Visual effects (VFX)

Visual effects (VFX) change how artwork looks without changing the drawing: a glow around a fist, a dark outline, a shadow, a blur, a colour grade for the whole picture. In this guide you give Blue’s punching hand a glow, outline the whole figure, add a ready-made look and make it play for a few frames only. Then you’ll find every effect and setting explained.

Open the VFX panel

The panel on the right of the editor has three tabs: Properties, VFX and Library. Click VFX. In the desktop app, Ctrl+2 shows or folds it (a browser keeps that key for its own tabs).

The panel reads from top to bottom:

• The target’s name, for example Blue, or Blue · Joint 4 when you clicked one of his joints. The target is the thing that gets the effect.
• Apply to: a joint, the figure or the whole scene (see below).
• The Effects list, with At this frame (which effects to show) and Add.
• The effects themselves. An empty target shows one-click starting points instead: Glow, Outline, Shadow and more.

With nothing selected, the panel says Select a figure to add effects and offers one button, Scene effects, for a look over the whole picture.

Give Blue’s fist a glow

A glow on one hand is the classic “power punch”. Do it in the playground below: it has the app’s stage, VFX panel and a small timeline.

1. On the stage, click the red dot on Blue’s hand, the one on the right of the screen. The panel now says Blue · Joint 4 and Apply to says Selected node.
2. Under No effects on Blue · Joint 4, click Glow. A soft halo appears around his forearm, and a row called Glow opens with its settings.
3. Drag the Radius slider to the right for a bigger halo, or click the Halo color swatch and choose a colour. The stage updates while you drag.
4. Click the orange dot (Blue’s origin). The panel says Blue and Whole figure, and the list is empty: the glow belongs to the hand, not to the figure. Click Outline to draw a dark line around all of Blue.
5. Click Add, choose Presets, then Power up. A preset (or look) adds several effects at once, as one group.
6. In the open row, set Plays to Frame range. Start and Duration appear. Press Play or Space: the look shows only on those frames.

Choose what gets the effect

What you click on the stage decides the target: a red dot is a joint (also called a node), the orange dot is the whole figure, empty space selects nothing. Apply to then lets you switch between the levels of that selection.

Each target keeps its own list. Changing Apply to shows a different list; it does not move effects you already added. That is why the hand’s glow stays on the hand when you switch to Whole figure.

Effects render from the inside out: node effects first, then the figure’s, then the scene’s. Hiding a figure’s layer hides its effects too, and effects on a locked layer can’t be edited until you unlock it.

Add effects and looks

There are three ways to add an effect, all in the VFX panel:

• A starting point on an empty target. A figure gets twelve: Glow, Outline, Shadow, Blur, Particles, Aura, Energy beam, Explosion, Smoke, Power up, Neon and Hit flash. The scene gets ten: Color grading, Vignette, Bloom, CRT / scanlines, the four scene generators, Golden hour and Retro screen. Your own presets come first, up to three.
• Add, at the right of the Effects header. It opens the catalogue: Effects and Presets tabs and a search box. Type a few letters (“blur”, “light”) to filter it.
• Combine with another effect, under an open effect’s settings, to build a group (see Combine and order effects).

The catalogue only offers what fits the target. Glow, Outline, Shadow and Aura work on figures and joints only. Vignette, Shockwave and CRT / scanlines work on the scene only. Everything else works on both.

Looks: ready-made groups

A look adds ordinary effects you can still change one by one. The number next to each in the catalogue is how many effects it adds.

Change an effect’s settings

Each effect is one row: its icon, its name, the frames it plays on (for a frame range), an eye, a ⋯ menu and an arrow. Click the row to open its settings right under it; click it again to close them. Only one row is open at a time.

• Numbers have a slider and a value. Drag the slider, click the value and type, or drag the label (“Radius”) sideways to scrub it. Enter confirms a typed value.
• Colours open a colour picker. Some effects and looks use gradients; their swatch reads Gradient.
• More opens the less common settings.
• Effect strength (0–100%) mixes the finished effect with the original. 0% leaves the artwork untouched; it’s the value to animate for a fade.
• The eye switches the effect off without deleting it. It stays in the list, greyed, where it would play.

Every value change is one step for Ctrl+Z. Esc cancels a drag that’s still in progress.

