The effect asset
What's on a Blendable Effect's panel, band by band: the look and what it shares with every look, its own tuning, the layers over it, its timing, its sounds, how far it goes as an overlay, what drives it, and tuning it while the game runs.
An effect is one asset: Add > Blendable > Blendable Effect. Its panel reads from broad to fine, and shows only what the chosen look uses, so most effects have far fewer settings than this page lists. Every setting, with what it starts at and what it takes, is on Effect settings.
Preview#
Three buttons play the effect over the level viewport with no game running: Play As A Transition, Play As An Impact and Show As An Overlay, and Stop takes it off. Change a setting and play it again; there's nothing to save first.
Look#
The Look is what it draws: one of the looks. Under it, the settings looks share:
Colour and Second Colour.
What a cover goes to, an impact frame's ink and paper, a film's tint, a flash's light. Each look's tooltip says what it uses them for.
Centre.
Where irises close, zooms push, flashes burst and impact lines converge: The Middle, The Player, A Spot you choose, or Where It's Played, a point in the world the effect is played at.
Strength.
How far the look goes at its peak: a blur's width, a split's distance, how hard a lens bends. 1 is as designed.
Direction.
Which way a wipe, a whip or a push runs across the screen, in degrees.
Blend From The Old Shot.
For a wipe, dissolve, luma fade, glitch, film burn or brush: the new shot turns over a frozen frame of the old one, rather than both going through the colour.
The look's own.
A pattern for a dissolve, blades for a shutter, an impact frame's style, smear and explosion: whatever only that look has.
Tuning#
Every look has settings of its own, built in at the numbers it was designed with: an iris's shape and spin, how many tears a glitch makes, how grainy old film is. The band shows only the chosen look's, and each is kept on the asset by look, so trying another look and coming back finds them as you left them. Tuning shows some of them at work; The looks lists every look's.
Layers#
Over any look: a Distortion, Aberration, Motion Blur, a Mask in a shape with a feathered edge, and a Falloff that strengthens or weakens the look with distance from its centre. Each rises and falls with the look. Layers
Timing#
Cover Time is how long it takes to come in, Hold Time how long it stays at its height, and Reveal Time how long it takes to go. A blend has no cover: it plays over its Reveal Time from the old shot to the new. Ease shapes all three, or a curve of your own does.
As an impact it plays all three once. As an overlay it comes in over its Cover Time and holds until it's taken off.
Sound#
Sound At Start plays as it begins and Sound At The Cut as the shot changes underneath. Fade The Sound turns the game's own sound down with the cover, to Sound Fades To at its height. Sound Leads By moves the player's hearing to the new shot early, before the picture gets there, or late, after: a J cut or an L cut, for a transition that changes the view target.
Overlay#
Overlay Amount is how far it goes when it's shown as an overlay, 0 to 1: a fade held at half, an iris part-closed, old film fully worn. Show Overlay can give its own instead.
Go deeperWhy one asset rather than one per way of playing it
The same look is the right answer to different moments. An impact frame is an impact on a hit, a transition into a cutscene and an overlay for a special move; a glitch is a transition between two security cameras, an impact as a shot lands and an overlay while the player's hacked. One asset per way would mean three assets to keep in step for every look you tune. So the asset is the look and its timing, and the node you call decides how it plays.
The starter folders say only which way each was tuned for.
Driven By#
Drivers let numbers from the game drive it while it plays as an overlay or an impact: how far it's on screen, its strength, or any of its look's own settings, such as veins creeping in and a heartbeat quickening as health falls. Overlays goes through them.
Tuning while the game runs#
Live Tune, on the Blendable FX button on the toolbar, lists everything running in the game you're playing in the editor: the transition, the impacts and overlays, and the goggle worn. Pick one and its whole panel is there to change as it plays. It changes the effect asset itself, so the tuning is kept when you stop playing; save it as usual. A goggle worn, and an effect with drivers, play copies of their asset, and follow it as it changes.