Multi-level pixelation filters with both rectangular and triangular effects. Create slowly drifting walls of pixels, flashy angled overlays, or subtle patterns with recursive depth.
Multi-level pixelation filters with both rectangular and triangular effects. Create slowly drifting walls of pixels, flashy angled overlays, or subtle patterns with recursive depth.
The Digitise effect package includes two filters, one for generating four-sided pixelation patterns, and one for generating three-sided pixelation patterns. They're designed to match familiar settings in animation packages like Adobe After Effects, with some unique adjustments to make them a little more powerful, a little easier to use, or both.
Presets are included with combinations of settings and animations designed to be quickly applied to any media you might want.
Each filter is designed exclusively for native MacOS GPU accelration, and render fully-antialiased pixelation patterns in any size up to 4k (depending on GPU hardware). Please check out the free demo available in FxFactory and try it all out for yourself!
The following documentation goes through each available setting, what it does, and occasionally offers suggestions for how to use them more effectively.
The Digitise Quad filter creates rectangular pixelated patterns with a number of settings, including multiple levels of pixelation layered together, brick-like row offsets, and easy gradient mask presets. The settings are divided into logical sections for controlling the pattern, variation, detail layers, and compositing.
This group of settings control the basic setup of the pixelation pattern. This is where size, position, and orientation can be controlled.
The Type dropdown allows you to choose between Square (locked) and Rectangular (unlocked) aspect ratios. What you choose here will determine which scale settings are available below.
Scale (Square) size in pixels This setting controls the size of the pixelisation pattern, measured in pixels. It can be animated and will always scale from the center point as defined by the anchor setting below.
Scale Width, Scale Height (Rectangular) width in pixels, height in pixels This allows you to control the width and height independently of each other, measured in pixels. Same as the locked aspect ratio option, these values can be animated and will always scale from the center point as defined by the anchor setting below.
The Anchor dropdown changes the defined center point of the pattern, you can choose from Corner (which centers the intersection of four segments) or Midpoint (which centers the middle of a pixel segment). This setting helps control how the pattern behaves when scaling or rotating.
Position X position, Y position Like any other filter, this lets you place the centerpoint of the pattern wherever needed in the composition. Beyond positioning of the pattern, this also affects settings like Rotate, which will base their controls around this point. The position input will operate natively within Final Cut Pro X and Motion using relative frame sizes, and Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro using pixel dimensions.
Rotation angle in degrees Much like the position setting, this operates like any other filter; you can rotate or spin the pattern in either clockwise or counter clockwise directions.
This group of settings controls the finer details of the pixelation pattern itself. These allow for changes to the pattern alignment and style.
Offset X, Offset Y X position in pixels, Y position in pixels These two settings are most dramatic when used with multiple complexity levels, creating deep pixelation fields that obey the Sub Scale rules. This results in multi-plane motion that can look surprisingly 3D. If you need to create a looping animation, simply use multiples of the pattern Scale when animating the offset, and everything will line up perfectly.
Stagger value This is a multiplier based setting that staggers every other row of pixels. The simplest effect is setting up a brick pattern using a value of 0.5, but it can be animated to create bi-directional scrolling effects. With a value of 1.0 alternating rows will align, but will be offset from their original position by half the width of the Scale setting, whereas a value of 2.0 will return everything back to original positions. If you need to create a looping animation, just make sure this value starts and ends on a multiple of 2.0.
Balance Width, Balance Height X value, Y value This setting is unique to the Digitise Quad filter, and allows for non-uniform rows and columns in an alternating pattern. More complex patterns can be created, ranging from alternating thick and thin columns to something that looks like a tiled floor. This setting can be combined with the Stagger control for even more non-standard patterns.
This group of settings controls the multiple levels of detail possible using the Digitise suite of plugins.
Complexity 0 through 4 This setting adds layers of pixelation, all of which are controlled by the settings above and below, but with each layer applied with recursive scaling and opacity. This operates much like Adobe After Effect's Turbulent Noise filter, with higher numbers resulting in smaller pixelation patterns being added to the output image.
Sub Influnece 0 to 100% The opacity of each layer of complexity will be multiplied by this value. If you want the smaller details to be more visible, increase this number. If you want more subtle variations within big bold pixel patterns, reduce it. The default is 50%.
Sub Scale 0 to 100% Additionally, each layer of complexity is scaled by this value. If you want each level of detail to be only slightly smaller than the previous, use a number closer to 100%. If you want the detail levels to quickly scale down into smaller and smaller chunks, use a number closer to 0%. The default is 50% which results in a perfectly divided grid pattern (each subsequent level of detail is half the size of the one before).
