Tinderbox1 2.1v8 AECS4

USER GUIDE
Tinderbox 1 on After Effects
Visual Effects Software The Foundry
Tinder Box1 The Foundry

©2008 The Foundry Visionmongers Ltd. All rights reserved.
Tinderbox 1 User Guide
This manual, as well as the software described in it, is furnished under license and may only be used or copied in accordance with the
terms of such license. This manual is provided for informational use only and is subject to change without notice. The Foundry
assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors of inaccuracies that may appear in this book.
No part of this manual may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form without the prior written
permission of The Foundry.
The Foundry logo is a trademark of The Foundry Visionmongers Ltd. Tinderbox 1 is a registered trademark of The Foundry
Visionmongers Ltd. All other products or brands are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies or
organisations.
Software engineering Mailys Levassort, Ralph McEntagart.
Product testing Martin Rose, Mike Zannetou, Sean Brice, Jack Binks.
Writing and layout design Jonathan Barson using Adobe FrameMaker.
Rev: 14 November 2008
The Foundry Tinder Box1

iii
Contents
Introduction About this User Guide. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

System Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Installation on Mac . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Installation on Windows . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Activating Tinderbox. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Installing a License . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Serial Number . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
System ID (lmhostid) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Where does the license file go? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
License Problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Background Rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
About Tinderbox Plug-ins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Other Foundry Products . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Tinderbox Controls About... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Reset . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Options.... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Type . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Aspect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Ignore Transparent Pixels. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Gradient . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Lighting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Camera . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Filtering. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Blending . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
The Foundry Forge

iv
Matte . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Matte Layer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Attenuation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
Source Crops. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Matte Layer Crops . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Tinderbox 1 T_Beam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
T_Blur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
T_Caustic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
T_Deflicker. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
T_Degrain . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
T_Diffuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
T_DirBlur . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
T_Distorto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
T_Droplet. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
T_Etch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
T_Grad . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
T_HeatHaze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
T_Lens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
T_Pattern. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
T_Rays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
T_Sky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
T_Starburst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
T_Tile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Appendix A Release Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Appendix B End User License Agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Index A-Z . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Forge The Foundry

INTRODUCTION 5
About this User Guide
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to Tinderbox 1 for After Effects. Our plug-ins have

been developed for the most demanding professionals in the
post production industry. Many of the software engineers at
The Foundry have worked in television or film, and know only
too well the exacting requirements of this field. We are
delighted to bring these tools to digital artists using After
Effects. We hope you enjoy using them as much as we do.
About this User This User Guide tells you how to install the plug-ins and
Guide remove the watermark with a license key. It gives
information on each of the plug-ins in this set with hints and
tips at the end of most plug-ins to suggest creative or
practical uses of the effect.
Controls common to many of the Tinderbox plug-ins are

described in the chapter Tinderbox Controls and referenced
from the plug-ins.
System Tinderbox 1 plugs into Adobe After Effects CS4 running on

Requirements Mac OS X or Windows XP. It will also work in CS3/AE7. It
does not work in After Effects 6.5, 6.0 or earlier versions. A
version of Tinderbox is available for Combustion.
Installation on Mac Tinderbox is distributed on CD or as a software download

from our web site. To install Tinderbox 1 on a Mac follow
these instructions:
The Foundry Tinderbox 1

6 INTRODUCTION
Installation on Windows
1. Insert the Tinderbox 1 CD into your CD-ROM drive or double-

click on the dmg file downloaded from our web site.
2. Double-click on Tinderbox pkg icon and follow the on-screen
instructions.
Figure 1. Double-click on the package to install.
3. Tinderbox will be installed but not licensed. It will render the

effects with a watermark. If you have installed from a CD follow
“Activating Tinderbox” on page 7. If you have installed from a
download see “Where does the license file go?” on page 11.
Installation on Tinderbox is distributed on CD or as a software download

Windows from our web site. To install Tinderbox 1 on a computer
running Windows follow these instructions:
1. Insert the Tinderbox 1 CD into your CD-ROM drive.
2. The Tinderbox installer should start automatically. If it does
not, click on the Tinderbox Installer and follow the on-screen
instructions.
3. Tinderbox will be installed but not licensed. It will render the
effects with a watermark. If you have installed from a CD follow
“Activating Tinderbox” on page 7. If you have installed from a
download see “Where does the license file go?” on page 11.
Tinderbox 1 The Foundry

INTRODUCTION 7
Activating Tinderbox
Activating Once you have installed Tinderbox 1, you will need to

Tinderbox activate the product. Successful activation gives you a
license key that unlocks the software.
If you have installed Tinderbox 1 from a CD, you can activate

it via the Internet or by telephone.
If you have installed Tinderbox 1 from a download, proceed

to “Installing a License” on page 9.
Activation via Internet 1. Start After Effects.

2. Apply a Tinderbox plug-in to a layer in a composition.
3. Press the About button (Figure 2) and make a note of your
Figure 2. About.
System ID (sometimes called lmhostid). This number is unique to

8 INTRODUCTION
Activating Tinderbox
your machine and your license key will be locked to it. Click the
dialog that appears to make it go away.
Figure 3. System ID. Click dialog to make it go away.
4. Press the Options... button at the top of the plug-in. (Figure 4)
Figure 4. Options...
5. This launches a web browser. Check that the System ID shown

on the web page is correct. If it is not, or you wish to activate
for a different computer, follow the on-screen instructions.
6. Type your serial number into the box provided. You can find
your serial number on a sticker in the DVD case. Make sure you
type it in exactly as shown. Click ’continue’.

INTRODUCTION 9
Installing a License
7. If successful, you will be taken to a page that let’s you

download your license file and the Foundry License Installer
(FLI). From the pulldown menu, select the installer for your
operating system, and click ’download license’.
8. Double-click on the downloaded file to extract the license key
and the Foundry License Installer (your computer may do this
automatically). The license will be in a plain text file called
foundry.lic. The license will look a bit like this:
INCREMENT tinderbox1_ae_i foundry 2.1 permanent \
uncounted HOSTID=000b957bfdf4 START=13-aug-2006 \
SIGN="0170 13D4 3659 2FC0 CCA4 1B88 0799 5D27 \
A73A ECE0 DE03 EAA3 1AF8 D98C EC7A 972A 19E3 \
7E20 AE1F 4D3B 3623"
Once you have downloaded the license file, proceed to “Install-
ing a License” on page 9.
Activation by Phone Call our London office on 020 7434 0449 (country code 44)
or phone our Los Angeles office on 310 399 4555. You will
need your serial number (“Serial Number” on page 10),
System ID (“System ID (lmhostid)” on page 10) and an email
address for us to send the license key and instructions.
Installing a License Once you have received your license file, you need to install
the license. The Foundry License Installer (FLI) application
helps you with this. You may have received this application
in an e-mail or downloaded it from http://
www.thefoundry.co.uk/licensing.
To install a license:
1. Open the directory where you have saved the license file and
the Foundry License Installer.
2. Double-click on the Foundry License Installer application.
3. In the window that opens, click ’Install’.

10 INTRODUCTION
Serial Number
This checks the license file and installs it into the correct direc-
tory.
If you installed a node-locked license key (a license that

allows you to run the software on one machine only), you’re
good to go. Start After Effects and check you’re plug-ins are
licensed. If they are not, check that you have a foundry.lic
license file in the correct directory. See “Where does the
license file go?” on page 11.
If you are installing a floating license key, you will be asked

whether you want to create a client license file. For more
information on how to install floating licenses, see
“Background Rendering” on page 14.
Serial Number The serial number is printed on a sticker inside the

Tinderbox DVD box. The number will look a little like this:
C334-D2B8-E3A6-9A75-315E-E37E-B5FB-311A
System ID The System ID (sometimes called lmhostid) is a unique

(lmhostid) number that identifies your computer. We use this number to
generate a license key for that, and only that, computer.

INTRODUCTION 11
Where does the license file go?
The System ID is shown at the bottom of the help dialogs.
Figure 5. Help showing the System ID.
Click on any Tinderbox About button to display this number.

See Figure 2 if you can’t find it.
Where does the The license file should be called foundry.lic and saved in the
license file go? following directory as a plain text file.
Mac
If you’re on a Mac, this is where the license file should go:
/Library/Application Support/TheFoundry/FLEXlm/foundry.lic
Windows XP
If you’re on Windows XP, this is where the license file should
go:
C:\Program Files\The Foundry\FLEXlm\foundry.lic
C:\Program Files (x86)\The Foundry\FLEXlm\foundry.lic
Windows Vista
If you’re on Windows Vista, this is where the license file
should go:
C:\ProgramData\The Foundry\FLEXlm\foundry.lic
There are also other places where you can place the license

12 INTRODUCTION
Where does the license file go?
file. See “Alternative license directories” on page 12.
Alternative license If you like, you can also put the license file in an arbitrary
directories directory and point to it with the environment variable:
FOUNDRY_LICENSE_FILE
This can be useful for large post houses that have centrally
managed license servers, but will not be necessary for most
customers.
See “Further Reading” on page 16.
Can I install Tinderbox You can install Tinderbox on as many machines as you like,
on more than one but a watermark will be drawn over the image if there isn’t a
computer? valid license key for that machine.
If you wish to render Tinderbox plug-ins on a network of

render-only versions of After Effects you will need to
purchase Tinderbox render licenses.
See “Background Rendering” on page 14.

INTRODUCTION 13
License Problems
Watermark If you don’t have a valid license key a dialog (Figure 6) will
warn you and the image will render scattered with coloured
dots (Figure 7).
Figure 6. Warning Dialog. Figure 7. Close-up of dots.
License Problems If you can't get your licenses to work, you can download the
Foundry License Diagnostics (FLD) utility from http://
www.thefoundry.co.uk/licensing. Run the FLD and email the
resulting text file to support@thefoundry.co.uk with a clear
description of the problem.
Error Log Files If a plug-in fails to get a license, the incident is recorded in
an error log file. The time, date and nature of the problem
are appended to the end of the file. The error log file can
then be found in the following location:
Mac
/Library/Application Support/TheFoundry/FLEXlm/log/
license.log
Windows XP
C:\Program Files\The Foundry\FLEXlm\log\license.log
C:\Program Files (x86)\The Foundry\FLEXlm\log\license.log

14 INTRODUCTION
Background Rendering
Windows Vista
C:\ProgramData\The Foundry\FLEXlm\log\license.log
Background In After Effects Pro, you can render on a network of

Rendering computers using watch folders. If you want to do this for
compositions that use Tinderbox plug-ins, you will need:
1. The Tinderbox plug-ins installed on the networked computers.
2. A valid Tinderbox license key for each networked computer.
You may need to purchase additional license keys from The

Foundry. Without these, the After Effects Render Engine will
render Tinderbox plug-ins with dots scattered on the image.
There are several ways of licensing a network of machines

but the most common and flexible would be to purchase a
number of floating render licenses and have a license server
manage these licenses. Render license keys will allow you to
render Tinderbox using After Effects Render Engine, but not
the full After Effects program. Render licenses are much
cheaper than full licenses.
Here is an overview of the processes needed to set up a

floating license network to render Tinderbox 1 plug-ins on
up to 5 After Effects render engines using a Mac as the
license server.
Buy a License Key Contact The Foundry and buy a Tinderbox 1 floating license
for 5 machines that will run on a server with System ID =
000EA641D7A1.

