Pixel Bender and aeUIControls
Posted on 05. Sep, 2009 by Jerzy Drozda Jr in Blog
After publishing Introduction to Pixel Bender tutorial where I showed you guys how to build a simple cropping plugin I got a lot of emails and comments asking specifically how to create certain types of parameters in Pixel Bender code that show up in After Effects as Angle Control, Checkbox and other UI elements, so I’ve decided to create this small list for you to help you out with this. If you don’t want to read the entire post just download the provided zip for some examples.
Download: UI Controls Demo (After Effects CS4)
Basic controls
Here’s a list of basic user interface controls that look pretty much the same as expression controls.
- Angle Control
You don’t need to set upminValueandmaxValueattributes, because they are ignored in this case. Besides it wouldn’t make much sense, would it?parameter float myAngle
<
defaultValue: 0.0;
aeDisplayName: "My Angle";
aeUIControl:"aeAngle";
>; - Checkbox Control
Checkbox only returnstrueorfalsevalues (on and off), so it also does not needminValueandmaxValueattributes.parameter bool myCheckbox
<
defaultValue: false;
aeUIControl: "aeCheckbox";
aeDisplayName: "My Checkbox";
>; - Color Control
This is valid as afloat3andfloat4variable type, however After Effects usesfloat4data type (RGBA). Even though the color picker dialog does not allow you to define the alpha value of the color you’re defining it makes much sense to use thefloat4instead offloat3. DefiningminValueandmaxValuealso makes no sense in here.parameter float4 myColor
<
defaultValue: float4(1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0);
aeUIControl: "aeColor";
aeDisplayName: "My Color";
>; - Point Control
This is one out of two very specific controls. As you see in the code below it does not haveminValueandmaxValueattributes just like the examples above, but it’s also missing thedefaultValueattribute. Instead theresaePointRelativeDefaultValueattribute. The key word here is “relative” because the the values are not pixel coordinates. They represent a point that is relative to the image size. For instance, value offloat2(0.5, 0.5)would set the default position at the middle of the layer. However – this relative position is converted to pixel coordinates in After Effects and then those values are being used by your Pixel Bender code.parameter float2 myPoint
<
aePointRelativeDefaultValue: float2(0.0, 0.0);
aeUIControl: "aePoint";
aeDisplayName: "My Point";
>; - Slider Control
This is the most basic control you can have. No need to explain how it works. Just look at the code below. Explains itself.parameter float mySlider
<
minValue: 0.0;
maxValue: 100.0;
defaultValue: 0.0;
aeDisplayName: "My Slider";
>;
Additional controls
There are also some things that you can’t do with expression controls.
- Percent Slider Control
It works exactly the same as the regular slider, but the display format of the value is in percentage.parameter float myPercent
<
minValue: 0.0;
maxValue: 300.0;
defaultValue: 0.0;
aeUIControl:"aePercentSlider";
aeDisplayName: "My Percent";
>; - Popup Control
This you won’t find in the Expression Controls group. It creates a dropdown menu with the predefined values. String values are held in theaePopupStringattribute, but if you want to create anifstatement in your Pixel Bender code than treat it as a regular array and check against index values. In this example Red is 0, Green is 1, and Blue is 2. Remember to defineminValueandmaxValue.parameter int myPopup
<
defaultValue: 0;
minValue:0;
maxValue:2;
aeUIControl: "aePopup";
aePopupString: "Red|Green|Blue";
aeDisplayName: "My Popup";
>; - One Channel Color Color
I guess this one could be handy in some cases, but so far I had no use for it. This works and looks just like a slider with one difference: if you do not provideminValueandmaxValueattributes then they will be based on the bit depth of your project. I guess it could be used as a threshold parameter, but if you ask me it makes no sense. For 8bpc theminValuewould be 0, andmaxValuewould be 255. Ok. But in 32bpc I’d expect to be able to go beyond 1.0 on the slider (unlimitedmaxValue), however in order to do that I’d have to define theminValueandmaxValueon my own, and this defeats the purpose.parameter float mySingleColor
<
defaultValue: 0.0;
aeUIControl:"aeOneChannelColor";
aeDisplayName: "My Simgle Color";
>;
What about Layer Control?
Basically there isn’t one. In order to be able to pick another layer you need to create an additional source in the kernel. After Effects will allow you to use as many additional sources as you like, however Pixel Bender Toolkit only allows two sources, so you will only be able to test your code in After Effects. The big downside is that you can’t add any metadata for this additional source, so it will always show up in the user interface as “Input 2″, “Input 3″ and so on.
input image4 src1;
input image4 src2; // layer control - sort of...
output pixel4 dst;
How does it translate to graphs?
It’s all very similar, although it takes some time to figure out. Instead of listing all the parameters again in this post I’ve decided to give you two Pixel Bender files to look at. One is a simple kernel, and the other is a simple graph. Both of the files to exactly the same thing… nothing.
Download: UI Controls Demo (After Effects CS4)
61 Responses to “Pixel Bender and aeUIControls”
Leave a Reply
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Tom Hauville
05. Sep, 2009
again, very awesome and useful info! I’m going to bet that the AE community sees a sudden flood of PB plugins, due to your efforts!
blankman
05. Sep, 2009
cool stuff, thanks a lot!
Dextrmania
05. Sep, 2009
Hey maltaannon to be honest with u i didnt like u the first time i checked out ur tutorials here but when i purchased MILG5….man,what r u?beleive it or not man,u r the best in after effects i wonder how good results u were scoring in maths in ur high school!!!
Keep it up man pls,keep it up….
AndrewYY
05. Sep, 2009
it’d be awesome if we could customize input2 with metadata (like aeDisplayName).
Jerzy Drozda Jr
05. Sep, 2009
Yeah. I know. Maybe in the next version.
Dextrmania
06. Sep, 2009
i have one question out of this topic maltaannon…its coz i think ur head is on this post that im asking u in this comment area.
can u wiggle the opacity of a layer so that it is opaque at some parts of the and transparent at the others?for example lets say we have many boxes lined up and arranged so they all fit in the composition size exactly(5*5).
can i randomly make their opacity change,but only from 0 to 100 so that they r not half opaque or so?and then use that as a mask.pls help me with this.
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06. Sep, 2009
Fractal noise + threshold
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01. Sep, 2010
Is it possible to bunch some controls into groups like say one group being angle controls, another group being some slider controls?
Chris Forrester
16. Feb, 2011
Great stuff just what I have been looking for. Some of the examples from the Pixel Blender manual have not been working for me or giving errors when I have copied and pasted them. Great to know there is this source of information that I know works.
Hope to be making my own small utility plugins soon!!
Just a shame I am behind the times on such a great tool.
Many Thanks!
-C
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