Sparkles

Creates customizable rays or sparkles from a central position indicator in the Viewer.

Inputs and Controls

Connection Type

Connection Name

Function

Input

unnamed

The image sequence to receive the sparkles.

Control (UI)

Knob (Scripting)

Default Value

Function

Sparkles Tab

Shape

Sparkle type

mode

Rays

Sets the sparkle type to output from the position indicator in the Viewer:

Rays - produces rays fading away from the origin.

Sparkles - produces intermittent rays fading at either end of each ray.

Fireworks - produces rays fading toward the origin.

triangle shapes

triangle_think

disabled

When enabled, a triangle shape it used to create the rays increasing the thickness.

position xy

position

700, 600

Sets the center of origin for the rays on the x and y axes.

size

size

300

Sets the size of the rays, in pixels, and adjusts the ray bounding box accordingly.

Note:  When Sparkle type is set to Sparkles, this control determines the size of the longest ray.

anamorphic

anamorphic

1

Sets the anamorphic ratio of the bounding box. Negative values decrease width and vice versa.

rotation

rotation

0

Sets the amount of rotation applied to the rays. Negative values produce clockwise rotation and vice versa.

relative

relative_rotation

disabled

When enabled, 0 degrees always points to the center of the image and rotation is relative to that value.

rays Nb

ray_nb

50

Sets the number of rays emitted.

thickness

ray_thick

0.2

Sets the thickness of the emitted rays in pixels.

random

random_thick

disabled

When enabled, ray thickness is randomized within the range [1,thickness].

sparkle falloff

spark_falloff

0.05

When Sparkel type is set to Sparkles, determines whether or not rays are connected to the position indicator. Higher values decrease the distance from the sparkle to the position indicator and vice versa.

ray falloff

ray_falloff

2

Sets how quickly rays falloff as distance from the position indicator increases.

Note:  This control behaves differently depending on the Sparkle type selected. For example, Fireworks falloff towards the position indicator.

seed

seed

23

Sets the random seed that controls ray characteristics. If you’re using multiple Sparkle nodes, you can use the same seed to produce similar random results on both nodes.

Color

brightness

brightness

1

Sets ray brightness - higher values increase brightness.

color

color

1

Sets the ray color.

chroma shift

chroma_shift

0

Sets the amount of chroma shift applied to the rays. Positive values split red clockwise and blue counter-clockwise and vice versa.

chroma spread

chroma_spread

0

Sets the spread of chroma values from the position indicator. Positive values extend the spread of the red channel while reducing the blue channel and vice versa.

Mask

mask

N/A

disabled

Enables the associated mask channel to the right. Disabling this checkbox is the same as setting the channel to none.

vismask

none

The channel to use as a mask. By default, the sparkles are limited to the non-black areas of this channel.

mask blur

vismask_size

4

Sets the size of the mask when mask is set to anything other than none.

Effects Tab

Sparkle crawl - These controls do not affect Rays.

Sparkle crawl

sparkle_crawl

disabled

When enabled, use the Sparkle crawl controls to cause Sparkles or Fireworks to move, or crawl.

motion

motion

300

Sets the amount of motion to apply. Animating this control causes Sparkles or Fireworks to crawl.

direction

direction

0

Sets the direction of crawl in degrees. Animate this control to produce more crawl.

ray fade

fadeTolerance

30

Controls the amount of fade to apply to Sparkles only.

Broken rays

Broken rays

broken_rays

disabled

When enabled, use the Broken rays controls affect the rays emitted from the position indicator.

% ray affected

broken_affected

50

Sets the percentage of rays to affect with breaks.

break start

broken_start

0.7

Sets where the first break occurs as a percentage of the total length. For example, 0.5 is equal to 50% of the length.

random

random_broken_start

disabled

When enabled, the break start control is randomized.

breaks

broken_holes

0.2

Sets the number of breaks per ray after the break start.

random

random_broken_holes

disabled

When enabled, the breaks control is randomized.

Sparks

sparks (direction clip)

sparks

disabled

When enabled, use the Sparks controls to clip the emission angle and direction.

direction

sparks_direction

0

Sets the ray’s emission direction in degrees.

open angle

sparks_angle

45

Sets the angle from which rays can be emitted. For example, 360 causes rays to emit in all directions.