Effects
Contents List
Use Effects
One or more effects describe the appearance of a RenderNode in a 2D scene. Different effect types can be added to a RenderNode so that they resemble an "effect chain". To allow optimized implementations for different GPUs the effect chain can differ on each platform.
Use All Effects
To enable all the available effects instead of only combined effects in the Toolbox of a 2D scene, a command line argument for starting SceneComposer is available:
- "<SC_install_dir>\SceneComposer.exe" /useAllEffects
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To create an effect chain out of single effects, it is possible to drag and drop more than one effect to a RenderNode in this SceneComposer mode.
Take care to drop the effects in the correct order:
- first one brush effect,
- second one or more in-place effects, and
- finally a blend effect.
Please refer to section Effect Types for information about Types of Effects.
Effect Types
Three kinds of basic effects can be combined to an effect chain:
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Brush Effect |
- Acts as the input effect, meaning it defines the source data for the node.
- Always has to be the first effect in the chain.
- E.g. SolidColorBrush, BitmapBrush, TextBrush
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In-place Effect |
- This effect is optional for the chain.
- Multiple different in-place effects can be concatenated.
- E.g. ConstantAlphaEffect, MaskEffect, HslCorrectionEffect (color correction effect)
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Blend Effect |
- Always has to be the last effect in the chain.
- E.g. AlphaBlendEffect
On several platforms some of these effect combinations can be processed in one single pass by the GPU. Therefore two or even more effects can be put into a so called "Combined Effect".
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Combined Effect |
This icon indicates that the effect chain is complete and consists of
- a Brush effect at first
- followed by an optional In-place effect
- finished by a final Blend effect
Please refer to section Use Effects for details on how to use Effects.
Combined Effects
Examples of combined effects available in the Toolbox panel are:
Bitmap Effects:
- BitmapBrushAlphaBlend (obtained from a brush effect and a blend effect)
- BitmapBrushConstantAlpha (obtained from a brush effect and an in-place effect)
- BitmapBrushConstantAlphaAlphaBlend (obtained from a brush effect, an in-place effect and a blend effect)
- BitmapBrushHslAlphaBlend (obtained from a brush effect, an in-place effect and a blend effect)
Solid Color Brush Effects:
- SolidColorBrushAlphaBlend (obtained from a brush effect and a blend effect),
- SolidColorBrushConstAlpha (obtained from a brush effect and an in-place effect),
- SolidColorBrushConstAlphaAlphaBlend (combines all three types of effects),
- SolidColorBrushHslAlphaBlend (combines all three types of effects),
- SolidColorBrushMaskAlphaBlend (combines all three types of effects),
Text Brush Effects:
- TextBrushAlphaBlend (obtained from a brush effect and a blend effect),
- TextBrushConstantAlpha (obtained from a brush effect and an in-place effect),
- TextBrushConstantAlphaAlphaBlend (combines all three types of effects),
- TextBrushHslAlphaBlend (combines all three types of effects),
- TextBrushMaskAlphaBlend (combines all three types of effects).
Multi Line Text Input
Sometimes it could be necessary to introduce a long text - structured in multiple, successive, lines - into a text field. For such reasons SceneComposer provides the possibility to introduce many lines in any text field available in Properties panel. Do this by using the Ctrl + Enter combo at the end of every line. On this way another piece of text will be introduced on the next line.
If it is be necessary to keep the same "multi lined" text but to re-order it as a single - linear - piece of text later on, the Multi-Line property should be used to achieve this effect. The multiline laying out property allows you to force multiline text to be laid out within a single line, ignoring new line markers.
To access the Multi-Line property within the Text Layout category, you will first need to enable the Enable Text Layout option.
This property is accessible for any text effect.
For usability reasons, SceneComposer only provides combined effects in the Toolbox by default.
Use Combined Effects
Following node types are already preconfigured with a specific combined effect:
- BitmapNode: Once a BitmapNode is created in the scene graph, it will already be linked to a BitmapBrushAlpaBlend combined effect
- TextNode: Once a TextNode is created in the scene graph, it will already be linked to a TextBrushAlphaBlend combined effect
For a user-defined node, use the following 2D node type:
- RenderNode: Drag a combined effect from the Toolbox and drop it over the desired RenderNode in the Scene Tree panel.
Select the node in the left side of the Scene Tree panel to display the linked effect in the right side.
Edit the properties specific for the effect type in the Properties panel.
Please refer to section Use Effects for details.