INTRODUCTION 15
Background Rendering
Configure the Server 1. On the server (whose machine name is Red), take the license
key you bought (foundry_float.lic) and install it using the
Foundry License Installer (FLI), which you can download from
http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/licensing. Here’s that license key:
SERVER Red 000EA641D7A1 30001
VENDOR foundry
INCREMENT tinderbox1_ae_r foundry 2.1 permanent 5 \
START=8-feb-2006 SIGN="00FF 6A1B 735B A476 2069 \ 0A10
6894 4903 E2CF A238 7A01 1A15 1808 7BCF 346C \ F59E 8899
F53C 2B13 E204 C7FD"
2. When you are asked whether you want to create a client license
file, accept. This creates a client.lic file which you need to save
on your machine.
3. Download and install the Foundry FLEXlm Tools (FFT) from
http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/licensing.
4. Having installed the Foundry FLEXlm Tools (FFT), do the
following:
On a Mac: Go to /Applications/TheFoundry/FLEXlmTools[ver-
sion]/ and double-click on the Foundry Server Utility.
On Windows: Select Start > All Programs > The Foundry >
FFT[version] > Foundry Server Utility.
5. Press Start Server.
Configure the Clients 1. On each of the 5 render engines, install the Tinderbox 1 plug-
ins.
2. Take the client license file (client.lic) that was created when you
installed the floating license on the server and copy it to each
of the render machines. Also copy over the Foundry License
Installer.
3. Now install this license on each render machine using the
Foundry License Installer.
Further information on setting up a machine to manage

these licenses across a network, including how to set up a

16 INTRODUCTION
Further Reading
Windows render network, is beyond the scope of this user

guide. See “Further Reading” on page 16. If you wish to
discuss your particular requirements, please call us.
Further Reading Tinderbox plug-ins are licensed using FLEXlm. FLEXlm license
keys can be locked to a particular machine (which is common
for Tinderbox) or configured to manage licenses for multiple
computers on a network. These floating licenses can be more
cost effective if you have lots of machines which only need
occasional access to plug-ins.
Systems Administrators may wish to find out more about

licensing our plug-ins with FLEXlm. We recommend reading
the Foundry FLEXlm Tools (FFT) User Guide available to
download from our web site (http://www.thefoundry.co.uk/
licensing). In addition, there are general FLEXlm licensing
guides on Macrovision’s web site (http://
www.macrovision.com).
About Tinderbox All Tinderbox plug-ins integrate seamlessly into After

Plug-ins Effects. They are applied to your clips as you would any
other filter and they can all be animated using the standard
After Effects animation tools from simple keyframing to full
blown expressions.
For users with the Adobe After Effects Professional, the

Motion Tracker can be used to input data into any positional
controls of the Tinderbox plug-ins.

INTRODUCTION 17
Other Foundry Products
Other Foundry The Foundry is a leading developer of visual effects software

Products for film and video post production. Its products include
Nuke, Furnace, Tinder, Tinderbox, Keylight and Anvil and run
on a variety of compositing platforms including Discreet
Flame from Autodesk, Avid DS and Apple’s Shake. For the full
list of products and supported platforms see http://
www.thefoundry.co.uk.
Nuke is an Academy Award® winning compositor. It has

been used to create extraordinary images on scores of
feature films including The Dark Knight, The Golden
Compass, Iron Man, Transformers, King Kong, and Pirates of
the Caribbean: At World’s End.
Furnace is a collection of film tools. Many of the algorithms

utilize motion estimation technology to speed up common
compositing tasks. Plug-ins include wire removal, rig
removal, steadiness, deflicker, degrain and regrain, retiming,
and texture tools.
Ocula is a collection of tools that solve common problems

with stereoscopic imagery, improve productivity in post
production, and ultimately help to deliver a more rewarding
3D-stereo viewing experience.
Keylight is an industry-proven blue/green screen keyer

giving results that look photographed not composited. The
Keylight algorithm was developed by the Computer Film
Company who were honoured with a technical achievement
award for digital compositing from the Academy of Motion
Picture Arts and Sciences.
Visit The Foundry’s web site at http://www.thefoundry.co.uk

for further details.

18 INTRODUCTION
Other Foundry Products

TINDERBOX CONTROLS 19
About...
TINDERBOX CONTROLS
This chapter describes the controls that are common to

many Tinderbox plug-ins.
About... To display the on-line help either click on “About...” as

shown in Figure 8. To hide the help dialog, just click on it
Figure 8. About.
after it has appeared. The help gives a short description of

the plug-in, the exact version number of Tinderbox
(Figure 10) and the lmhostid (Figure 11). This online help is
designed to give you a brief description of the plug-in and a

20 TINDERBOX CONTROLS
Reset
quick start if required. More detailed information on the

plug-in is contained in this User Guide.
Figure 9. Help.
Figure 10. Version. Figure 11. lmhostid.
Reset Reset reverts all parameters in the plug-in to their default

Options...
values.
Figure 12. Reset.
Options... Options will launch a web browser to get a license key for
the plug-ins. See “Activating Tinderbox” on page 7.
Figure 13. Options.

Type
Type Each of the plug-ins listed in the next chapter has a type
description of blur, effect, tool, generator or warper. This is
to help you quickly understand the general nature of the
filter.
If there are any optional layers that can be used in the

effect, these are also declared.
Some Tinderbox plug-ins can use a composition’s camera

and lights. These are labelled as 3D in the Type definition
and the plug-ins themselves appear with a cube symbol
(Figure 14) in the Effect Controls panel.
Figure 14. T_Droplet can use the composition’s lights.

Aspect
Aspect Controls the proportion of the effect in x, horizontal, and y,

vertical. The default value of 0 will apply the effect equally in
x and y. A value of 100 will only apply the effect in x. A value
of -100 will only apply the effect in y. Figure 15 and
Figure 15. T_Blur Aspect = 100. Figure 16. T_Blur Aspect = -100.
Figure 16 shows the output of T_Blur on a checker pattern

with two values for the Aspect. The Aspect controls can be
used to fake perspective. Figure 17 shows Aspect in
Figure 17. T_Droplet.
T_Droplet being used to sit the ripples on the water.
Pixel Aspect Ratio

Tinderbox plug-ins will automatically compensate for the
Pixel Aspect Ratio set under Composition Settings and in the
Viewer Options.

Process
Process Controls which of the colour channels will be affected by the

effect. The options can be a subset or all of the following.
The most common are at the top of the list. Figure 18 shows
a two layer composite of a polar bear with triangular alpha
channel composited over a flower. T_Blur has then been
applied with the most common processing options shown in
Figure 19 to Figure 21.
• RGBA - the red, green, blue and alpha channels are
processed. Figure 19.
Figure 18. Two layer composite. Figure 19. RGBA.
• RGB - only the red, green and blue channels are

processed. Figure 20.
• Alpha - only the alpha channel is processed. Figure 21.
Figure 20. RGB. Figure 21. Alpha.
• Grey - this affects the result of (R+G+B)/3.

• Red - only the red channel will be affected.
• Green - only the green channel will be affected.

Process
• Blue - only the blue channel will be affected.

• Luminance - the luminance of the image will be affected.
• U - only the U video signal will be affected.
• V - only the V video signal will be affected.
• Chroma - the U and V channels will be affected.
You should note that some plug-ins operate on the alpha

channel of the source image, like T_Blur in the example
above, and other plug-ins generate their own alpha replacing
any alpha that was part of the source image. You can see
this in Figure 22 where T_Caustic has been applied to the
polar bear layer and the triangular alpha channel is ignored.
Figure 22. RGBA processing with T_Caustic.

Ignore Transparent Pixels
Ignore Transparent If you’re wondering what this handy switch does then read
Pixels on.
Figure 23. RGB Straight. Figure 24. Alpha.
Consider this picture of a polar bear with a triangular matte.

Figure 23 shows the RGB Straight pixels. Figure 24 shows
the triangular matte. Compositing this picture over a
background will only show the polar bear and the
background. You’re never going to see the green pixels.
If we apply T_Blur to the polar bear, let’s consider what

happens to pixels at the edge of the triangular matte.
Figure 25. Ignore Transparent Figure 26. Ignore Transparent

Pixels Off. Pixels On.
Figure 25 shows green pixels being dragged into the picture

as a result of the blur. This is usually unwanted. switching
Ignore Transparent Pixels on will means that the source
image will be composited on transparent black before the
effect is applied. Figure 26 shows the result you’re after.

Gradient
Gradient Several of the Tinderbox plug-ins require the colours to be

set in a gradient or ramp. These plug-ins will have a Gradient
control. The coloured area at the top is used to create,
delete and position the individual colours in the gradient by
manipulating the small triangular colour tags.
Note The tags on the extreme left and right cannot be moved or deleted
but their colours can be modified.
Figure 27. Gradient Controls.
Changing a Colour Select a tag by clicking on it. Click on the colour box (labelled
Edit in Figure 27) to launch the After Effects colour dialog.
Moving a Colour Select a tag and drag it left or right.

Note The tags on the extreme left and right cannot be moved.
Adding a Colour Click in the colour gradient to add a colour.
Deleting a Colour Click and drag a tag into the colour gradient.

Lighting
Lighting Some plug-ins include controls for adding lighting. There are
two types of lighting models that can be used in these plug-
ins:
1. The Foundry lighting models.
2. After Effects lighting models.
Foundry Model Has two light types, local and infinite.
After Effects Model Has four light types, parallel, point, spot, ambient.
Ambient, diffuse and specular lighting models are included

for some plug-ins and point, infinite or After Effects lights
can be used.
Figure 28. Lighting Off. Figure 29. Lighting On.
Light Host Light - this checkbox appears only when there is a host
light available in the current composition. If the control is
switched on, the internal lighting model will be disabled.
Light Layer - the host light to use in the calculations. This is

specified by a number. The host lights are numbered from
the bottom light in the composition (Light Layer =1), upwards

Lighting
to the top light (Light Layer = 2)
Figure 30. To pick the Red Light set Light Layer to 2.

Lighting
Type
• None - no lights are used. Lighting parameters are
switched off.
Figure 31. None.
• Infinite - simulates the parallel rays from a distant light

source, like the sun.
Figure 32. Infinite.

Lighting
• Local - simulates the light rays from a light source close

to the surface of the image.
Figure 33. Local.
• Host - uses the After Effects light. If more than one light
is in the composition, the top layer light is used.
Direction - the direction of the light source. If set to 90 the

light appears to come from the right. If set to 180 the light
appears to come from the bottom of the screen.
Figure 34. Direction = 90. Figure 35. Direction = 270.
Elevation - effectively controls the height of the light source

above the image plane. Elevation changes the angle between

Lighting
the image plane and a line from the light source to the image
centre.
Figure 36. Elevation = 5. Figure 37. Elevation = 30.
Position - the position of the light.
Distance - sets the distance between the local light source

and the image plane. As distance increases more of the
image is illuminated.
Ambient Lighting Ambient light produces a constant illumination on all

surfaces regardless of their orientation. Ambient light is an
approximation of the light generated from the multiple
reflections from every surface in a scene.
Ambient Method - controls how to apply the ambient

lighting.
• None - switches off ambient lighting.
• Colour - switches on ambient lighting and uses the
ambient colour in the ambient colour calculations.
• Source - switches on ambient lighting and uses the
source image colours in the ambient colour calculations.
Colour - the colour used in the ambient light calculations.
Strength - the amount of ambient light.

Lighting
Diffuse Lighting Dull surfaces scatter light equally in all directions so that the
surfaces appear to have the same brightness from all
viewing angles. These surfaces exhibit diffuse reflection.
Lighting - controls how to apply the diffuse lighting.

• None - switches off diffuse lighting.
• Colour - switches on diffuse lighting and uses the diffuse
colour in the diffuse colour calculations, Figure 38 on
page 33.
• Source - switches on diffuse lighting and uses the source
image colours in the diffuse colour calculations,
Figure 39.
Figure 38. Diffuse Colour.

Lighting
Figure 39. Diffuse Source.
Colour - the colour used in the diffuse light calculations.
Strength - the amount of reflected diffuse light.
Specular Lighting Specular or highlight reflection is observed on any shiny

surface. Illuminate a shiny metal sphere and the highlight is
caused by specular reflection while the light reflected from
the rest of the sphere is caused by diffuse reflection.
Lighting - how to apply the specular lighting.

• None - switches off specular lighting.
• Colour - switches on specular lighting and uses the colour
in the specular colour calculations, Figure 40.

Lighting
• Source - switches on specular lighting and uses the

source image colours in the specular colour calculations,
Figure 41 on page 35.
Figure 40. Specular Colour.
Figure 41. Specular Source.
Colour - the colour of the specular highlights.
Strength - the amount of reflected specular light.

Lighting
Fall-off - controls how tight (Figure 43) or diffuse

(Figure 42) the highlights are on the surface. This equates to
the apparent shininess of the surface.
Figure 42. Low Fall-off.
Figure 43. High Fall-off.

Camera
Camera Some plug-ins include camera controls allowing you to move

around the generated effect. To ease animation
synchronisation these can also be slaved to an After Effects
camera (if one is present) in the same manner as the lights.
The camera model used depends on the plug-in. For example,
Tinderbox 1 T_Sky employs a camera which only allows for
rotations in 3 degrees of freedom, since the sky is of a
sufficient distance from the camera in question that no
parallax should be observed in any kind of tracking
movement. However, in a plug-in such as Tinderbox 3
T_Particles, the camera model allows for movement as well
as rotation in 3 planes.
In our internal camera parameters, (“Controls” on page 37),

only the controls relevant to the current plug-in are enabled
and displayed, whilst, if host camera slaving is selected, only
the relevant parameters from the host camera are employed.
Our plug-ins employ a two point camera model with an origin

target point, and the coordinate system mimics the left
handed camera model employed natively by After Effects.
Controls Host Camera - this checkbox appears only when there is a

host camera available in the composition you are working in,
so if you want to slave to the host camera first of all ensure
that you have created one in the current comp. If the control
is switched on, the internal camera controls described
subsequently will be disabled.
Angle of View - equivalent to the After Effects camera

parameter of the same name this governs the width (as a
degree) of the scene visible.