This group of settings controls the mixing of original footage and the raw output of the pixelation pattern. This allows for fading, blending, and masking.
Pre Blur 0 to 100% This fixes common pixelation issues like jitter or flickering by adjusting the perceptual resolution of the input image to match the output pixel pattern. A value of 0% incorporates no resolution matching, and will create the highest contrast pixelation output. A value of 100% blends the input image heavily, with subtle, low-contrast pixelation results. The default value of 10% enhances pixel color stability by reducing spatial flickering, but doesn't decrease perceptual contrast dramatically.
The Mask dropdown includes a number of options, including preset gradients and custom masks. The default is None which renders the pixelation effect without additional modulation of the opacity.
Horizontal Gradient reveals the original footage across the middle of the image, blending toward the top and bottom edges where the effect takes over. Using the invert setting will reverse this blending, revealing the pixelation effect in the centre.
Vertical Gradient reveals the original footage down the middle of the image, blending toward the left and right sides where the effect takes over. Using the invert setting will reverse this blending, revealing the pixelation effect in the centre.
Edge Gradient combines both horizontal and verical gradients, blending the original image in the middle to the full pixelation effect on all sides. This is different than the radial gradient in that this gradient is square, maintaining full effect coverage on all edges. Using the invert setting will reverse this blending, revealing the original image on all edges and the pixelation effect in the middle.
Radial Gradient creates a circular gradient that radiates out from the middle of the image area toward the corners. By default, the outer corners show the pixelation effect, while the centre of the image is clear. When inverted, only the middle of the image is pixelated while the outer edges are clear.
Image Luminance changes the opacity of the effect based on the luminance of the input footage. By default, brighter areas will cause an increase in the effect opacity. When inverted, darker areas will cause an increase in the effect opacity.
Custom Footage allows you to select any other clip in the project to use as a luminance mask. This behaves the same way as the image luminance setting, where by default lighter areas of the mask input will reveal the pixelation effect, and darker areas will hide it. When inverted, this is reversed.
Footage Layer select media input This option only appears if the Mask dropdown is set to Custom. This allows you to load other media to act as a mask for the pixelation pattern. Bright values in the image will reveal the pattern and dark values will hide it.
The Footage Placement dropdown only appears if the Mask dropdown is set to Custom. This setting modifies how the Footage Layer is matched to the original input image, allowing unequal mask dimensions to Tile, Center, Stretch, or Fit the original image size.
Invert checkbox This setting inverts any of the mask options above, including the automatically generated gradients, image luminance, and custom mask options. The effect is demonstrated in all of the Mask animations above.
Pixelate checkbox This setting enables pixelation of the mask image using the same filter as applied to the primary input image. This is on by default, and helps accentuate the pixelation pattern. Turning it off allows the mask to blend smoothly even when large patterns are used, or if more detail is required than allowed by the pattern size.
The Blending dropdown offers a number of custom transparency modes, a few of which have been designed exclusively for blending pixelation patterns and are unique to this plugin suite.
Alpha blends everything as expected, simply fading the opacity of the pixelation layer over the original unaltered image. This is the default setting.
Darken blends the pixelation pattern only in areas where it's darker than the original image. This can be useful for high-key images with dark details.
Multiply darkens the entire image by multiplying the pixelation pattern over it, but never fully clipping black values (unless values are already very close to black).
Burn dramatically darkens the entire image by subtracting the inverse of the pixelation pattern. It's similar to Multiply but much stronger, and will create clipped black values.
Lighten blends the pixelation pattern only in areas where it's brighter than the original image. This can be useful for low-key images with bright details.
Screen blends the pixelation pattern by adding to the original image, but never blowing out white values. It operates as the inverse of Multiply.
Add dramatically brightens the entire image by adding the pixelation pattern values on top of the image values. It's similar to the Screen setting, but in this case white values will be heavily clipped.
Shadows is a mode designed exclusively for blending pixelation patterns. It operates similarly to Darken but with more subtlety and finesse. It focuses on blending pixelation in shadow areas with smooth falloff into brighter values. Even at 100% opacity, the effect will not be overbearing.
Highlights is another mode designed exclusively for blending pixelation patterns. It operates similarly to Lighten but with more subtlety and finesse. It focuses on blending pixelation in highlight areas with smooth falloff into darker values. Even at 100% opacity, the effect will not be overbearing.
Both combines the custom Shadow and Highlight blending modes into a single overlay, adding pixelation to shadows and highlights without obscuring the rest of the image too much. Even at 100% opacity, the effect will not be overbearing.
