Using the BCC Glint filter to selectively add glints to a clip

The BCC Sparks package consists of over 150 sparks filters and includes about 1500 factory installed preset effects, each of which can be customized and saved as a new preset, which can then be shared with any of the other BCC packages (AE/FxPlug/AVX) across all supported host systems. The package includes a wide range of sparks with blurs, tints, glints, glares, lens flares, glows and time warps to name but a few. Each spark includes the built-in PixelChooser matte and masking system as well as a built-in motion tracker that can be used to drive effects parameters such as the position of a light or the region mask containing an effect.

For this tutorial, we're going to use the BCC Glint filter to add star shaped glints to a portion of an image clip. The clip that we are working with features two children, a boy and a girl, sitting beside each other on a wicker bench. They each hold a glass in their hands and the glass that the girl is holding is reflecting light from the sun. We are going to add a few glints to the reflection on the glass that the girl is holding. We'll use the PixelChooser masking system to contain the effect to just the specular highlight on this glass and we'll also use the built-in motion tracker to lock the mask onto the glass over the length of the clip.

We're using the Autodesk flame system on Linux for this exercise, but this could be done just as easily in any of the other Autodesk systems such as the flint, inferno, smoke, fire or combustion. Let's start by importing the clip into the library and loading it onto the flame desktop.

Once the clip is loaded, we'll load the BCC Glint spark into one of the sparks filter slots, which is done by holding down the alt+shift key and clicking on one of the open filter slots, then navigating over to the bcc sparks group (/usr/discreet/sparks/BCC_3.0/BCC_Lights/) and clicking on the BCC_Glint spark.

Each of the sparks that are included in the BCC package allow for multiple clip input and are capable of compositing a front clip with a matte clip and in many cases a background clip. When we click on the BCC Glint spark, we are asked to select the clips that will be used for the front, matte and background map.

Once the desired clips have been selected (we are actually using the same input for all in this exercise) we then select a destination and automatically are brought into the BCC Glint spark interface.

The effect that the BCC Glint has had on the image is to add 4 point glint stars over the enter clip based on the default threshold setting. In the clip that we are working with, this means that glints appear over not only on the glass but also on the background highlights and on the highlights of the children's faces. Obviously this is not a desirable effect. The look that we are trying to achieve calls for the glints to be localized to the specular highlight, also known as a catchlight, on the glass that is being held by the girl sitting in the right half of the clip. Realizing this look would normally require the use of a GMask to isolate the glass, which then would then have to be tracked so that it can be locked to the glass as the glass is not stationary, but rather is held in the girls hand which is moving.

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