Camera
X Rotation - the rotation around the X axis of the camera

head
Y Rotation - the rotation around the Y axis of the camera

head
Z Rotation - the rotation around the Z axis of the camera

head
X Position - the translation along the x axis
Y Position - the translation along the y axis
Z Position - the translation along the z axis
Clip Near & Clip Far - to aid rendering on generator plug-ins

we employ a pair of planes which specify the limits of
interest in terms of an axis through the camera and lens.
Objects moving in front of the Clip Near or behind the Clip
Far are determined as out of the area of interest and are
thus not rendered.

Filtering
Filtering Filtering is used to control the quality of your processed

images by reducing the jagged lines characteristic of pixel
devices. For high quality images you should switch filtering
on. As with all image processing you have a trade off
between quality and time. Filtering will increase the quality
of your image but will also increase the time it takes to
process the image.
Filtering quality is chosen from a popup menu. The options

given in the popup menu are:
• Low - highly distorted images may show jaggies. This is
the fastest option.
• Medium - uses a bilinear filter.
• High - uses a MIP bilinear filter. This is the slowest
option.
• Global Default - this uses the quality setting in After
Effects to determine the filtering method used in the
plug-in.
Figure 44. Low, Medium and High Filtering.
Depending on the effect being filtered, the High filtering

Filtering
option may over-soften the image. To combat this, the Filter

Sharpness control can be used to compensate. The default
value of 100% is normal sharpness, increasing it will sharpen
up the result, decreasing it will soften further.
Note Filter Sharpness only has an effect when using the High filtering
option.

Blending
Blending Many of the Tinderbox plug-ins have blending controls which

allow you to specify how to mix between the output image
and the source image. Controls are also available to affect
the gain on the output image and source image. In our
examples, we have applied T_Grad to a source image
(Figure 45) to get the output image as shown in Figure 46.
Figure 45. Source Image. Figure 46. Output Image.
Although the same results could be achieved using the layer

modes and Adjust processes provided in After Effects, it
would require the use of many more layers and effects in the
composition.
Method - sets how to blend the output image effect with its
original source image by the amount set in the blend control.
• None - no blending is applied, only the output image is
returned as in Figure 46. Blend, Effect Gain and Source
Gain have no affect when in this mode.
• Mix - blends the source and output images.
• Add - adds the source and output image pixel values.
• Difference - the absolute value of the source image minus
the output image. Similar colours will return black pixels.

Blending
• Subtract Source - output image minus the source image.
Figure 47. None, Mix, Add, Difference, Subtract Source.
Negative values are set to black.

• Subtract Effect - source image minus the output image.
Negative values are set to black.
• Darken - returns the darker of either the output image or
the source image.
• Lighten - returns the brighter of either the output image
or the source image.
• Colour - returns the hue and saturation of the output
image and the luminance of the source image.
• Luminosity - returns the hue and saturation of the source
image and the luminance of the output image.
Figure 48. Subtract Effect, Darken, Lighten, Colour,

Luminosity.
• Hue - returns the hue of the output image and the

saturation and luminance of the source image.
• Saturation - returns the hue and luminance of the source
image and the saturation of the output image.
• Screen - is a soft add making everything brighter but
ramping off the whites. Light colours have more of an

Blending
effect than dark colours. The result is always a lighter

colour. Blending with black leaves the pixel unchanged,
blending with white always returns white. The result is
similar to projecting multiple slides on top of each other.
• Multiply - source image multiplied by the output image.
The result is always darker. Blending with black gives
black and with white returns the colour unchanged.
• Overlay - mixes colours while preserving the highlights
and shadows.
Figure 49. Hue, Saturation, Screen, Multiply, Overlay.
• Exclusion - creates a result similar to the Difference

mode but lower in contrast. Blending with white inverts
the colour, blending with black produces no change.
• ColourBurn - darkens the underlying colour to reflect the
blend colour by increasing the contrast.
• ColourDodge - brightens the underlying colour to reflect
the blend colour by decreasing the contrast.
• HardLight - lightens highlights and darkens shadows. If
the pixel value in the source image is lighter than 50%
grey, the result lightens as if it were screened. If the pixel
value in the source image is darker than 50% grey, the
result is darkened as if it were multiplied.

Blending
• LinearBurn - darkens the underlying color to reflect the
Figure 50. Exclusion, ColourBurn, ColourDodge, HardLight,

LinearBurn.
blend color by decreasing the brightness. Blending with

white produces no change.
• LinearDodge - same as Add.
• LinearLight - is a mix in which the brightness depends on
the output image. If the output image pixel is brighter
than mid grey, the source image is lightened by mixing in
a brighter output image. If the output image is darker
than mid grey the source image is darkened by mixing in a
darker output image. If blending with a mid grey output
image, the source image is returned.
• SoftLight - similar to LinearLight but more subtle. Unlike
LinearLight, blending with white will lighten the source
image but not return white.
• Composite Effect - if the plug-in generates an alpha then
this will composite the plug-in effect over the source
image. This saves you having to set Blending to none and
add another layer to your composition.

Blending
• Composite Source - layers the source image over the
Figure 51. Linear Dodge, Linear Light, SoftLight, Composite

Effect, Composite Source.
output image taking into account any alpha channel on

the source image.
Blend - when blending, sets the percentage mix between the

output image and the source image. A value of 100% will
show just the output image effect. A value of 0% will show
just the source image. The inputs to this Blend are affected
by the values set for Effect Gain and Source Gain.
Effect Gain - when blending, sets the gain of the image

effect. The result of this is used in the Blend. The Effect Gain
also affects the alpha of the image. Setting Effect Gain to
50% will half the brightness of the effect image and will also
half the value of its alpha. This will result in the underlying
layers, or black if there are none, appearing through the
effect image.
Source Gain - when blending, sets the gain of the original

source. The result of this is used in the Blend. The Source
Gain also affects the alpha of the image. Setting Source Gain
to 50% will half the brightness of the original source and will
also half the value of its alpha. This will result in the
underlying layers, or black if there are none, appearing
through the original source.
Clamp 0-1 (32bpc) - switch this on to clamp out-of-range
pixels so that the blending methods give expected results.

Blending
Many blending operations (like screen) rely on the pixels to

be in the range 0 to 1 to get a sensible result. In 32 bpc
projects some images may have pixel values much greater
than 1. These over-range values are called over-whites or
superwhites and will give incorrect and unexpected results
for these blending methods. Switching this clamp on will cut
off any pixel values greater than 1 (and less than 0) so that
the blend looks right. Without clamping you will get
unexpected results, for example, negative pixels when you
ought to be getting very bright pixels.

Matte
Matte The way the Matte and Matte Layer parameters work are
common to many plug-ins and are described here.
Matte - the image and channels used to control the effect.

• None - no matte is used.
• Source Luminance - the luminance of the current layer,
with any effects applied to it, is used.
• Source Inverse Luminance - the inverted luminance of the
current layer, with any effects applied to it, is used.
• Source Alpha - the alpha of the current layer, with any
effects applied to it, is used.
• Source Inverse Alpha - the inverted alpha of the current
layer, with any effects applied to it, is used.
• Matte Layer Luminance - the luminance of the raw image
specified in the Matte Layer parameter below is used.
• Matte Layer Inverse Luminance - the inverted luminance
of the raw image specified in the Matte Layer parameter
below is used.
• Matte Layer Alpha - the alpha of the raw image specified
in the Matte Layer parameter below is used.
• Matte Layer Inverse Alpha - the inverted alpha of the raw
image specified in the Matte Layer parameter below is
used.
So the important bit is that if you pick Source you get the
current layer with any effects applied, and if you pick Matte
Layer you get the image specified below with no effects
applied.
Matte Layer Matte Layer - the layer used if Matte is set to Matte Layer
Luminance, Matte Layer Inverse Luminance, Matte Layer
Alpha or Matte Layer Inverse Alpha.

Attenuation
• None - no layer is specified and none used.

• 1. Layer - this layer is used as the Matte Layer.
• 2. Layer - his layer is used as the Matte Layer.
The Matte Layer is the layer without any effects applied.
Attenuation Often the matte is used to attenuate the strength of the

effect. By this we mean that pixel values in a matte are used
to vary a parameter in the plug-in. You should note that this
is not the same as applying the effect to only a portion of
the image using masks or a track matte.
Let’s consider the plug-in T_Tile that takes an image like

Figure 52 and scales and repeats it as shown in Figure 53.
If we attenuate this effect with the matte should in

Figure 54 then where the matte is black on the left, none of
the effect will be applied. Where the matte is white the full
scaling factor in T_Tile will be applied. Values inbetween are
scaled accordingly as shown in Figure 55.
Figure 52. Source Image. Figure 53. Tile.

Attenuation
Figure 54. Matte. Figure 55. Attenuating Scale.

Source Crops
Source Crops Many Tinderbox plug-ins require access to pixels that lie off
the edge of the source image. For example, T_Blur needs to
use pixels off the sides when blurring at the edges.
Figure 56 shows black pixels being dragged in from the sides
Figure 56. Look at the border. Here the Edge Method =

Colour.
Figure 57. Edge Methods = Reflect.
which happens if the edge methods are set to “Colour”. By

Source Crops
setting the edge method to “Reflect” you can overcome this

problem, as shown in Figure 60.
In addition, there are controls to crop the image.
Edge Methods The edge methods control the behaviour of the image at the
crop boundaries. This is usually at the edge of the
composition but can be brought into the picture with the
Left, Right, Top and Bottom crop tools. The left and right
edges can have a different edge method from the top and
bottom.
X Method - how to treat the left and right edges.

• Colour - see Figure 58.
• Repeat - repeats the last line of pixels. Figure 59.
Figure 58. Colour. Figure 59. Repeat.
• Reflect - mirrors the image at the crop line. Figure 60

Matte Layer Crops
• Wrap - tiles the image at the crop line. Figure 61.
Figure 60. Reflect. Figure 61. Wrap.
Y Method - how to treat the top and bottom edges.
Edge Colour - the colour used at the crop boundary if the

edge method is set to Colour. In Figure 58 the edge colour is
black.
Edge Colour Alpha - the transparency of this colour is set

using the Edge Colour Alpha.
Left - the left crop position.
Right - the right crop position.
Bottom - the bottom crop position.
Top - the top crop line.
Matte Layer Crops This is only available where there is the option of selecting a
Matte within a Tinderbox plug-in. Matte Crops work in
exactly the same way as Source Crops but apply to the
Matte.

TINDERBOX 1 53
T_Beam
TINDERBOX 1
T_Beam
Introduction T_Beam draws a spotlight in 3D space. The position of the

light source can be animated and the beam can be rotated in
all directions. The beam can either be composited over the
underlying layers, blended with its source image or used to
generate a new image.
Figure 62. St. Paul’s Cathedral. Figure 63. St.Paul’s lit up.
Type Generator.
Controls
About Click the picture to display the on-line help, Tinderbox

version number and lmhostid. See “About...” on page 19.

54 TINDERBOX 1
T_Beam
Show On-Screen Tools - switch this off to remove the yellow

rotation and translation tool.
Figure 64. Position, Rotation and Elevation tool.
Process - sets which channels to process.
Position - the screen position of the light emitting disc.
Rotation - the direction of the beam. With a value of 0 the

beam points right. With a value of 180 the beam points left.
With a value of 270 the beam points away from the camera.
With a value of 90 the beam points towards the camera.
Elevation - the vertical pitch of the beam. With a value of 0

the beam will be horizontal. 90 points down and -90 point
up.
Form This groups the properties of the light beam.
Cone Angle - the spread of light from the emitting

disc. Small values produce narrow focussed beams.

