Adding effects on players

There are multiple ways to add effects on top of the content you display in players. You can combine them with group effects in faces for example, to overlay geometric patterns on top of your videos. Players are also affected by the effects you put on sequences, as they affect the whole output.

But one solution is especially made for this: you can directly put shaders effects on players and they will alter any content that's displayed inside of it. 

You can check out the video tutorial in "Adding & displaying multimedia content" to see them in action, or follow the written instructions below.

Using post-processing effects on players

The effects that can be added on players are ISF post-processing shaders. HeavyM contains a built-in library of these.

Adding shaders on a player

To add an effect on a player:

1. Select the player.
2. Go to its Properties on the left of the interface.
3. Click on the + icon next to "Effects".
4. Select an effect in the shaders library and double-click on it or use the "Open" button.

Note: you can add as many shaders as you want on a single player and even add the same effect multiple times.

Arranging shaders (from 2.13.5)

The order of shaders in the list has an importance: transformations are applied shader by shader, in order, from the bottom of the list to the top. That means that the one at the top of the list is applied last, after all others and this can have a great impact.

By default, each new shader added is put on top, but you can edit the order afterwards by simply drag & dropping an item in the list to change its position.

Some shader combinations have a really different output depending on the order they're in. Try messing it up!

Managing shader settings

Once you've added an effect, it directly affects your player, but you can disable it with the switch next to the effect name. It can be useful to toggle them ON/OFF when you want to try different combinations.

In addition, shaders can have parameters, so you can customize their effect! Most of the shaders included in HeavyM have at least one.

You can see and customize them by clicking on the cog icon next to the effect name. Most of the parameters can even be animated with variators, as you would do for group effect parameters.

Note: use the lightning icon at the top right of the parameters panel to quickly load a Preset of values for this shader or save a new one with a combination of parameters you like. Learn more about Presets here.

Adding effects to the library

In addition to the built-in effects, you can add your own shaders. To do so, simply open the library again and head over to the tab called "My Shaders".

There, you can browse your files and import .fs shaders. On players, shaders added to the library can only be Post-Processing ISF shaders with a maximum of 1 input image.

To find these, you can look on websites like this one, by the creators of the ISF standard: editor.isf.video... Or learn how to code them yourself!

Note: when searching for shaders online, don't forget to check out which license the creator has chosen for his or her work, even if a lot of them are free to use.