The Noir Dialog

The dialog has three main sections:

The first is the preset section, where you can select one of a number of preset effects. Simply select the preset from the pop-up menu and you're ready to go.

Preset Glossary

Noir - Black - Enhances contrast

Gris - Gray - Converts to Grayscale

Sepia - Sepia - Tints brown

Negatif - Negative - Dark becomes light, light becomes dark

Solaire - Solarize - Dark becomes light, light untouched

Quantifiez - Quantification - Number of shades reduced

Lumiere - Illumination - Changes overall light level/exposure

Grand - Large - Big effect

Petit - Small - Small effect

Coluer - Color - Applied independently to each color channel

Where multiple elements are combined, all of the effects are applied in sequence, for example:

Sepia Gris - grayscale, then tint brown

Grand Noir Gris - grayscale, then enhance contrast a lot.

The second is the process box. Noir has three stages of internal processing - preprocessing, equalization and post processing. The check boxes activate and deactivate each stage (even if a stage does nothing, it is more efficient to disable it). The buttons take you into dialogs to specify the actions that will happen during each stage. The values for the stages are set as a result of your picking a preset.

The third section is the application box. The first pull down, Effect, deals with whether the effect should be applied uniformly, whether it should fade in or fade out with object distance within the scene or whether it should be applied using a linear or a circular gradient. The Affect menu lets you pick whether it affects just foreground objects, just the background or both. The button lets you edit the parameters of the application method.

Preprocess/PostProcess Dialog

The PreProcess and PostProcess dialogs are the same. The PreProcess effects occur first, and the PostProcess effects occur last. The effects are applied in the sequence they are shown on the dialogs. If you find you need to apply two of them in a different order, use the later on in the sequence in PreProcess and the earlier one in PostProcess.

GrayScale

GrayScale fades the colour from the image. At 100% you end up with a black and white image. You can apply the effect with a strength from -100% to 200%. Values below 0% emphasis the colours in the image, values above 100% start moving the colours towards a negative.

Negative

Negative moves the colour from its value to its negative colour. A Value of 100% shows the full negative. Note that a value of 50% results in a gray screen (every colour is halfway to its negative). Values less than 0 move colours away from thier negative, while values greater than 100 more colours beyond thier negative.

Tint

Tinting has two controls - effect strength and colour. The colour of each pixel is changed to the tint colour, so at full strength you end up with an image that is uniformly the tinting colour. At weaker strengths you end up with a uniform colour cast applied to the image. This is useful for, amongst other things, producing retro looking sepia images.

Solarize

Solarization is controlled by two sliders - effect strength and threshold. Each pixel in the image that has an intensity less than the threshold gets it's colour changed to its negative. Pixels with an intensity greater than the threshold are left alone. Again, the effect strength determines how far the colours are actually changed.

Quantize

Quantize also has two controls - effect strength and levels. It simulates printing with a limited number of colours - the level setting indicates the number of different strengths of each colour. With a fairly high number of levels if can give a nice 'digital' look to images, with low numbers you end up with something like animated silk-screen printing.

Equalizers

The Equalizers map from an input value to an output value. There are eleven sliders in each equalizer bank, corresponding to the values 0%, 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%, 70%, 80%, 90%, and 100%. The value of the slider is the percentage change of that input value. The value is interpolated between the sliders.

The first equalizer block is for intensity. The input value is calculated by converting the pixel to gray scale and using the resulting value. It can be used to change overall brightness and contrast.

The other three equalizers are colour channel equalizers, each working on the strength of the individual colour channels. They can be used to introduce or remove colour casts into the image.

Application Method

This dialog lets you set parameters for your selected application method. The first box contains the Effect and Affect selections from the main Noir dialog. You may change these values here.

The Application Mask dialog allows you to specify the name of a master shader that will be used to modify the strength of the effect. Where the shader is white, the effect will be applied at full strength, where it is black, the effect will not be applied at all. The Invert check box negates the mask before it is used.

The Distance Parameters are used for the distance fade in and fade out effects. The Lead distance is the distance from the camera before that fade starts, and the Fade Distance is the distance over which the fade completes.

The Gradient Parameters apply to all gradients. The Lead is the percentage of the total length of the gradient that it is held at 0 strength. It defaults to zero, meaning that the value of the gradient starts to increase immediately. The Width parameter controls the width of the gradient as a percentage of the total length of the gradient. At 100% the effect reaches full strength at the end of the line (assuming the lead is set to 0). If the width is reduced the effect reaches full strength more quickly, if it is increased, it reaches full strength later on.

The Invert check box swaps the ends of the gradient around - it starts and full strength and decays to 0 strength. If it is checked, lead determines the distance the gradient is held at full strength. If the Mirror check box is checked, the gradient is compressed to fit into half it's normal distance and is followed by a mirror image of the gradient. This makes it go from 0 strength to full strength and back to zero strength.

The Linear Gradient box contains the parameters for the Linear Gradient effect. The Angle slider sets the angle of the gradient. At zero degrees the gradient runs from the bottom of the screen (0 strength) to the top of the screen (full strength). Positive values rotate clockwise.

The Circular Gradient box contains the parameters for the circular gradient. If the True Circle box is not checked, the gradient will be elliptical, corresponding to the images aspect ratio. The two Center Sliders allow you to move the center of the radial gradient around within the image. The gradient has zero strength at it's center and full strength in the corners of the image.