Bang

SHAPE, LOOK AND HEAT BLUR.

Bang allows you an incredible amount of control over the look of your flashes (ie: adding Petals and Sparks) using intuitive properties and visual graphs. Your muzzle flashes can also effect the look (ie: Heat Blur and distortion) of elements/objects in thesource footage you've applied it too. There is also more you can do to footage by using Masks, Glows and Interactive Light as explained in another section.

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

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Flash Shape

• Flash Shape Profile is a graph where you can deterine the top half profile shape of the flash (imagine it revolved 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 initially have 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 - What you choose as Shape Preset and adjust in the Main Shape Radius Slider and Shape Handles is represented in the overal Shape Profile.
• Preset Graphs - Choose from 5 Preset Graphs to get started with you flash shape.
• Flash Length determines the pixel length of the flash if it were positioned a world Z 0. Flashes have a length between 100 and 500.

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 on one of the icons. Each visible icon refers to the amount 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
  
  
  From Left to Right: Front view of “Eight Star” petal config Front view of “Three Star” petal Config. You can use the Roll parameter under the 3D transform settings to rotate the petals to your desired angle.
  
  
• Petal Shape Profile becomes active after choosing a Petal Configuration instead of no petals. As per the Flash Shape Profile graph, you can move/add/delete the handles (max 8 handles for petal shapes) to create the desired shape for your petals, and 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 amount of handles you initially have 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 8 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 overal Petal Shape Profile.
• Petal Preset Graphs - Choose from 5 Preset Graphs to get started with you petals shape.
• Petal Length determines the pixel length of the flash if it were positioned a world Z 0. Petals have a length between 50 and 300.
• Barrel Radius in pixels is how far out from the centre axis the petals are rendered.
• Horizontal Offset is calculated in pixels and how far back from the front of the barrel the petals are rendered.
• Petal Angle is the angle of the petals. Values below 90 degrees will push them forward.
• Relative Brightness is how much brighter or dimmer the petals are to the main flash. A value of 100% is the same brightness as the main flash. This value goes up to 200 %.
  
  
  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 allows you to change the color of the flash. The default is a desaturated orange. For realism, less saturated is better.
• Brightness determines how bright the flash is. You can have a value up to 200%.
• Brightness Random- Introduces brightness variation from frame-to-frame. Note that if using low-brightness flashes, a high value here might result in occasional flash “misfire”.
• Brightness Falloff - This controls how the brightness (energy) of particles falls off from the middle of the flash outwards. Higher values will 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 more red color.
  
  
  From Left to Right: Energy Affects Color Temp at 0. Energy Affect Color Temp at 100.
  
  
• Flash Shape Random will vary the shape settings of your flash (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 determines how much detail is in the noise. Higher values = more detail.
• Flash Age determines how old the flash is when it's triggered. Higher percentage values = an older flash. For instance, the flash will slowly grow, then shrink while moving away from the Position property the older it is. If petals are visible, they tend to seperate from each other when older.
  
  
  A flash keyframed with a 90% Flash Age.
  
  
• Flash Age Random: Add a random percentage value to the lifespan of the flash. For instanc, a value of 100% will overide the Flash Age.
• Random Seed will take all random values and randomize them when changing this 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 is randomised per frame, they will never be more than this value (max 100)
• Spark Dispersion is the maximum dispersion angle of the sparks between 0 and 45 degress.
• Spark Brightness is how visible the sparks are. This is random per frame but will never be more than the value identified. Pro Tip: While you can crank this value up to visualise the sparks subtlety is best.
  
  
  Bang shotgun preset with a max sparks value of 67, dispersion of 20 and brightness of 33%.

Heat Blur

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

• Heat Map Delay allows you to delay when the heat map properties listed below on the next frame after the muzzle flash is trriggered. 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. Pro Tip: 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. Pro Tip: Turn of the Brightness of the Flash Properties to see how this value affects your footage.
• Smokiness adds smoke when the flash is triggered and can be delayed. Pro Tip: Turn of the Brightness of the Flash Properties to see how this value affects your footage.
• Show Heat Blur Map allows you to visualise how the above heat blur properties of Smokiness, Distortion Amount and Blur are affecting the pixels in your footage that your flash travels across. If you check the empty box, you'll get a two dimensional representation of this data through color.
  
  
  Showing the Heat Blur Map of a Preset