Bang
MASKS, GLOW AND INTERACTIVE LIGHTS
Bang has some incredible features that allows you to integrate muzzle flashes into your After Effects composites including referencing a layer and various channels as a mask, using the power of optical glow directly within Bang as well as having Bang interact with your source footage with light once identifying a reference matte.
Masking
If the flash instance is partially obscured by a foreground object, or the gun itself in the case of it being pointed away from camera, you can use a mask to cut out a section of the flash. This is done before glow and interactive light is applied, so they are rendered correctly. .
- Mask Layer - Choose which layer you'd like to use as your mask source. Also choose whether to look at just the layer or any masks or masks and effects drawn on the layer.
- Mask Channel allows you to select which channel of information you'd like to look at from your chosen Mask Layer. If you've drawn a shape mask on the Mask Layer, the default Alpha channel choice is what you what to use, however you can also reference the Red, Green, Blue or Luma channel of the layer.
- Invert Mask - Check this box if you'd like to invert the Mask Layer being referenced
Glow
Add a a blazing fast, drop-dead gorgeous, photo-realistic glow to your flashes using the power of Optical Glow built directly into Bang.
- Glow Amount will adjust the intesity of the glow effect. You can have a value up to 100%
- Glow Size controls the overall radius of the glow. Note that brighter flash sources will appear to have a larger glow radius than dimmer ones, depending on the Falloff setting below.
- Glow Falloff modifies the 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 more of an appearance of diffused light.
- Glow Quality 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 can 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 colour correction to your footage every frame Bang renders a muzzle flash. It can render an overall “ambient” lift, which is an average colour and brightness of all concurrent flashes, and a secret-sauce correction localised 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 localised relight that is also determined by the Flash Brightness.
From Left to Right - An image with no Interactive Light, An image with interactive Light active. - Interactive Light Size determines the spread of the light that graduates from the centre at the flash origin.
- Interactive Light Restrict to Matte determines how closely the interactive light follows the edges of the matte source. Lower values will allow the light to spill more . In the example below, the subject has been masked and is the matte reference. With a 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.