This plugin enables dynamic transitions between blur radiants and can be used for a lot of camera- and optical effects (example). It uses a grayscale map to determine the blur radiant and can be configured with some options:

• Moderator: Select the layer that will be converted to greyscale and that will be used as the “blur map”
• Min Blur: The minimum blur, used in black areas of the map
• Max Blur: The maximum blur, used in white regions of the map
• Accuracy: The amount of different regions. Each region is blurred on its own so this raises render time.
• Order: Which blur intensity should be composited on top? Use Min for sharp edges and Max for soft transitions.
• Scale: Use logarithmic or linear blur radiants. Logarithmic blur starts softer and creates a nicer field of depth.

Installation

Download the script, unpack it an move it to ~/.gimp-x.x/plug-ins/

Usage

• Create a layer with grayscale content where white will trigger the highest blur radiant and black will use the minimum blur. Move it whereever you want in your layer stack, you can even set its opacity to 0.
• Select the layer to be affected
• Choose Filters -> Moderated Blur
• Choose the moderator layer you created, make other settings and start the process
• Optionally remove the moderator layer afterwards

Examples

Focus on my shitface

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Field Of Depth

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Tilt Shift (Fake Minitures)

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Depth with edges

(Yes, the mask was dashed off – just thought as a demo)

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Please note: this template will only be available for a couple of days – like the Christmas Special.

Damn.. I’ve forgotten to mention some of the original artists of the base images in these screenshots – sorry for that! The original templates and the template information on the website of course do have the copyleft information included.

You have to determine where Ardour is installed, usually in /usr or /usr/local.

sudo tar -C /usr/local -xzf ardour_dark_ui.tar.gz

or

sudo tar -C /usr -xzf ardour_dark_ui.tar.gz

The main new feature in the rendering engine is the ability of templates to hook in the render process and to execute custom functions with a limited set of commands inside a sandbox. So after every step xplanetFX has done it asks if the template wants to do some rendering stuff, too. This will be the base for a lot of cool effects and more realistic lighting stuff for example.

Although the template processes are run in a sandboxed environment with just a few commands like xplanet, convert aso I recommend to avoid using templates you stumble upon out there in the wild that contain a “process” file. Templates aren’t even allowed to copy, move or delete stuff but better safe than sorry ,)

Here are two other tests I used in the development that aren’t available as templates: clouds floating over a perforated earth and subtle to harsh color manipulations separated by a dynamically created mask (the original earth swirled around a bit).