14 Realtime effects (intro)

These are layered under the track they apply to. They process the track when the track is played back, with no permanent storage of the output except when the project is rendered.

All the realtime effects are listed in the resource window, divided into two groups: audio effects and video effects. Audio effects should be dragged from the resource window onto audio tracks. Video effects should be dragged onto video tracks.

How to drag several effects at once ? In the Resources window go to the A/V Effects tabs. Select an effect. Go to another effect and select it while holding down CTRL. This selects one additional effect. Go to another effect and select it while holding down SHIFT. This selects every intervening effect. Drag the choosed effects from the Video Effects or the Audio effects tabs of the Resources Window. Drop it on the selected portion of the track. A brown bar will appear below the track.

If there is data on the destination track, the effect is applied to the entire track. If there is no data on the track the effect is deleted. Finally, if a region of the track is selected the effect is pasted into the region, regardless of whether there is data.

Some of the effects do not process data but synthesize data. In the case of a synthesis effect, you will want to select a region of the track so the dragging operation pastes it without deleting it.

When dragging more than one effect onto a track, you will see the effects layering from top to bottom, on the bottom of the track. When the track is played back, effects are processed from top to bottom. The output of the top effect becomes the input of the bottom effect and so on and so forth.

In addition to dragging from the resource window, effects may be applied to a track by a popup menu. Right click on a track and select Attach effect from the popup. The attach effect dialog gives you more control than pure dragging and dropping. For one thing, the attach effect dialog lets you attach two more types of effects: shared effects and shared tracks. Select a plugin from the Plugins column and hit Attach under the plugins column to attach it. The effect is the same as if the effect was dragged from the resource window.

When an effect exists under a track, it often needs to be configured. Go to the effect and right click on it to bring up the effect popup. In the effect popup is a show option. The show option causes the GUI for the effect to appear under the cursor. Most effects have GUI’s but some do not. If the effect does not have a GUI, nothing pops up when the show option is selected. When you tweak parameters in the effect GUI, the parameters normally affect the entire duration of the effect.
Attaching an effect is straightforward, but if you want to duplicate the effect for several tracks, adjusting the settings for every effect can suck. Instead, you can attach one effect to one track. For other tracks, the original effect pops up in the shared list. Attaching it as a shared effect causes the single effect to process data for the second track, without a second set of controls.

14.1 Realtime effect types
14.2 Editing realtime effects
14.3 Realtime audio effects
14.4 Realtime video effects

14.1 Realtime effect types

The two other effect types supported by the Attach Effect dialog are recycled effects. In order to use a recycled effect, three requirements must be met:

• There must be other effects in the timeline.
• The other effects must be of the same type as the track you are attaching an effect to. If the track is an audio track, the effects must be audio effects. If the track is a video track, the effects must be video effects.
• The insertion point or selected region must start inside the other effects.

In the case of a shared effect, these conditions must be true. In the case of a shared track, there merely must be another track on the timeline of the same type as the track you are applying an effect to. If you right clicked on a video track to attach an effect, there will not be anything in the shared tracks column if no other video track exists. If you right clicked on an audio track there will not be anything in the shared track column if no other audio track exists.

If shared effects or shared tracks are available, they appear in the shared effects and shared tracks columns. The attach button under each column causes anything highlighted in the column to be attached under the current track.

Shared effects and shared tracks allow very unique things to be done. In the case of a shared effect, the shared effect is treated like a copy of the original effect except in the shared effect the GUI can not be brought up. All configuration of the shared effect is determined by the GUI of the original effect and only the GUI of the original effect can be brought up.

When a shared effect is played back, it is processed just like a normal effect except the configuration is copied from the original effect. Some effects detect when they are being shared, like the reverb effects and the compressor. These effects determine what tracks are sharing them and either mix the two tracks together or use one track to stage some value. The reverb mixes tracks together to simulate ambience. The compressor uses one of the sharing tracks as the trigger.