Compress reduces contrast by using the pixelation pattern to darken highlights and brighten shadows. This may be most suitable for footage that is naturally high contrast, revealing the pattern by playing against the natural contrast.
Expand increases contrast by using the pixelation pattern to brighten highlights and darken shadows. This may be most suitable for footage that is flat, revealing the pattern through punchier contrast and saturation.
Invert blends the inverse of the pattern while generally retaining recognisable values from the original image. This works well with more highly detailed imagery or productions that need more dramatic effects.
Opacity 0 to 100% This setting controls the amount of the above blending modes. When set to Alpha, for example, this simply fades the pixelation pattern globally.
This group of settings control the basic setup of the pixelation pattern. This is where size, position, and orientation can be controlled.
The Type dropdown allows you to choose between Equilateral (locked), Right Angle (locked), and Custom (unlocked) aspect ratios. What you choose here will determine which scale settings are available below.
Scale (Equilateral) size in pixels This creates perfect triangles with equal sides, and sets the height of the triangles in pixels. This can be helpful for matching hexagonal grid systems, or simply creating classic triangle shapes.
Scale (Right Angle) size in pixels This creates right angle triangles with unequal sides, and sets the height of the triangles in pixels (given the same scale value, Right Angle triangles will be wider than Equilateral triangles). This can be helpful for mixing between square and triangular pixelation patterns and grid systems.
Scale Width, Scale Height (Custom) width in pixels, height in pixels This allows for custom aspect ratios of almost any combination. Note that particularly extreme values (for example, 1000 pixels by 2 pixels) may result in a slight decrease of the antialiasing quality.
The Anchor dropdown changes the center point of the pattern, you can choose from Corner (which centers the intersection of six segments), Midpoint (which centers the pattern in the middle of a triangle), or Row (which centers on a triangle as well, but the vertical height is taken from the entire row, not the mathematical center of the triangle itself).
Position X position, Y position Like any other filter, this lets you place the centerpoint of the pattern wherever needed in the composition. This is the largest impact on settings like Rotate, and will operate natively within Final Cut Pro X and Motion (using relative frame sizes) and Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro (using pixel dimensions).
Rotation angle in degrees Much like the position setting, this should operate like any other filter; allowing you to rotate and spin the pattern.
This group of settings controls the finer details of the pixelation pattern itself. These allow for changes to the pattern alignment and style.
Offset X, Offset Y X position in pixels, Y position in pixels These two settings are most dramatic when used with multiple complexity levels, creating deep pixelation fields that obey the Sub Scale rules. This results in multi-plane motion that can look surprisingly 3D. If you need to create a looping animation, simply use multiples of the pattern scale when animating the offset, and everything will line up perfectly.
Stagger value This is a multiplier based setting that staggers every other row of the pattern. A value of 0.5 results in columnes of arrows pointing up or down. With a value of 1.0 alternating rows will align, but halfway offset from their original position, whereas 2.0 will return everything back to original positions. If you need to create a looping animation, just make sure this value starts and ends on a multiple of 2.0.
This group of settings controls the multiple levels of detail possible using the Digitise suite of plugins.
Complexity 0 through 4 This setting adds layers of pixelation, all of which are controlled by the settinsg above and below, but each with recursively applied scaling and opacity. This operates much like Adobe After Effect's Turbulent Noise filter, with higher numbers resulting in smaller pixelation patterns being added to the output image.
Sub Influnece 0 to 100% The opacity of each layer of complexity will be multiplied by this value. If you want the smaller details to be more visible, increase this number. If you want more subtle variations within big bold pixel patterns, reduce it. The default is 0.5.
Sub Scale 0 to 100% Additionally, each layer of complexity is scaled by this value. If you want each level of detail to be only slightly smaller than the previous, use a number closer to 1.0. If you want the detail levels to quickly scale down into smaller and smaller chunks, use a number closer to 0.0. The default is 0.5 which results in a perfectly divided grid pattern (each subsequent level of detail is half the size of the one before).
This group of settings controls the mixing of original footage and the raw output of the pixelation pattern. This allows for fading, blending, and masking.
Pre Blur 0 to 100% This fixes common pixelation issues like jitter or flickering by adjusting the perceptual resolution of the input image to match the output pixel pattern. A value of 0% incorporates no resolution matching, and will create the highest contrast pixelation output. A value of 100% blends the input image heavily, with subtle, low-contrast pixelation results. The default value of 10% enhances pixel color stability by reducing spatial flickering, but doesn't decrease perceptual contrast dramatically.
