Simulate the fire, the water and the wreckage beside the plate, then key, roto, paint and grade the shot in 32-bit float with OpenColorIO. Layered EXRs and OpenVDB frames go down the line, and the same file renders from a terminal with no window.
Every clip on this page is the app's own output.
The jobs that come in every week, and how each one is done here. Every fix stays a node you can open again when the notes come back.
Planar track a surface, then lock the shot to one frame, or smooth the shake and keep the camera's travel. Deflicker measures the shot once and matches every frame to its neighbors, and the Brown lens model takes distortion out with your lens's own coefficients.
Draw an outline with the pen, step to another frame and move the points to key it, then feather and firm the edge. A shape can ride a track. Or click once on an object and a local model follows it, frame after frame.
Clone and heal with brush strokes right on the frame. Build a clean plate from the shot itself: for every pixel it keeps the value most frames agree on, so whatever passes through drops out. Or mask a passing bus and a local model paints it out, steady from frame to frame.
Key on a color, a hue range or the green or blue difference. Despill hands you its spill map, the edge cleans up, and light wrap lets the background bleed around the subject so it sits in the plate.
Work in your OCIO config or the ACES config that comes built in, apply the colorist's CDL and the show LUT, then grade by shadows, midtones and highlights. Match a shot to a hero frame, and add grain measured from the plate so a clean element sits in it.
Even out the flicker in an old newsreel, and bring a small archive clip up to four times its size, with detail that stays steady from frame to frame. Each model runs on your machine.
Lay shots on a video timeline with fades, dissolves and titles, and render it out. A line of Python writes the cut as a CMX 3600 EDL, or its titles as SRT subtitles. Clean a production track, or turn a creaking hinge into a whoosh, in the same file.
The elements a shot needs, simulated in the same file as the comp, with fire, smoke and liquids on the GPU. A change to the sim lands in the shot with no export in between, and a baked cache scrubs on the timeline without simulating again.
Solve the camera from the shot, render the element with the passes the comp needs, and sit it in the plate. A shadow catcher takes the CG shadow onto the real floor, and holdouts let the real set block the CG.
Bring in a Gaussian splat of a set, a prop or a place, clean it up, take out the light it was shot in, and light it again for the shot. A scan can also become a solid mesh for layout.
The graph keeps running, so the file that holds the sim can also light the stage with it, key a camera on set, or let a song ride the grade. Sound lives in the same file, so pictures can follow it.
Plates, caches, looks and timecode come in and go out in the formats the rest of the show already uses.
Float pictures stay linear from the read to the write, and every picture carries a tag that says whether it holds linear light, display values or data. Camera log is decoded as it loads. Bring your own OCIO config, or use the ACES config that comes built in.
The app you comp in also renders from a terminal, over SSH or on a farm machine. A timeline render steps one frame at a time and waits for every node, so no frame is dropped, and sims run again from their start.
$ kinematic render shot.kin -o shot.%04d.exr \
--timeline-range 0..239
$ kinematic render shot.kin -o shot.%04d.exr \
--start-frame 120 --end-frame 239
$ kinematic probe plate.mov--start-framewith --end-frame, one chunk of a longer shot. Frames before it still run, so a sim lines up at the seam--clock virtualthe same work at the same timestamps, so a bake can be repeated on the same machine, card and driver--offlineno downloads in the middle of a job--strictstops a graph that loads with errors instead of rendering it--eachthe same graph once per file, so a folder of plates goes through one compprobethe color space, bit depth and HDR tags a plate carries, and how it will be readShort lessons that each end with something finished, and demos that come with the app. Take one apart and keep what you need.
Simulate · 8 minBreak a dam, then turn the water to mudA column of water lets go, slams the far wall and sloshes back. Then make it thick and slow.
Simulate · 10 minLight a torchA flame burning off a small ball, made taller and warmer, drawn the way a final render draws it.
Simulate · 6 minShatter a ball into piecesA ball cracks into two dozen shards that tumble and settle, with a push you can turn up.
Edit · 8 minGive a photo a film lookWarm, soft color, fine grain and a red glow around bright spots, like a printed film frame.
Edit · 12 minCut a short videoYour clips in order and trimmed, with fades, dissolves and a title, out as an MP4.
Play · 8 minTurn a creak into a whooshA swelling whoosh for a film, made from a creak, a scrape or a drawer sliding shut.
Develop · 10 minRender a demo to pictures from the terminalEvery frame of a demo rendered to numbered pictures from one command, with no window.
Create · 10 minGive a 3D scan a golden glowA scanned lizard statue in warm late afternoon light. Scan by Niantic Labs, MIT license.
BurningA burning object throws up a tall pillar of fire that mushrooms into dark smoke.In the Demos browser
FireballA fireball ignites in one burst, blooms, then cools and thins away. A start for explosions and impacts.In the Demos browser
BillowyThick smoke rolling upward in slow, rounded billows.In the Demos browser
Dam breakA column of water races down the tank, slams the far wall and sloshes back, with foam on the churn.In the Demos browser
WaterwheelA falling stream turns a waterwheel. No motor: the water pushes the paddles.In the Demos browser
Cloth breakingCloth that tears. Stretch it too far and pieces rip away from the sheet.In the Demos browser
WebcamHidden face effectThe graph remembers the empty background and paints it back over your face as you move. A clean plate, live.In the Demos browser
GPUTwo scans merged into oneTwo scans of one basket, lined up and color matched into one cloud. Scan by Marc (superspl.at), CC BY 4.0.In the Demos browserFree. No account, no license key, no seat count. macOS, Windows, Linux and Raspberry Pi. Bring the plate you are working on.