  • Preserve Luma will preserve the Luma (brightness) channel of the source.
    
• Glow Intensity adjusts how heavily the effect builds from the source outward on an exponential scale from 0 to 10.
  
• Distortion will distort the effect along an invisible fractal field the size of your composition; if you do not want your source to get distorted, adjust that in the Distort Source parameter above.
  
• Size adjusts the scale of the effect from the source outward.
  
• Color Preset contains presets that, when selected, are applied as a gradient between the next two modifiable fields; Inner Color being the color that’s closest to the source of the effect, Outer Color being where the effect tapers off.
  
• Glow Color from Source determines how much of the glow’s coloring is inherited from the source versus the effect’s color swatches.
  
• Glow Settings includes various parameters to help adjust the glow’s appearance including:
  
  • Contrast adjusts the range of levels from the brightest and darkest colors.
    
  • Inner Thickness adjusts how heavily the glow builds from the source outward using solely the Inner Color setting.
    
  • Outer Thickness adjusts how heavily the glow builds from the taper inwards using the Outer Color setting.
    
  • Inner Intensity adjusts the levels and contrast of the glow using a fractal field from the source outward, where Outer Intensity adjusts it the other way around.
    
  • Spill Width controls how far of the glow spills over the source.
    
  • Spill Intensity adjusts the brightness of the spill over the source.
    
  • Spill Source controls where the spill color comes from ( Inner Color, Outer Color, or Source ).
    
  • Noise adds randomly generated noise pattern over the effect and source.
    
  • Offset Position determines the position of the glow effect relative to the source.
    
  • Internal Blend adjusts how the spill onto the source is interpreted using standard Blend parameters.
    
• Distortion Settings contains parameters that adjust the distortion of the glow:
  
  • Pattern includes several presets for the invisible fractal field, with names based off their general appearance.
    
  • Complexity adjusts the calculations performed to create the fractal field, with a high complexity (10) resulting in more complex fractals, and a lower complexity (1) resulting in simpler fractals .
    
  • Scale adjusts the grid of the fractal field distorting your image; a high scale (100) results in being zoomed into the grid and less fractals appearing on screen, and low scales resulting in smaller and more fractals.
    
  • Detail adjusts the granularity of the fractals, resulting in finer details; this parameter is more noticeable the more complex your fractals are.
    
  • Aspect adjusts the aspect ratio of your distortion.
    
• Animation includes parameters that adjust the distorting, invisible fractal field’s movement
  
  • Direction controls which way the fractal field travels.
    
  • Flow adjusts how fast the fractal field travels.
    
  • Evolution affects the calculations performed to create the fractal field; adjusting this extrapolates the fractal in place.
    
  • Pulse Speed adjusts the frequency of a pulsating color effect with a tapered opacity from the source outward using the Inner Color settings.
    
  • Pulse Intensity controls the brightness of the pulsating effect.
    
• Glow Opacity determines the opacity of the overall glow effect.
  
• Source Opacity determines just the opacity of the source of the glow.
  
• Blend Mode includes the standard blending controls which determine how the effect integrates into the rest of your composition.
  
• Glow Behind determines whether your glow effect appears behind or in front of the source.