The Mask dropdown includes a number of options, including preset gradients and custom masks. The default is None which renders the pixelation effect without additional modulation of the opacity.
Horizontal Gradient reveals the original footage across the middle of the image, blending toward the top and bottom edges where the effect takes over. Using the invert setting will reverse this blending, revealing the pixelation effect in the centre.
Vertical Gradient reveals the original footage down the middle of the image, blending toward the left and right sides where the effect takes over. Using the invert setting will reverse this blending, revealing the pixelation effect in the centre.
Edge Gradient combines both horizontal and verical gradients, blending the original image in the middle to the full pixelation effect on all sides. This is different than the radial gradient in that this gradient is square, maintaining full effect coverage on all edges. Using the invert setting will reverse this blending, revealing the original image on all edges and the pixelation effect in the middle.
Radial Gradient creates a circular gradient that radiates out from the middle of the image area toward the corners. By default, the outer corners show the pixelation effect, while the centre of the image is clear. When inverted, only the middle of the image is pixelated while the outer edges are clear.
Image Luminance changes the opacity of the effect based on the luminance of the input footage. By default, brighter areas will cause an increase in the effect opacity. When inverted, darker areas will cause an increase in the effect opacity.
Custom Footage allows you to select any other clip in the project to use as a luminance mask. This behaves the same way as the image luminance setting, where by default lighter areas of the mask input will reveal the pixelation effect, and darker areas will hide it. When inverted, this is reversed.
Footage Layer select media input This option only appears if the Mask dropdown is set to Custom. This allows you to load other media to act as a mask for the pixelation pattern. Bright values in the image will reveal the pattern and dark values will hide it.
The Footage Placement dropdown only appears if the Mask dropdown is set to Custom. This setting modifies how the Footage Layer is matched to the original input image, allowing unequal mask dimensions to Tile, Center, Stretch, or Fit the original image size.
Invert checkbox This setting inverts any of the mask options above, including the automatically generated gradients, image luminance, and custom mask options. The effect is demonstrated in all of the Mask animations above.
Pixelate checkbox This setting enables pixelation of the mask image using the same filter as applied to the primary input image. This is on by default, and helps accentuate the pixelation pattern. Turning it off allows the mask to blend smoothly even when large patterns are used, or if more detail is required than allowed by the pattern size.
The Blending dropdown offers a number of custom transparency modes, a few of which have been designed exclusively for blending pixelation patterns and are unique to this plugin suite.
Alpha blends everything as expected, simply fading the opacity of the pixelation layer over the original unaltered image. This is the default setting.
Darken blends the pixelation pattern only in areas where it's darker than the original image. This can be useful for high-key images with dark details.
Multiply darkens the entire image by multiplying the pixelation pattern over it, but never fully clipping black values (unless values are already very close to black).
Burn dramatically darkens the entire image by subtracting the inverse of the pixelation pattern. It's similar to Multiply but much stronger, and will create clipped black values.
Lighten blends the pixelation pattern only in areas where it's brighter than the original image. This can be useful for low-key images with bright details.
Screen blends the pixelation pattern by adding to the original image, but never blowing out white values. It operates as the inverse of Multiply.
Add dramatically brightens the entire image by adding the pixelation pattern values on top of the image values. It's similar to the Screen setting, but in this case white values will be heavily clipped.
Shadows is a mode designed exclusively for blending pixelation patterns. It operates similarly to Darken but with more subtlety and finesse. It focuses on blending pixelation in shadow areas with smooth falloff into brighter values. Even at 100% opacity, the effect will not be overbearing.
Highlights is another mode designed exclusively for blending pixelation patterns. It operates similarly to Lighten but with more subtlety and finesse. It focuses on blending pixelation in highlight areas with smooth falloff into darker values. Even at 100% opacity, the effect will not be overbearing.
Both combines the custom Shadow and Highlight blending modes into a single overlay, adding pixelation to shadows and highlights without obscuring the rest of the image too much. Even at 100% opacity, the effect will not be overbearing.
Compress reduces contrast by using the pixelation pattern to darken highlights and brighten shadows. This may be most suitable for footage that is naturally high contrast, revealing the pattern by playing against the natural contrast.
Expand increases contrast by using the pixelation pattern to brighten highlights and darken shadows. This may be most suitable for footage that is flat, revealing the pattern through punchier contrast and saturation.
Invert blends the inverse of the pattern while generally retaining recognisable values from the original image. This works well with more highly detailed imagery or productions that need more dramatic effects.
Opacity 0 to 100% This setting controls the amount of the above blending modes. When set to Alpha, for example, this simply fades the pixelation pattern globally.