GenArts Sapphire provide an extensive package of over 200 different resolution-independent visual effects which allow the user to expand their creative potential in 2D Autodesk Media & Entertainment products. The plug-ins include a wide range of lighting tools, stylistic effects, distortions, transitions and many other effects that work with Autodesk Systems products: Flint, Flame, Inferno, Smoke and Fire as well as Combustion. In late 2008 the plug-ins will also be available via the OFX interface for Autodesk Toxik. For more information, and to download a fully functional 3 week trial, please visit GenArts’ web site at www.genarts.com.

One of the most popular plug-ins in the Sapphire package is RackDefocus, which accurately simulates a camera defocus by maintaining the shapes and bright spots of a clip while blurring it. As opposed to a Gaussian blur which smears the highlights at large values, Sapphire RackDefocus will actually preserve the circle of confusion that a real camera lens maintains.

Fig. 1: Original Image

Fig. 2: With RackDefocus applied

Sapphire RackDefocus has an impressive amount of fine and detailed control, as the actual shape of the lens iris can be adjusted and altered with separate parameter controls for the lens Shape, Roundness, Rotation and Lens Noise, among many others.

Additionally, the brightness of the highlights can be adjusted with the Boost Highlights parameter which blows out the highlights without affecting the darks and midtones of the source clip.

For those of you who want even greater control over your lens shape, the Convolve plug-in allows you use your own custom shape, called a Kernel, to act as the camera iris for the defocus.

Fig. 3: With a 3 sided lens shape selected

Fig. 4: With Boost Highlights

Fig. 5: Custom lens created by using Convolve & lens Kernel in the upper right

Additionally, for even more control, there are ZDefocus and ZConvolve plug-ins. These function in a similar manner while also taking a zbuffer input to allow for a depth-of-field when defocusing an image.

There are many other parameters in both RackDefocus and Convolve which give even more detailed control over the final look. The best way to see what you can do with them is to try them for yourself, along with the 200+ other effects in the Sapphire package, by downloading the 3-week trial from www.genarts.com.

Contact Information

GenArts, Inc.

955 Massachusetts Ave
Cambridge, MA, 02139
USA

tele: 1-617-492-2888
fax: 1-617-492-2852
info@genarts.com