TINDERBOX 1 55
T_Beam
Large values produce wide spread out beams.
Figure 65. Cone Angle = 15. Figure 66. Cone Angle = 50.
Radius - the size of the light emitting disc producing

the beam.
Softness - blurs the edges of the beam. A value of 0

will produced a hard edged cone. The default value of
100 gives a soft edge to the beam.
Figure 67. Softness = 0. Figure 68. Softness = 100.
Fall-off - increasing the fall-off reduces the light

56 TINDERBOX 1
T_Beam
penetration in the direction of the beam.
Figure 69. Fall-off = 50. Figure 70. Fall-off = 90.
Intensity - the brightness of the beam. Large values

produce brighter beams.
Beam Colour - the colour of the centre of the beam.
Corona Colour - the colour of the outer part of the

beam.
Remove Light Emitting Disc - removes the disc of light

used to generate the beam. Removing this is most
noticeable when the beam is pointing directly towards
the camera.
Filtering - the quality of the anti-aliasing used when

processing the effect. Most noticeable when Softness is 0.
See “Filtering” on page 39.
Blending How to mix between the source image and the effect. See
“Blending” on page 41.

TINDERBOX 1 57
T_Blur
T_Blur
Description T_Blur is a time constant, sub-pixel, gaussian blur. T_Blur can

operate on the whole image, individual colour channels or
just the chroma. It can be used to defocus or sharpen an
image. It’s fast even for very large blurs.
Figure 71. Source Image. Figure 72. Blur.
Type Blur.
Controls

Ignore Transparent Pixels - switch this on to remove

unwanted pixels creeping into your image at the edges of the
alpha.
Mode - sets whether to blur or sharpen the image.

58 TINDERBOX 1
T_Blur
• Blur - softens the image.

• Sharpen - emphasizes the edges within the image.
Figure 73. Source Image. Figure 74. Sharpen.
Radius - the strength of the blur. Increase this value to

increase the blur effect.
Aspect - the horizontal and vertical weighting of the effect.

An Aspect of 100 will only blur horizontally.
Figure 75. Aspect = -100. Figure 76. Aspect = 100.
Source Crops Cropping tools and edge methods. See “Source Crops” on
page 50.

TINDERBOX 1 59
T_Blur
Expand Output - grows the size of the layer to prevent

clipping of the effect at the layer boundary. Figure 77 show
Figure 77. Text Layer.
a white text layer smaller than the composition size. When

T_Blur is applied we get the clipped result shown in
Figure 78. Switching on Expand Output gives us Figure 79
without having to pre-compose layers.
Figure 78. Expand Output Off. Figure 79. Expand Output On.
Hints & Tips Sharpening the chroma enhances the chroma in areas of the
image with strong colour variations whilst leaving flat areas
relatively unchanged. This can be useful in sharpening the
edges of the subject before key pulling.
See also Tinderbox 2 T_LensBlur for defocussing with

highlight blooming. Tinderbox 1 T_DirBlur for a directional
blur, Tinderbox 2 T_RadialBlur to smear pixels out from a

60 TINDERBOX 1
T_Blur
centre and Tinderbox 3 T_GradientBlur to soften along

gradient vectors.

TINDERBOX 1 61
T_Caustic
T_Caustic
Description T_Caustic simulates the patterns created when light rays are
reflected or refracted by a curved surface. Caustics can
often be seen at the bottom of a swimming pool in bright
sunlight or on objects viewed underwater.
Figure 80. T_Caustic.
Type Generator.
Controls


62 TINDERBOX 1
T_Caustic
Size - zooms into or away from the caustics.
Figure 81. Size = 15. Figure 82. Size = 50.
Fractals - the detail in the caustic lines.
Focus - alter this to bring the caustic lines into focus.
Figure 83. Focus = 50. Figure 84. Focus = 250.
Seed - this number generates a number sequence that is

used to randomly vary the caustics pattern.
Speed - the rate at which the caustics move.
Samples - increasing this value will increase the quality of

the caustic lines.
Background - the colour of the background.
Foreground - the colour of the caustics.

TINDERBOX 1 63
T_Caustic
Foreground Brightness - the amount of reflected light

emitted from the caustics. The higher this value, the brighter
the caustic lines.
Height Map Rather than generating the caustics from an algorithm, they
can be sourced from an animating height matte. Here’s an
example showing the caustic lines following a matte. It
works better if the height map is animating. In fact unless it
animates the caustics won’t animate. Try pre-composing
Figure 85. Height Map. Figure 86. Caustics.
After Effects’s Fractal Noise (make sure it animates) and use

that as the height map.
Height Map - the image used to create caustics. This

parameter is explained more fully in an example. See
“Example” on page 64.
• None - no height map is used and the caustics are
generated by the algorithm.
• Source - the height map is taken from the current layer
with any effects that may have been applied.
• Height Map - the height map is taken from the image set
in the Height Layer below.
Height Layer - the raw image used as the height map if

Height Map is set to Height Map Luminance/Alpha.

64 TINDERBOX 1
T_Caustic
Softness - the blur applied to the height map.
page 50.
Example Let’s explain the Height Map parameter with an example. In

this composition we have a picture of a koi carp (Figure 87)
that has the effect T_Bars applied (Figure 88).
Figure 87. Koi Carp. Figure 88. T_Bars.
Now add another effect, T_Caustics, and you’ll get the image
shown in Figure 89. Now we’ll specify the Height Map. Set
this to Source Luminance and you’ll get the image shown in
Figure 90. As you can see the Source Luminance is the
source layer (koi carp) with any effects applied (T_Bars). If
you wish to use the raw layer with no effects applied set the
Height Map to Height Layer Luminance and choose the koi
carp from the Height Layer parameter. Do that and you’ll get

TINDERBOX 1 65
T_Caustic
Figure 91.
Figure 89. T_Caustics.
Figure 90. Height Map = Source Figure 91. Height Map = Height
Luminance. Layer Luminance.
Hints & Tips T_Caustic can be used to generate mattes for use with other
plug-ins. Try using a caustics matte with Tinderbox 1
T_Distorto.

66 TINDERBOX 1
T_Deflicker
T_Deflicker
Description T_Deflicker is designed to reduce spatially variable flicker

from a sequence. Most current flicker reduction tools are
global, that is, they try to reduce the same amount of flicker
from the whole of the image. If only parts of an image are
flickering this technique will fail as it will reduce the flicker
from one part but introduce it in another. The difficulty in
automatically correcting for spatial variable flicker is
differentiating between flicker and motion. It is worth
repeating that this plug-in will reduce flicker in most cases,
but it is unlikely to remove all traces of flicker.
In this plug-in we divide the image up into blocks and adjust

the contrast and brightness in these regions to correct
complex localised flicker. We also analyse motion vectors
between the current and reference frames and use a global
luminance change for blocks that have significant motion.
Quick Start The only decision that’s worth making at the start is whether
to deflicker relative to the previous frame of the sequence or
to a specified frame. To decide this you’ll need to look
carefully at the flickering clip. If the flicker is in a part of the
image that is not moving much, then choose Specified as the
Reference method. For example, you may have a locked off
shot with action in the foreground, but the flicker is only in
one of the corners in the static background. For most other
circumstances, choose Previous. For example, if the camera
is panning then everything is moving.
If you have chosen to deflicker to the previous frame render

using the defaults. With this method you may see a drift in

TINDERBOX 1 67
T_Deflicker
the mean luminance value during the render. You can correct
for this by increasing the feedback, however, this will reduce
the amount of flicker removed.
If you have chosen to deflicker to a single frame, switch

Reference to Specified, select a Reference Frame and render.
Tuning If the sequence still flickers there are one or two changes
you can make to try to improve the result. To put this in
context it’s worth explaining a little more about the
algorithm. Our deflicker fits a block based model to the
image. We split the source and reference images into
multiple blocks of size Block Size measured in pixels. We
then try and modify the brightness and contrast (the flicker
parameters) of the source block to make it equal to the
brightness and contrast of the reference block. In practise, if
there is motion in the sequence the pixels in the two blocks
will not be the same which will result in incorrect flicker
parameters. To minimise this effect, when the image is
divided into blocks they are overlapped by a small region. To
this region we apply the flicker parameters calculated for
both adjacent blocks. If the results from these two
calculations are not consistent we assume that the
parameters have been calculated incorrectly due to motion
and we discard them both, replacing them with the global
brightness and contrast parameters for the whole image. The
criterion for discarding parameters is set by Motion
Threshold. So, if you think the flicker is only in parts of the
image that are static, it is quite safe to increase this value.
It’s worth repeating this. Where there is motion, only global

deflickering takes place. You can view areas that are
considered moving by turning on the Motion Matte.

68 TINDERBOX 1
T_Deflicker
Movement is shown in white as shown in Figure 93.
Figure 92. Bus moving left to Figure 93. Motion Matte.

right.
If there is little information in the block, for example in a

plain area (a region of constant colour), it is difficult to
obtain reliable estimates for the local flicker parameters. We
check for this by discarding the parameters for any blocks
with a variance below Variance Thresh. The discarded areas
are shown as non-black channels in the Variance Matte as
shown in Figure 95. For information on what the colours
mean see Variance Matte on page 69. Having obtained a
Figure 94. Bus. Figure 95. Variance Matte.

reliable set of flicker parameters for each block these are

TINDERBOX 1 69
T_Deflicker
then smoothed using a combing technique. The number of

smoothing iterations is set by Smoothness.
Type Tool.
Controls

Output - the image to display.

• Result - the deflickered sequence.
• Variance Matte - renders a picture showing areas that
are discarded due to lack of detail and hence reliable local
deflicker parameters. These areas are colour coded by
red, green and blue channel. A white area will have
unreliable data in all three channels. A yellow area will
have unreliable data in the red and green channel, but the
blue channel will undergo localised deflickering (as long as
the motion matte there is also black). A red area will have
unreliable data in the red channel but the green and blue
channels will be locally deflicker (subject to the motion
matte). See Figure 95 on page 68.
• Motion Matte - renders a picture showing movement.
This can be useful when fine tuning the Motion Thresh.
White areas are considered to be moving and will only
have global deflickering applied. Black areas are
considered static and may have localised deflickering
applied. See Figure 93 on page 68.

70 TINDERBOX 1
T_Deflicker
Mask - a mask can be used to define an area that should be

ignored in the deflicker calculations. White parts of the
matte are used and black areas ignored.
Mask Layer - the image used as a mask.
Reference – the comparison frame to deflicker against.

• Previous - removes flicker from the current frame by
comparing it with the previous frame’s deflickered output.
Note, this won’t work for distributed renders as it relies
on the previous frame result being in memory.
• Specified - removes flicker from the current frame by
comparing it with a specified frame.
Reference Frame - the frame used as a comparison if

Reference is set to Specified.
Tuning Parameters If the deflicker fails on the default parameter values you can
adjust some of these parameters.
Block Size – the size of the blocks in pixels that are

analysed for flicker. Smaller blocks will allow more
complex flicker to be modelled but will produce less
accurate and robust results and will take longer to
render.
Feedback – when the reference method is set to

previous, feedback trades off the colour drift against
the amount of flicker removed. You should try and
keep this value as low as possible to remove as much
flicker as possible. If you’re getting colour drift,
increase this parameter although doing this will
remove less flicker. If the reference method is

TINDERBOX 1 71
T_Deflicker
Specified, this parameter has no effect.
Variance Threshold – the threshold value for plain

areas above which blocks are discarded due to the lack
of reliable flicker data. If your results are poor, it’s
worth decreasing this value.
Motion Threshold – the threshold value below which

localised deflicker is abandoned in favour of a global
deflicker because of motion in the frame. The
algorithm has difficulty distinguishing between luma
flicker on an area of the image that has no movement
and on areas that have movement but no flicker. This
threshold determines at what point we force the
deflicker to be global because there’s too much
movement.
Setting the Motion Threshold to 0 will turn off

localised deflicker for all moving objects and apply
global luminance changes to reduce the flicker.
If you’re getting errors (colour changes) around areas

that are moving then you should lower the Motion
Threshold. If parts of the frame that are static are not
being deflickered then you should increase the Motion
Threshold.
Smoothness – the number of times the flicker

parameters are smoothed between blocks.

72 TINDERBOX 1
T_Deflicker
page 50.
Mask Layer Crops Cropping tools and edge methods.
Hints & Tips It’s worth bearing in mind that T_Deflicker is unlikely to
remove all traces of flicker, but it should be able to reduce
the flicker on most shots.
Tinderbox 4 T_Colourist can also be used to deflicker

sequences. It can’t deal with localised flicker though.

TINDERBOX 1 73
T_Degrain
T_Degrain
Description This plug-in is used to remove grain from an image. The aim
is to remove as much grain as possible whilst doing as little
damage to the image as possible. It uses spatial filtering to
Figure 96. Test Image showing close-up of the Grain

Structure.
average pixels within the same frame. This can lead to the
blurring of the image and so, to keep this to a minimum, a
wavelet based technique is used that decomposes the image
into a number of different frequencies and scales before
attempting to remove the grain.
It does not use any temporal information to reduce grain.
Type Tool.