If an output track contains a shared track but the output track has no media, the output track reads the shared track's media. If the output track has media, it reads its own media. This allows replicating media between tracks with shared track instead of copying the media.

When an original track has a shared track as one of its effects, the shared track itself is used as a realtime effect. This is more commonly known as bouncing tracks but Cinelerra achieves the same operation by attaching shared tracks. The fade and any effects in the shared track are applied to the original track. Once the shared track has processed the data, the original track performs any effects which come below the shared track and then composites it on the output.

In addition, once the shared track has processed the output of the original track like a realtime effect, the shared track mixes itself into the output with it is settings for pan, mode, and projector. Thus, two tracks are mixing the same data on the output. Most of the times you do not want the shared track to mix the same data as the original track on the output. You want it to stop right before the mixing stage and give the data back to the original track. Do this by enabling the mute toggle next to each track for whom you do not want to mix on the output.
See the section Patchbay.

Suppose you were making video and you did want the shared track to composite the original track’s data on the output a second time. In the case of video, the video from the shared track would always appear under the video from the original track, regardless of whether it was on top of the original track. This is because shared tracks are composited in order of their attachment. Since it is part of the original track it has to be composited before the original track is composited.

14.2 Editing realtime effects

Many operations exist for manipulating effects once they are in the timeline. Because mixing effects and media is such complex business, the methods used in editing effects are not as concise as cutting and pasting. Some of the editing happens by dragging in/out points, some of the editing happens through popup menus, and some of it happens by dragging effects.

Normally when you edit tracks, the effects follow the editing decisions. If you cut from a track, the effect shrinks. If you drag edit in/out points, the effect changes length. This behavior can be disabled by selecting Settings->edit effects in the project window. This decouples effects from editing operations, but what if you just want to edit the effects?

Move the timeline cursor over the effect borders until it changes to a resize left or resize right icon. In this state, if you drag the end of the effect, it performs an edit just like dragging the end of a track does.

The three editing behaviors of track trimming apply to effect trimming and they are bound to the mouse buttons that you set in interface preferences. See section Interface. When you perform a trim edit on an effect, the effect boundary is moved by dragging on it. Unlike track editing, the effect has no source length. You can extend the end of an effect as much as desired without being limited.

Also unlike track editing, the starting position of the drag operation does not bind the edit decision to media. The media the effect is bound to does not follow effect edits. Other effects, however, do follow editing decisions made on an effect. If you drag the end of an effect which is lined up to effects on other tracks, the effects on the other tracks will be edited while the media stays the same.

What happens if you trim the end of an effect in, leaving a lot of unaffected time near the end of the track? When you drag an effect in from the Resource Window you can insert the effect in the portion of the row unoccupied by the trimming operation. Realtime effects are organized into rows under the track. Each row can have multiple effects.

In some cases you will want a trimming operation to change only one row of effects. This can be achieved by first positioning the insertion point on the start or end of the effect. Then press <SHIFT> while beginning the trimming operation. This causes the operation to change only one row of effects.

In addition to trimming, you can move effects up or down. Every track can have a stack of effects under it. By moving an effect up or down you change the order in which effects are processed in the stack. Go to an effect and right click to bring up the effect menu. The Move up and Move down options move the effect up or down.

When you are moving effects up or down, be aware that if they are shared as shared effects, any references will be pointing to a different effect after the move operation.

Finally, there is dragging of effects. Dragging effects works just like dragging edits. You must select the arrow to enter drag and drop mode before dragging effects. The effects snap to media boundaries, effect boundaries, and tracks. Be aware if you drag a reference to a shared effect, the reference will usually point to the wrong effect afterwards.Right click on an effect to bring up a menu for the effect. Select attach… to change the effect or change the reference if it is a shared effect.

14.3 Realtime audio effects

READ about audio effects of Cinelerra CV HERE.

14.4 Realtime video effects

READ about video effects of Cinelerra CV HERE.