Every filter effect and its defaults

Every filter also has Effect strength (100%). Sizes on a figure are in the figure’s own units, so they grow and shrink with it; sizes on the scene are output pixels. Progress, Phase and Evolution are made to be animated: a dissolve from 0% to 100% makes a figure fade away in pieces.

Combine and order effects

Effects on one target are applied from the top of the list down. The order matters: an Outline above a Glow gets a halo around the outline, while a Glow above an Outline gets an outline around the halo. Use the row’s ⋯ menu, Move up or Move down, to change it.

To keep several effects together (same timing, one strength), make a group:

1. Open an effect and click Combine with another effect under its settings (or choose Combine with another effect… in its ⋯ menu).
2. Pick the second effect in the catalogue. The row becomes a group with a Strength slider and a list, Effects in this group.
3. Click an effect inside the group to open its own settings. Add to group adds more, up to 16.
4. Drag an effect’s grip to reorder it, or focus the grip and press Alt+↑ or Alt+↓. Its ⋯ menu has Enabled, Move up, Move down and Remove.

In a group, each effect’s own Effect strength moves under More; the group’s Strength fades all of them together.

The row’s ⋯ menu (also a right-click, or Shift+F10) holds the rest: Rename…, Combine with another effect… (Add effect to group… for a group), Move up, Move down, Save as preset…, Copy animation, Duplicate and Delete. After Copy animation, a paste button appears next to Add: select another target and click it to give that target the same effect, timing and keys.

Choose when an effect plays

Effects don’t belong to a pose or a frame. Each one is a clip with its own timing, under Timing at the end of its settings:

• Plays Whole animation: on every frame. New filters and looks start like this.
• Plays Frame range: from Start for Duration frames. The row shows the range, for example 30–31. Generated effects start this way, at the playhead.

In the Advanced timeline, the selected figure gets an Effects row under its layer. Drag a clip to move it, drag an edge to trim or extend it, and drag the two round handles on its top edge to fade it in or out. Moving a clip takes its keys with it.

The At this frame menu chooses which effects the list shows: At this frame (the default), Only selected, or Show all with the total. When effects are hidden, a line says “2 more on other frames” with Show all.

Animate a value

Values stay the same on every frame until you key one. Point at a value and click the small diamond at the right of its row to set its first key at the playhead. Move the playhead and change the value: a new key is set there. Numbers and colours change smoothly between keys; choices such as Placement switch at the key. With Auto key on in the Advanced timeline, changing a value keys it straight away.

Example, a hit: the punch lands on frame 30. Add Hit flash to the figure that gets hit, set Frame range, Start 30 and Duration 2. Add a short camera shake on the same frame and the hit feels heavy.

Save your own presets

1. Open the effect or group you like and click Save as preset at the bottom of its settings (or Save as preset… in its ⋯ menu).
2. Type a name and click Save. If the name is already used, the app asks before replacing that preset.
3. Next time, click Add › Presets: your preset is at the top, under My presets, ready for any figure, the scene or another project.

A preset keeps the effects, their settings, strength, fades, length and keys, but not the target. A timed preset starts at the playhead. You can keep up to 60 presets with names up to 60 characters. Deleting a preset never changes effects you already added from it.

Hide effects while you work

Lots of glow can make posing harder to see. The Effects button in the stage header (next to Joints, Paths and Grid) is a preview switch: turn it off and the stage shows plain artwork. Nothing is deleted, nothing goes into undo, and exports still include every effect. To really switch one effect off, use the eye on its row.

Common problems

• The effect went on the wrong part. Look at the name at the top of the panel: Blue · Joint 4 means one joint. Click the orange dot for the figure, or choose another Apply to.
• Add is greyed out. The target’s layer is locked. Unlock it in the timeline.
• An effect you want isn’t in the catalogue. It doesn’t fit this target. Switch Apply to to Scene for Vignette, Shockwave and CRT, or select a figure for Glow, Outline, Shadow and Aura.
• An effect vanished from the list. It plays on other frames. Choose Show all, then check its Start and Duration.
• Nothing shows on the stage. Check the Effects button in the stage header, the row’s eye, Effect strength, and that the layer isn’t hidden.
• Limits. A group holds up to 16 effects; one target can have up to 64 effects playing at the same moment; a project holds up to 4,096 effect clips.

Questions

Related