74 TINDERBOX 1
T_Degrain
Quick Start Position the sample region over a plain area of the image as
shown in Figure 98.
Figure 97. Bad Sample Region. Figure 98. Good Sample Region.
Warning! It is very important to position the selection box over a region with
little image detail. Failure to do this will give poor results as the
algorithm will think the image detail is grain and remove it.
Warning! Do not use T_Degrain in proxy (Half, Third, Quarter) mode. You
should always set the resolution to Full when using this plug-in.
If either not enough grain has been removed or the picture

has been soften by removing too much grain it will be
necessary to tune the parameters. Increasing Tune will
remove more grain, reducing it will remove less. You may find
it useful to view the grain using the Output parameter. This
will display the grain that is being subtracted from the
image. It is scaled by Exaggerate Grain to make it more
obvious. Only grain should be visible in this image. If you can
see a lot of picture detail it means the degrainer is working
too hard and removing too much image which will lead to a
soft result.

TINDERBOX 1 75
T_Degrain
Controls

Show On-Screen Tools - switch this off to remove the yellow

rectangle defining the Sample Region.
Output - sets what to display.

• Preview - degrains just the region inside the sample box.
This is quicker than degraining the whole image and
should be used when tuning the grain. Do remember to
switch it back to Result before you render a sequence.
• Result - shows the degrained image.
• Grain - shows the grain that is being removed. It is
multiplied by the Exaggerate Grain value to make it more
visible.
Exaggerate Grain - scales the grain before it is displayed by

Output - Grain. This is just to make any artifacts more
visible.
Analysis Frame - the frame analysed for grain.
Sample Position - the position of the rectangle used to

define the area sampled for grain.
Sample Width - the width of the rectangular sample region.
Sample Height - the height of the rectangular sample region.
Tune - the amount of grain removed or retained. Increasing

this parameter will remove more grain and decreasing it will

76 TINDERBOX 1
T_Degrain
leave more in.
page 50.
Hints & Tips See also Tinderbox 2 T_Grain to add grain to images.

TINDERBOX 1 77
T_Diffuse
T_Diffuse
Description T_Diffuse randomly scatters pixels around in an image. It

gives a frosted glass look.
Figure 99. Source Image. Figure 100. T_Diffuse.
Type Effect. It has an optional matte layer that attenuates the

pixel scattering.
Controls


alpha.
Radius - the amount of scattering. The higher the value, the

further the pixels will scatter.

78 TINDERBOX 1
T_Diffuse
Freeze Diffusion - switch this on to keep the same diffusion

pattern from frame to frame. This gives you a frosted glass
look.
Matte - the image and channels used to control the

attenuation of scattering.
Matte Layer - the layer used if Matte is set to Matte Layer

Luminance/Alpha.
page 50.
Matte Layer Crops Cropping tools and edge methods.

clipping of the effect at the layer boundary.
Hints & Tips Freeze the diffusion to give the effect of viewing through
frosted glass.

TINDERBOX 1 79
T_DirBlur
T_DirBlur
Description T_DirBlur smears an image in a given direction.
Figure 101. Source Image. Figure 102. T_DirBlur.
Type Blur. It has an optional second input which can be used as a

matte to attenuate the blurring.
Controls


alpha.
Mode

80 TINDERBOX 1
T_DirBlur
• Directional Blur - in this mode the direction of the blur is

explicitly set by the Rotation angle of the Directional Blur
properties.
• Track Blur - in this mode the direction of the blur is taken
from the Position data of the Track Blur properties. This
mode is useful if you wish to track the movement of an
object and use that motion vector to set the direction and
strength of the directional blur.
Directional Blur These settings are used when Mode is set to Directional
Blur.
Rotation - sets the direction of the blur calibrated in

degrees.
Length - controls the amount of blur applied.
Bias - weights the smearing forward or backward

along the blur vector. Using the bias you can get the
blur to trail behind a moving object rather than being
centered on it.
Track Blur These settings are used when Track Blur mode is selected.
This method sets the amount and direction of blurring from a
cursor position animating in time and space. Only if the
Position value is animating will blur be visible.
Set up the track data as follows:

1. Activate the stopwatch for Position.
2. Move the timeslider to the start of the clip.

TINDERBOX 1 81
T_DirBlur
3. Select Position and move the cross hairs to a point in the

image. You may want to follow an object, for example.
4. Move the timeslider and position the cross hairs again.
5. Repeat this to the end of the clip.
The position of the track will interpolate across the

clip following the motion of the object and the
directional blur will be applied in the direction of the
motion. You should note that to see any blurring in
Track Mode, the track points position has to be
animated and moving.
Position - the position of the track point on the

screen.
Scale - the amount of blur applied.
Bias - weights the smearing forward or backward

along the blur vector. Using the bias you can get the
blur to trail behind a moving object rather than being
centered on it.
Blur Profile - defines the weighting of the pixels that are

blended together in each blur line.
• Box - weighs each pixel equally. Faster than Gaussian.
• Gaussian - weighs each pixel using a gaussian
distribution. Pixels at the end of the line have less effect
than pixels in the middle of the line. Slower than Box.
Filtering - switching this on improves the quality of the

effect, but will slow down the rendering time. See “Filtering”
on page 39.
Dither - switch this on to add noise to reduce colour

82 TINDERBOX 1
T_DirBlur
banding.
Matte - the image and channels used to control the blurring.

Luminance/Alpha.
page 50.

Hints & Tips T_DirBlur can be used to simulate motion blur on a moving
object. If you have the Adobe After Effects Production
Bundle, you can use the Motion Tracker to track a point on
the image and apply it to the T_DirBlur Position.

TINDERBOX 1 83
T_Distorto
T_Distorto
Description T_Distorto distorts an image using a matte. The amount of

distortion corresponds to the brightness of the matte, and
the distortion takes the form of a scale, translation or
rotation of the image. Where the matte is black there is no
distortion. Where the matte is white the full distortion is
applied. A matte with smooth changes in luminance will
gently ramp in the distortion to give fluid like effects.
Figure 103. Source Image. Figure 104. T_Distorto.
Type Warper.
Controls



84 TINDERBOX 1
T_Distorto
alpha.
Distortion Source Sets which image to use as the distortion matte and controls
its position. The behaviour at the edges of the image is
controlled by the Matte Crops.

distortion.
Matte Layer - the layer used if Matte is set to Matte

Layer Luminance/Alpha.
Position - the centre of the matte.
Rotation - the rotation of the matte.
Scale - the size of the matte.
X Scale - the horizontal size.
Y Scale - the vertical size.
Softness - blurs the matte before applying the distortion.

Use this to gradually ramp in the distortion.
Strength - the amount of distortion applied based on the

settings under Deformation Controls.
Deformation Controls Sets the type of distortion applied to the image.

TINDERBOX 1 85
T_Distorto
Position - the deformation offset.
Rotation - the deformation rotation.
Scale - the overall deformation scale.
X Scale - the deformation scale horizontally.
Y Scale - the deformation scale vertically.
Source Controls the position of the source image. The behaviour at

the edges of the image is controlled by the Source Crops.
Position - the centre of the source image.
Rotation - the rotation of the source image.
Scale - the overall scale factor.
X Scale - the horizontal scale.
Y Scale - the vertical scale.
Display
• Source - shows the transformations of the source image.
• Distortion Source - shows the transformations of the
distorting source (matte).
• Result - shows the result of the deformations.

processing the effect. (See “Filtering” on page 39.)
Filter Sharpness - sharpens the image when Filtering is set

86 TINDERBOX 1
T_Distorto
to High. (See “Filtering” on page 39.)
page 50.
Hints & Tips T_Distorto is used extensively in post production to fake and
control reflections in curved surfaces. Computer generated
3D objects need to interact with their surroundings to give
the impression the scene has been filmed and not created
from separate elements. T_Distorto enables compositors to
control reflections at the compositing stage rather than
taking the video footage and using it as environment maps in
3D.
Figure 105. Still. Figure 106. T_Distorto.

TINDERBOX 1 87
T_Droplet
T_Droplet
Description T_Droplet is a distorting plug-in that creates a ring of waves

simulating the effect of a droplet of water splashing into a
fluid.
Figure 107. Source Image. Figure 108. Droplet.
Type Warper. 3D.
Controls


alpha.
Position - the centre of the circular waves.

88 TINDERBOX 1
T_Droplet
Radius - the distance of the rings from the centre position.
Amount - the strength of the distortion.
Wavelength - the distance between the peaks of each wave

that are inside the ring.
Number of Waves - sets the number of waves which make up

the ring.

See “Aspect” on page 23. This will squeeze the rings into an
ellipse.
Rotation - the rotation on the droplet rings. Rotation is only

visible if the Aspect is not set to 0.
Mode - how to distort the image.

• Squeeze - distorts by squeezing pixels in and out of the
centre.
• Shift - distorts by pushing the pixels in a direction.
• Zigzag - distorts by pushing the pixels around the ring.
Shift Angle - the direction to shift the pixels in. Shift Angle is
used in combination with the Shift mode.
Light See “Light” on page 28.
Type
switched off.
• Infinite - simulates the parallel rays from a distant
light source, like the sun.

TINDERBOX 1 89
T_Droplet
• Host - uses the After Effects light. If more than one

light is in the composition, the top layer light is
used.
Direction - the direction of the light source.
Elevation - the height of the light source above the

image plane.
Specular Lighting See “Specular Lighting” on page 34.
Colour - the light colour.
Strength - the brightness of the light source.
Fall-off - controls how quickly the light fades away

with distance from the light source.


Matte - the image and channels used to control the Amount

so that the distortions can be attenuated. (See “Matte” on
page 47.)

Luminance/Alpha.

90 TINDERBOX 1
T_Droplet
page 50.
Hints & Tips See also Tinderbox 1 T_Lens and Tinderbox 2 T_Ripple.

TINDERBOX 1 91
T_Etch
T_Etch
Description T_Etch simulates a hand drawn picture using charcoal. Lines

are drawn along edges and cross hatching is used to fill in
regions.
Figure 109. Source Image. Figure 110. T_Etch.
Type Effect.
Controls

Process - sets which channels to process. Choose RGBA to

draw the lines over an underlying layer.
Etch Method
• Outline and Shade - applies both the Outline and Shading
parameters to give the complete effect.

92 TINDERBOX 1
T_Etch
• Outline - only applies the Outline parameters. The result

is of a sketched outline of the objects within the image.
• Shade - only applies the Shading parameters. The result is
of a charcoal drawing without heavily defined object
edges.
Outlines Controls for drawing along edges.
Edge Threshold - determines what is an edge and

therefore whether a line is drawn. If this value is high,
areas of the image with little contrast will be
considered to be an edge, therefore will be outlined. If
this value is low, only areas of the image with high
contrast will be outlined.
Pen Pressure - controls the pressure at which the

strokes are applied. The lower the value the lighter the
lines. The higher the value, the darker the lines. This
does not change the width of the lines.
Softness - controls the softness of the lines. When set

high, this gives the impression that a fat charcoal stick
was used and less lines will be shown. When set low,
this gives the impression that a thin charcoal stick was
used and more detail will be shown.
Stroke Length - sets the length of the straight lines

that form the outlines.
Stroke Separation - controls the gap between the lines

drawn. The lower this value, the more lines will be
drawn, resulting in a stronger outline of objects.

TINDERBOX 1 93
T_Etch
Shading Controls for filling in between the edges.
Edge Threshold - determines what is an edge and

therefore whether a line is drawn. If this value is high,
more of the image is considered to be an edge,
therefore less of the image is shaded. If this value is
low, less of the image is considered an edge, therefore
more of the image is shaded.
Pen Pressure - controls the pressure at which the

strokes are applied. The lower the value the lighter the
lines. The higher the value, the darker the lines. This
does not change the width of the lines.
Softness - controls the softness of the lines. When set

high, this gives the impression that a fat charcoal stick
was used and less areas of the image will be shaded.
When set low, this gives the impression that a thin
charcoal stick was used and more areas of the image
will be shaded.
Stroke Length - sets the length of the lines that form

the cross hatched shading pattern.
Stroke Separation - controls the gap between the

shading lines. The lower this value, the more lines will
be drawn, resulting in denser shading.
Seed - random number generator that sets the shading

pattern.
Random Seed Method - determines how the seed number

varies.
• Seed with Frame - the pattern changes with each frame.

94 TINDERBOX 1
T_Etch
• Fixed Seed - the pattern does not change.

• Seed with Pixel - the pattern changes according to
varying pixel values.
Blank Threshold - determines whether shading is applied in

areas of little variation.
Note The amount of the image which is considered to have little
variation is affected by the Edge Threshold controls in Outlines
and Shading.
Paper - sets the background colour.
Pen - the colour of the lines and shading.
Pen Alpha - the transparency of the lines drawn by the pen.

Note The Pen Alpha will only take effect if Process is set to RGBA.
page 50.

TINDERBOX 1 95
T_Etch
Hints & Tips A variety of effects can be created by using T_Etch with
different blending methods.
Figure 111. Source Image. Figure 112. T_Etch with Blending

Method Add.
Figure 113. Nelson’s Column. Figure 114. T_Etch with Blending

Method Colour.
T_Etch can be used to accentuate the edges of objects within

an image. Use T_Etch in Outline mode with a Fixed Seed and
set Blending Method to Multiply.

96 TINDERBOX 1
T_Grad
T_Grad
Description T_Grad creates colour gradients. Gradients are often used as

mattes to control other effects. The result of T_Grad can
either be composited over the underlying layers, blended
with its source image or used to generate a new image or
matte.
Figure 115. Directional T_Grad. Figure 116. Circular T_Grad.
Type Generator.
Controls

Show On-Screen Tools - switch this on to draw the overlay

tools that control the position and rotation.
Process - sets which channels to process. Selecting Yes will

TINDERBOX 1 97
T_Grad
produce an alpha based on the alpha values set under

Gradient. The resulting image will be composited over the
underlying layers.
Gradient Type - sets the gradient pattern.
Figure 117. Directional. Figure 118. Circular.
Figure 119. Polygonal. Figure 120. Radial.
• Directional - Figure 117.

• Circular - Figure 118.
• Radial - Figure 120.
• Polygonal - Figure 119
Grad - See “Gradient” on page 27.
Grad Cyclic - repeats the colour gradient by the number

defined by Copies. In this case the two end colours will be
forced to be the same. Changing one will change the other.

98 TINDERBOX 1
T_Grad
Switching this on when there are no intermediary colours set

in the colour ramp will result in a single colour image.
Grad Smooth - use cubic interpolation between adjacent

colours to produce a smoother ramp. When it is switched off
a linear interpolation is used, which can give hard edges
between colours.
Phase - offsets the position of the colour ramp in the effect.

Phase only has an effect when in Grad Cyclic mode.
Copies - the number of times to repeat the colour ramp in

the effect. If you are repeating the colour ramp in an effect
when Grad Cyclic is switched off, you will get a harsh colour
transition between the cycles.
Figure 121. Copies = 1. Figure 122. Copies = 2.
Dithered - adds noise to the gradient to reduce the effect of

colour banding between smoothly shaded colours. Only
required for 8bpc projects.
Start - one end of the Directional gradient.
Stop - the other end of the Directional gradient.
Radius - the size of the circular gradient when mode is set to

Circular or Polygonal.

TINDERBOX 1 99
T_Grad

(See “Type” on page 22.)
Number of Sides - the number of sides (max 12) of the

polygon when in Polygon mode.
Rotation - controls the rotation of the gradient. Rotation

only works when in Circular, Radial or Polygonal mode. When
in Circular mode, Rotation will only have an effect if the
Aspect is not set to 0.
page 50.
Hints & Tips T_Grad can be used to create mattes which can then be used
to control other effects such as colour correction or blurs.
Figure 123. Circular Matte. Figure 124. Used with T_DirBlur.

100 TINDERBOX 1
T_HeatHaze
T_HeatHaze
Description T_HeatHaze simulates the distortion of an image that is

characteristic of viewing it through hot air.
Figure 125. Heat Haze - although hard to see on a static

image.
Type Effect. It has an optional second input which can be used as

a matte to attenuate the Displacement.
Controls


alpha.

TINDERBOX 1 101
T_HeatHaze
Displacement - the amount of image warping.
Speed - how fast to move the haze in the direction of travel.
Franticness - how fast the haze will boil. The higher this
value is set, the hotter it will appear.
Wavelength - the distance between wave peaks. The higher

this value is set, the smoother the distortion.
Layers - the number of layers of heat haze which are blended

together.
Wave Count - the number of waves used over the entire

image.
Direction - the direction the heat haze will appear to travel.

(See “Type” on page 22.)

attenuation of the Displacement parameter.

Luminance/Alpha.
Distort Matte - switch this on to apply the effect to the

matte before using it.



102 TINDERBOX 1
T_HeatHaze
page 50.

Hints & Tips Heat haze is usually visible in the distance and not on
objects in the foreground. To simulate realistic heat haze,
create a matte of any foreground objects and use this to
only apply the effect to the background.

TINDERBOX 1 103
T_Lens
T_Lens
Description T_Lens is a distorting plug-in that creates a fish-eye lens

effect. The bulge can be applied into or out of the image
using the Lens parameter.
Figure 126. Source Image. Figure 127. T_Lens.
Type Warper. 3D.
Controls


alpha.

104 TINDERBOX 1
T_Lens
Position - the position of the lens centre.
Radius - the width of the lens used to create the effect.
Lens - the strength of the effect. Large values bend the

image more. Negative values squeeze the image instead of
expanding it.
Figure 128. Lens = 80. Figure 129. Lens = -40.

See “Aspect” on page 23..
Rotation - the rotation of the effect. Rotation is only visible

if the Aspect is not set to 0.
Light See “Light” on page 28.
Type
switched off.

TINDERBOX 1 105
T_Lens
• Infinite - simulates the parallel rays from a distant

light source, like the sun.
• Host - uses the After Effects light. If more than one
light is in the composition, the top layer light is
used.
Direction - the direction of the light source.
Elevation - the height of the light source above the

image plane.
Specular Lighting See “Specular Lighting” on page 34.
Colour - the light colour.
Strength - the brightness of the light source.
Fall-off - controls how quickly the light fades away

with distance from the light source.

processing the effect. See “Filtering” on page 39.

to High.

attenuation of the Lens parameter.

Luminance/Alpha.

106 TINDERBOX 1
T_Lens
page 50.
Hint & Tips See also Tinderbox 1 T_Droplet and Tinderbox 2 T_Ripple.

TINDERBOX 1 107
T_Pattern
T_Pattern
Description T_Pattern generates various patterns to wipe between the

source image and the underlying layer.
Figure 130. Venetian Grid. Figure 131. Venetian Fan.
Type Effect and Generator. T_Pattern is a single input plug-in

although the result interacts with the underlying layers. It
can also be used to generate mattes.
Controls

Type
• Generator - renders a black and white matte.

108 TINDERBOX 1
T_Pattern
• Wipe - transition between source and underlying layers.
Figure 132. Generator. Figure 133. Wipe.
Mode - controls which pattern is used.

• Simple Wipe - simple horizontal or vertical soft edged
wipes (or any angle).
• Stripe Top to Bottom.
• Stripe Left to Right - these patterns paint a sequence of
stripes across the image.
• Venetian Top to Bottom - Figure 134.
• Venetian Left to Right.
• Snake Top to Bottom.
• Snake Left to Right - like Stripe, but alternating the
direction of the stripe on each pass.
• Clock - a clock wipe.
• Venetian Circle - Figure 135.
• Venetian Square.
• Venetian Fan - Figure 131.

TINDERBOX 1 109
T_Pattern
• Venetian Grid - Figure 130.
Figure 134. Venetian Top to Figure 135. Venetian Circle.

Bottom.
Wipe - controls the percentage of the wipe between the

source image and its underlying layers.
Rotation - rotates the pattern.
Number of Passes - for all patterns which are made up of

bands, this controls the number of bands used.
Softness - softens the edge of the wipe.
Uniformity - for Venetian wipes, this will control whether the

bands scale uniformly or not. At 100%, the scaling is
uniform. At 50%, the bands on one edge of the effect will
scale earlier, giving a “trickle venetian” effect.
Scaling sets the scaling controls.
Scale - scales the wipe effect when autoscale is off.
X Scale - scales the source image horizontally.
Y Scale - scales the source image vertically.

110 TINDERBOX 1
T_Pattern
Autoscale - when this is on, the effect is scaled during

rotation so that it still covers the full screen
dimensions, When this is off, the scale of the wipe is
controlled by the user.
page 50.
Hints & Tips See also Tinderbox 4 T_InfiniteZoom for an interesting

transition effect.

TINDERBOX 1 111
T_Rays
T_Rays
Description T_Rays creates a backlit ray effect. The rays are sourced
from selected areas of the image’s luminance, or a matte.
The colour of the rays can come from the source image or a
fixed colour. Figure 137 shows Tinderbox Rays applied to a
Figure 136. Source Image. Figure 137. Rays.
picture of the London Eye on the south bank of the river

Thames.

a matte defining the source of the rays.
Controls


112 TINDERBOX 1
T_Rays

alpha.
Source Position - where the rays come from.
Colour Method - determines the ray colour.

• Source - takes the colours of the rays from the source
image.
• Colouring - takes the colours of the rays from user
selected colours.
Figure 138. Source. Figure 139. Colouring.
Gain - the brightness of the rays. Increase this for brighter

rays.
Figure 140. Gain = 75. Figure 141. Gain = 125.
Ray Length - the length of the rays. Increase this for longer
rays.

TINDERBOX 1 113
T_Rays
Colours This controls the colours of the rays if Colour Method is set
to Colouring.
Highlight - the colour of the brightest part of the rays.
Number of Colours - the number of colours used to

colour the rays when Colour Method is set to
Colouring.
Colour 1
Colour 2
Colour 3
Colour 4
Colour 5
Scintillation Controls the flickering or shimmering of the rays. This

movement can be controlled in three ways.
1. Set the Scintillation Speed to give a random breakup in the
rays.
2. Animate the Phase to rotate the shimmer around the Source
Position.
3. Animate the Source Position and switch on Change with
Position. This moves the shimmer with the ray source. The
Speed setting controls the rate of movement of the shimmer
pattern in relation to the source position.

114 TINDERBOX 1
T_Rays
Scintillation - switches the effect on and off.
Figure 142. Scintillation off. Figure 143. Scintillation on.
Scintillation Amount - the strength of flicker.
Scintillation Speed - the rate of flicker.
Scintillation Detail - the number of lines that form the

flicker.
Figure 144. Detail = 0. Figure 145. Detail = 200.
Phase - animating the phase will rotate the shimmer

around the source position.
Change with Position - switch this on to control the

flicker as a function of the Source Position. You’ll need
to animate the Source Position.
Speed - controls the rate of shimmer if animating

using the Change with Position.

TINDERBOX 1 115
T_Rays
By default the rays are sourced from the luminance of the

source image, but you can specify another layer instead
using these matte controls. When making adjustments to
these controls it is useful to turn on Show Matte. Rays will
emanate from white areas of the matte.
Matte - the image and channels used to control the source

of the rays.

Luminance/Alpha.
Matte Clip Min - pixels at or below this luminance value are

set to be black
Matte Clip Max - pixels at or above this luminance value are

set to be white
Show Matte - switch this on to display the source of the

rays. You should look at this when setting up the effect so
that you can see clearly where the rays will come from. You
need to switch Blending to None to see the matte properly.
Figure 146. Add. Figure 147. Composite Effect.

116 TINDERBOX 1
T_Rays
page 50.

clipping of the effect at the layer boundary. See “Hints &
Tips” on page 117.

TINDERBOX 1 117
T_Rays
Hints & Tips T_Rays is often used on text layers that may have a different
size to that of the composition. Figure 148 shows just such
Figure 148. With Clipping. Figure 149. Without Clipping.
clipping of the rays when applied to the text “Expand

Output”. There are several ways round this, using an
Adjustment Layer or pre-composing the text, but by far the
quickest way is to switch on Expand Output in the plug-in as
shown in Figure 149.

118 TINDERBOX 1
T_Sky
T_Sky
Description T_Sky generates realistic evolving sky backgrounds. This

plug-in has a great number of parameters which can give a
wide variety of results.
Figure 150. Preset - Moon. Figure 151. Preset - Cirrus.
Figure 152. Preset - Sunny. Figure 153. Preset - First Light.
Type Generator. 3D.

TINDERBOX 1 119
T_Sky
Controls

Process - sets which channels to process. Selecting Yes will

produce a straight (not pre multiplied) RGBA image which will
be composited over the underlying layers.
Note There is no user control over the alpha produced.
Presets - this provides some suggested values for different

effects. These can be used as a starting point when using
T_Sky.
Red Shift - the amount of red light in the atmosphere. This is

useful for sky simulations at dawn or sunset.
Camera Two camera models are provided. One is using the After
Effects camera, the other a built in camera.
Host Camera - switch this on to use the After Effects

camera. You’ll need to add one into your composition.
Angle of View - the field of view of the camera. This

affects how much of the sky is visible through the
camera.
X Rotation - rotation of the built-in camera around

the x axis.
Y Rotation - rotation of the built-in camera around the

y axis.

120 TINDERBOX 1
T_Sky
Z Rotation - rotation of the built-in camera around the

z axis.
Exposure - the amount of ambient light entering the

camera.
Noise - the amount of noise added to the image.
Sun There are three components of the sun. The sun itself, the
bright glow around the sun (corona) and the radial light
streaks that simulate the internal reflections and refractions
of bright light within the camera lens (lens flares).
Colour - the colour of the sun.
Brightness - the intensity of the light emitted from the

sun.
Direction - the location of the sun in the sky.

Note If the Sun Direction and the Camera Direction are the same, the
sun will appear in the centre of the screen (horizontally).
Elevation - the height of the sun in the sky.
Fall-off - the extent to which the brightness of the sun

TINDERBOX 1 121
T_Sky
fades away with distance.
Figure 154. Fall-off = 200. Figure 155. Fall-off = 2000.
Corona Brightness - the intensity of the light glow

around the sun.
Figure 156. Corona Brightness = Figure 157. Corona Brightness =

0. 500.
Corona Fall-off - the extent to which the brightness of

the corona light fades away with distance.
Corona Haze - switch this on to enable the corona

glow to illuminate the haze in the atmosphere. This will
result in the corona lighting the foreground objects
rather than being in the background.
Flare
The light flares.

122 TINDERBOX 1
T_Sky
Spokes - the number of flares around the sun.
Brightness - the intensity of the light flares.
Fall-off - the extent to which the brightness of the

flares fade away with distance.
Rotation - the rotation of the flares around the sun.
Sharpness - the spikiness of the flares. A value of 2
Figure 158. Sharpness = 0.2. Figure 159. Sharpness = 2.
will give sharp spikes.
Clouds Controls for the clouds.
Size - the size of the clouds.
Count - the number of clouds in each tile.

Note The size of each tile is set under Tile Scale.
Edge Detail - the complexity of the cloud edges.
Colour - the colour of the clouds.
Brightness - the luminance of the clouds.

TINDERBOX 1 123
T_Sky
Sharpness - the cloud definition.
Density - the thickness of the clouds. A value of zero

removes all clouds.
Direction - the direction of the cloud drift.
Speed - how fast the clouds move.
Speed Variance - the variation in speed of different

clouds.
Bump Scale - the apparent depth of the clouds.

Increase this for cumulus clouds.
Bump Soft - the cloud softness which affects the

reflected light.
Light Edges - switch this on for under cloud lighting.
Height - the height of the clouds.
Under Lighting - the amount of light reflected from the

underside of the clouds.
Tile Scale - the size of each tile repeated across the

sky.
Streaky - switch this on to generate cirrus clouds.
Seed - this number generates a number sequence that

is used to randomly vary the cloud pattern.

124 TINDERBOX 1
T_Sky
Atmosphere The sky or atmosphere is actually a rendered dome with the

camera at the centre. You may find it helpful to think of this
model when you are altering parameters.
Brightness - controls the amount of light in the

atmosphere.
Zenith Colour - the colour of the sky when you look

directly upwards.
Horizon Colour - the colour of the sky at the horizon.
Fog Fog parameters
Brightness - the brightness of the fog layer.
Distance - the distance between the fog layer and

camera.
Fall-off - the extent to which the brightness of the fog

falls away with distance. The higher this value, the
shorter the distance the fog brightness will penetrate.
Source - the colour of the fog.

• Colour - the colour of the fog is taken from the
Colour box.
• Horizon Colour - the colour of the fog is taken from
the Atmosphere - Horizon Colour.
Colour - the colour of the fog when Source is set to

Colour.

TINDERBOX 1 125
T_Sky
Hints & Tips As well as using T_Sky to create complete new skies, it can
be used to add detail and contrast to an existing sky.

126 TINDERBOX 1
T_Starburst
T_Starburst
Description T_Starburst adds sparkles to the highlights of your image.
Figure 160. Source Image. Figure 161. T_Starburst.
There is also a mode to add random sparkles regardless of

the highlights in the image.
Type Effect.
Controls


alpha.
Presets - activates a number of popular starburst effects.

TINDERBOX 1 127
T_Starburst
Mode - determines where the sparkles are positioned.

• Starburst - adds sparkles to highlights.
• Sparkles - adds randomly positioned sparkles.
Radius - defines the length of the spokes of the sparkles.
Threshold - defines which areas of the source are considered

to be highlights. Increasing this value will restrict the
sparkles only to the very brightest highlights.
Gain - the brightness of the highlights.
Rotation - the angle of the highlight spokes.
Spoke Count - the number of spokes per sparkle. Lots of

spokes and a gap gives a haloed glow effect as shown in
Figure 163.
Figure 162. Source Image. Figure 163. T_Starburst.
Gap - the distance between the centre of the starburst and

the point at which rays are drawn. Increase this to get a gap
around the sparkle centre. See Figure 163.
Chromatic Aberration - the defects in the lens surface that

cause the image to display colour fringing.

128 TINDERBOX 1
T_Starburst
Keep Spoke Brightness - switch this on to preserve the

luminance of the spokes.
Sparkles Controls the random sparkles if mode is set to Sparkle.
Figure 164. Random Sparkles with a Matte.
Sparkles are added to the image in random positions rather

than on highlights.
Density - the number of sparkles. Increase this to pack

more sparkles into your image.
Average Sparkle Size - the size of the sparkle core.

The actual size varies.
Brightness Variation - how much the brightness of the

sparkles varies.
Sparkliness - the rate of flicker. To stop the flickering

set this to zero.

TINDERBOX 1 129
T_Starburst
Movement Speed - the rate at which the sparkles

move. Set this to zero to get the sparkles to flicker in
the same position, like fairy lights on a Christmas tree.
Coloured Sparkles - switch this on for coloured

sparkles.
Seed - this number generates a number sequence that

is used to randomly vary the sparkles.
Matte - the image and channels used to control the gain on

the sparkles.

Luminance/Alpha.
page 50.

Hints & Tips T_Starburst can be used to add subtle highlights to moving
water. Keep the Radius small and the Threshold high for a
subtle effect.

130 TINDERBOX 1
T_Starburst
T_Starburst can give some great effects when applied to car

headlights on night footage.
Figure 165. Car Headlights at Figure 166. Lights Enhanced with

Night. T_Starburst.

TINDERBOX 1 131
T_Tile
T_Tile
Description T_Tile translates, rotates, scales and shears the source

image. The edge controls can then be used to repeat the
pattern to form regular tiles as shown in Figure 168.
Figure 167. Source Image. Figure 168. Tile.

a matte to attenuate the distortions.
Controls


alpha.
Tile - switch this on to tile the image.

132 TINDERBOX 1
T_Tile
Position - the centre position of the tile.
Rotation - the rotation of the image tile.
Scale - the overall size.
X Scale - the horizontal size of the tile.
Y Scale - the vertical size of the tile.
X Shear - the amount of horizontal shear.
Y Shear - the amount of vertical shear.
Figure 169. X Shear = 25. Figure 170. Y Shear = 25.



attenuation of the effect. See Figure 171 on page 133.

TINDERBOX 1 133
T_Tile
Luminance/Alpha.
Figure 171. Matte. Figure 172. Attenuating Scale.
Figure 173. Blending = Mix. Figure 174. Blending =

Difference.
Source Crops Cropping tools and edge methods.
Figure 175. Reflect. Figure 176. Wrap.

134 TINDERBOX 1
T_Tile
See “Source Crops” on page 50.
Matte Layer Crops - controls the behaviour of the edges of

the matte image.
Hints & Tips You can use the Source Crops to produce an interesting
reveal for objects. Set the Edge Method to Repeat and
animate the crops.
Figure 177. Crop and Repeat. Figure 178. Crop and Repeat.

APPENDIX A 135
Release Notes
APPENDIX A
Release Notes This section describes the requirements, new features,

improvements, fixed bugs and known bugs & workarounds
for each release of Tinderbox.
Tinderbox 1 (2.1v8) This is a maintenance release to fix a couple of bugs.
Release Date
November 2008
Requirements
After Effects CS4 for Windows XP and Mac OS X.
New Features
There are no new features.
Improvements
There are no improvements to existing features.
Fixed Bugs
1. Camera - BUG ID 6559 - Slaving the built-in camera to the
After Effects camera failed to work. This has been fixed in
2.1v8.
2. BUG ID 6628 - On-screen tools were not working properly. This
has been fixed in 2.1v8.
Known Bugs & Workarounds

There are no known bugs.

136 APPENDIX A
Release Notes
Tinderbox 1 (2.1v7) This is a maintenance release to support After Effects CS4.
Release Date
October 2008
Requirements
New Features
Improvements
Fixed Bugs
1. T_Degrain - BUG ID 6236 - although this plug-in worked in CS3
it crashed in CS4. This has been fixed.

Tinderbox 1 (2.1v6) This is a maintenance release with new tinderbox logo

artwork for a CD reprint. No code has changed.
Release Date
17 November 2007
Requirements

APPENDIX A 137
Release Notes
New Features
Improvements
Fixed Bugs
There are no fixed bugs.

Tinderbox 1 (2.1v4) This is a maintenance release to enable Tinderbox 1 to work

with After Effects CS3.
Release Date
27 July 2007.
Requirements
New Features
This is a universal binary release.
Improvements
Fixed Bugs
1. T_Sky - BUG ID 301 - various RGB and RGBA processing issues
fixed in this release.

138 APPENDIX A
Release Notes
2. T_Distorto - BUG ID 2045 - failed to render correctly in proxy

mode. Images were offset. This has been fixed.
3. Composition window Snapshot button on OSX - BugID 231.
When an effect is applied to the current comp, hitting the
snapshot button and attempting to show it again caused a
momentary flash of the snapshotted image, then flicked back to
the current result. This has been fixed.
4. Gradient colour picker on Windows XP only. BugID 662. When
selecting a colour using the Adobe colour picker instantiated
from a colour grad the colour picker will not close when 'Ok' is
depressed. This is fixed.

Tinderbox 1 (2.1v2) This is a Windows only maintenance release of Tinderbox 1

to enable Tinderbox to run on old hardware. There are no
other changes.
Release Date
December 2006.
Requirements
After Effects 7.0 for Windows XP.
New Features
Improvements

APPENDIX A 139
Release Notes
Fixed Bugs
1. SSE2 - BUG ID 801 - the previous version of Tinderbox was
compiled with a sse2 flag preventing it from working on very
old hardware running Windows. This version has been recom-
piled with sse1 to fix this problem affecting a minority of cus-
tomers.

1. Gradient colour picker on Windows XP. BugID 662. When
depressed. As a workaround for this After Effects bug, we are
launching the System Colour picker on Windows.
2. Composition window Snapshot button on OSX. BugID 231.
snapshot button and attempting to show it again causes a
momentary flash of the snapshotted image, but it quickly flicks
back to the current result. As a workaround use the Shift+F5,
F5 combo to take and show snapshots.
Tinderbox 1 (2.1v1) This is a maintenence release of Tinderbox 1 shipped on CD

and as a download.
Release Date
2 October 2006.
Requirements
After Effects 7.0 for Mac OS X or Windows XP. Previous
versions of After Effects, Combustion, Final Cut Pro and
other hosts implementing the After Effects API are not
supported.

140 APPENDIX A
Release Notes
New Features
Improvements
1. Numerous improvements to this User Guide have been made in
this release.
2. All plug-ins using host lighting can now access any light in the
composition, rather than just the first light in the layer.
Fixed Bugs
1. Tinderbox could not be licensed with a valid license file in the
plug-ins’ directory. This has been fixed.
2. The installer failed to create a /usr/local/foundry/FLEXlm or
c:\Program Files\The Foundry\FLEXlm directory. This has been
fixed.
3. On Windows the link to the documentation from the Start menu
was broken. This has been fixed.
4. Installation on Window XP64 failed to put the plug-ins in the
correct directory. This has been fixed.
5. Blend 0-1 (32bpc) option in the Blending groups failed to work.
This has been fixed and now defaults to off.
6. Process Grey - failed to work at 32bpc. All images were set to
black. This has been fixed.
7. T_Starburst - sparkles mode colour clamping failed to clamp
correctly. This has been fixed.
8. T_Grad - in 32bpc when dithering the colours were clamped.
This has been fixed.
9. T_HeatHaze - in 32bpc colours were clamped 0-1. This has
been fixed.


APPENDIX A 141
Release Notes
depressed. As a workaround for this After Effects bug, we are
launching the System Colour picker on Windows.
Tinderbox 1 (2.0v1) This is a fully re-engineered release of Tinderbox 1. This

version is distributed as a download only. It is designed to
take advantage of floating point colour support and to
integrate with After Effects tools such as cameras and
lights. Numerous other improvements have been made to
individuals plug-ins, including limited implementation of
technology from other Foundry product lines such as
Furnace and Anvil.
Note Customers that bought the original Tinderbox series should note
that this version has been completely re-engineered. Some new
plug-ins have been added, other plug-ins have been removed,
support for 32bpc projects has been added and many parameters
have changed to make the plug-ins better. It should be thought of
as a new product rather than an upgrade. Consequently customers
should not expect After Effects project files using the older
Tinderbox plug-ins to load into After Effects running this re-
engineered version.
Release Date
22 September 2006.

142 APPENDIX A
Release Notes
Requirements
After Effects 7.0 for Mac OS X or Windows XP. Previous
versions of After Effects, Combustion, Final Cut Pro and
other hosts implementing the After Effects API are not
supported.
New Features
1. All plug-ins support rendering in 32 bpc via the After Effects
SmartFX API.
2. Support for native After Effects tools including cameras and
lights in plug-ins, including T_Distorto, T_Droplet, T_Lens and
T_Sky.
3. T_Caustic now takes a seperate matte input to drive the
caustics.
4. T_Deflicker now uses our Furnace image processing tools to
correct local and global flicker.
5. T_Degrain uses wavelet technology from our Furnace image
processing toolset for fast, efficient grain removal while
maintaining image quality.
6. T_Rays has been completely rewritten. It is much faster and
includes scintillation.
7. T_Starburst has a new mode that adds sparkles to images
regardless of the highlights.
Improvements
1. T_Beam - the softness parameter has been improved to give a
greater range of values between hard edged and soft.
2. T_Pattern - a soft edge wipe (at any angle) has been added to
the plug-in.
3. The colour gradient tool has been improved and incorporates
colour picking with standard tools.

APPENDIX A 143
Release Notes
Changes
1. T_Dilate, T_Qube and T_Stutter have been removed.
Fixed Bugs
1. OpenGL bug causing intermittent crashes in previous versions
has been resolved.

depressed. As a workaround use the XP colour picker (go to
Edit->Preferences->General and tick the 'Use System Color
Picker' box).

144 APPENDIX A
Release Notes

APPENDIX B 145
End User License Agreement
APPENDIX B

IMPORTANT: BY INSTALLING THIS SOFTWARE YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE READ THIS
AGREEMENT, UNDERSTAND IT AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY ITS TERMS AND CONDITIONS. IF YOU
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This END USER SOFTWARE LICENSE AGREEMENT (this "Agreement") is made by and between The
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146 APPENDIX B
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APPENDIX B 147
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148 APPENDIX B
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APPENDIX B 149
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Agreement. Licensee shall not disclose Confidential Information or otherwise make any Confidential
Information available to any other of Licensee's employees or to any third parties without the
express written consent of The Foundry. Licensee agrees to segregate, to the extent it can be rea-
sonably done, the Confidential Information from the confidential information and materials of others
in order to prevent commingling. Licensee shall take reasonable security measures, which such mea-
sures shall be at least as great as the measures Licensee uses to keep Licensee's own confidential
information secure (but in any case using no less than a reasonable degree of care), to hold the
Software, Documentation and any other Confidential Information in strict confidence and safe cus-
tody. The Foundry may request, in which case Licensee agrees to comply with, certain reasonable
security measures as part of the use of the Software and Documentation. Licensee acknowledges
that monetary damages may not be a sufficient remedy for unauthorized disclosure of Confidential
Information, and that The Foundry shall be entitled, without waiving any other rights or remedies, to
such injunctive or equitable relief as may be deemed proper by a court of competent jurisdiction.
SECTION 13. INSPECTION.

Licensee shall advise The Foundry on demand of all locations where the Software or Documentation
is used or stored. Licensee shall permit The Foundry or its authorized agents to inspect all such
locations during normal business hours and on reasonable advance notice.

150 APPENDIX B
SECTION 14. NONSOLICITATION.

Licensee agrees not to solicit for employment or retention, and not to employ or retain, any of The
Foundry's current or future employees who were or are involved in the development and/or creation
of the Software.
SECTION 15. U.S. GOVERNMENT LICENSE RIGHTS.

The Software, Documentation and/or data delivered hereunder are subject to the terms of this
Agreement and in no event shall the U.S. Government acquire greater than RESTRICTED/LIMITED
RIGHTS. At a minimum, use, duplication or disclosure by the U.S. Government is subject to the appli-
cable restrictions of: (i) FAR §52.227-14 ALTS I, II and III (June 1987); (ii) FAR §52.227-19 (June
1987); (iii) FAR §12.211 and 12.212; and/or (iv) DFARS §227.7202-1(a) and DFARS §227.7202-3.
The Software is the subject of the following notices:
* Copyright (c) 2007 The Foundry Visionmongers, Ltd.. All Rights Reserved.
* Unpublished-rights reserved under the Copyright Laws of the United Kingdom.
SECTION 16. SURVIVAL.

Sections 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 and 18 shall survive any termination or expi-
ration of this Agreement.
SECTION 17. IMPORT/EXPORT CONTROLS.

To the extent that any Software made available hereunder is subject to restrictions upon export
and/or reexport from the United States, Licensee agrees to comply with, and not act or fail to act in
any way that would violate, the applicable international, national, state, regional and local laws and
regulations, including, without limitation, the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the
Export Administration Act and the Export Administration Regulations, as amended or otherwise
modified from time to time, and neither The Foundry nor Licensee shall be required under this Agree-
ment to act or fail to act in any way which it believes in good faith will violate any such laws or reg-
ulations.

APPENDIX B 151
SECTION 18. MISCELLANEOUS.

This Agreement is the exclusive agreement between the parties concerning the subject matter
hereof and supersedes any and all prior oral or written agreements, negotiations, or other dealings
between the parties concerning such subject. This Agreement may be modified only by a written
instrument signed by both parties. If any action is brought by either party to this Agreement against
the other party regarding the subject matter hereof, the prevailing party shall be entitled to recover,
in addition to any other relief granted, reasonable attorneys' fees and expenses of litigation. Should
any term of this Agreement be declared void or unenforceable by any court of competent jurisdic-
tion, such declaration shall have no effect on the remaining terms of this Agreement. The failure of
either party to enforce any rights granted hereunder or to take action against the other party in the
event of any breach hereunder shall not be deemed a waiver by that party as to subsequent enforce-
ment of rights or subsequent actions in the event of future breaches. This Agreement shall be gov-
erned by, and construed in accordance with English Law.
Copyright (c) 2008 The Foundry Visionmongers Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Do not duplicate.

152 APPENDIX B

INDEX 153
A-Z
INDEX
A-Z E I
Edge Methods 51 Ignore Transparent Pixels 26
A End User License Installation on Mac 5
Agreement 145 Installation on Windows 6
About... 19
Environment Maps 86
Activation 7, 10
Error Log Files 13 L
Ambient Lighting 32
Aspect 23 license file 11
Attenuation 48 F Light Rays 61
FFT 16 See also T_Rays
B Filter Sharpness 40 Lighting 28
Filtering 39 Ambient 32
Background Rendering 14
Blending 41 High 39 Diffuse 33
Low 39 Specular 34
Blend 45
Medium 39
Effect Gain 45
Method 41 Fish-eye Lens 103 M
flicker 66 Macrovision 16
Source Gain 45
Fog 124 Matte 47
Bulge 103
Foundry FLEXlm Tools User Attenuating an effect 48
Guide 16 Matte Layer 47
C
Foundry, The 17 Matte Layer Crops 52
Camera 37
Web Site 17 Motion Tracker 16
Caustics 61 Frosted Glass 78
Charcoals 91
Clamp 0-1 (32bpc) 45 O
G On-line Help 19
Clock Wipe 108
Gradient 27 Options... 21
Clouds 122
Adding a Colour 27
Crops
Changing a Colour 27 P
Colour 51
Deleting a Colour 27 Pixel Aspect Ratio 23
Reflect 51
Moving a Colour 27 Pixel Scattering 77
Repeat 51
Wrap 52 Process 24
H
D Haze 121 R
Heat Haze 100 Rays 111
deflicker 66
Help 19 Release Notes 135
Defocus. See Blurs
Diffuse Lighting 33 release notes 145

INDEX
154
A-Z
Reset 20 Water
See T_Caustic
S See T_Droplet
Serial Number 10 Watermark 13
Sharpening an image 57 wavelet 73
Shearing. See T_Tile Wipes. See T_Pattern
Sky 118
Source Crops 50
Sparkles 126
Specular Lighting 34
Spotlight 53
Sun 120
System Requirements 5
T
T_Beam 53
T_Blur 57
T_Caustic 61
T_Deflicker 66
T_Degrain 73
T_Diffuse 77
T_DirBlur 79
T_Distorto 83
T_Droplet 87
T_Etch 91
T_Grad 96
T_HeatHaze 100
T_Lens 103
T_Pattern 107
T_Rays 111
T_Sky 118
T_Starburst 126
T_Tile 131
The Foundry 17
Web Site 17
Tinder 17
Tracking 16
Type 22
W
watch folders 14
Tinderbox1 The Foundry

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USER GUIDE

Tinderbox 1 on After Effects

Visual Effects Software The Foundry

Tinder Box1 The Foundry

Software engineering Mailys Levassort, Ralph McEntagart.

Writing and layout design Jonathan Barson using Adobe FrameMaker.

Rev: 14 November 2008

The Foundry Tinder Box1

Introduction About this User Guide. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Tinderbox Controls About... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

The Foundry Forge

The Foundry Tinder Box1

Appendix A Release Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135

Appendix B End User License Agreement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145

Index A-Z . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Forge The Foundry

Tinder Box1 The Foundry

Welcome to Tinderbox 1 for After Effects. Our plug-ins have

Controls common to many of the Tinderbox plug-ins are

System Tinderbox 1 plugs into Adobe After Effects CS4 running on

Installation on Mac Tinderbox is distributed on CD or as a software download

The Foundry Tinderbox 1

The Foundry Tinder Box1

1. Insert the Tinderbox 1 CD into your CD-ROM drive or double-

Figure 1. Double-click on the package to install.

3. Tinderbox will be installed but not licensed. It will render the

Installation on Tinderbox is distributed on CD or as a software download

Tinderbox 1 The Foundry

Tinder Box1 The Foundry

Activating Once you have installed Tinderbox 1, you will need to

If you have installed Tinderbox 1 from a CD, you can activate

If you have installed Tinderbox 1 from a download, proceed

Activation via Internet 1. Start After Effects.

System ID (sometimes called lmhostid). This number is unique to

The Foundry Tinderbox 1

The Foundry Tinder Box1

Figure 3. System ID. Click dialog to make it go away.

4. Press the Options... button at the top of the plug-in. (Figure 4)

5. This launches a web browser. Check that the System ID shown

Tinderbox 1 The Foundry

Tinder Box1 The Foundry

7. If successful, you will be taken to a page that let’s you

The Foundry Tinderbox 1

The Foundry Tinder Box1

If you installed a node-locked license key (a license that

If you are installing a floating license key, you will be asked

Serial Number The serial number is printed on a sticker inside the

System ID The System ID (sometimes called lmhostid) is a unique

Tinderbox 1 The Foundry

Tinder Box1 The Foundry

The System ID is shown at the bottom of the help dialogs.

Figure 5. Help showing the System ID.

Click on any Tinderbox About button to display this number.

The Foundry Tinderbox 1

The Foundry Tinder Box1

file. See “Alternative license directories” on page 12.

See “Further Reading” on page 16.

If you wish to render Tinderbox plug-ins on a network of

See “Background Rendering” on page 14.

Tinderbox 1 The Foundry

Tinder Box1 The Foundry

Figure 6. Warning Dialog. Figure 7. Close-up of dots.

The Foundry Tinderbox 1

The Foundry Tinder Box1