ULTIMATE VJ

Effect reference

27 effects, each available at Clip, Layer, Group and Master scope. The lists below give each parameter's Inspector label, numeric range and initial value. Black background is displayed as a toggle.

Every instance also exposes Wet amount (0…1, default 1), regardless of kind.

This reference describes the current development source. It does not establish which effects are present in a separately packaged or published binary.

Colour correction, Invert, Mirror, Pixelate / Bit Crush, Luma key, RGB split and Bloom / Glow are the legacy seven — the set that existed before the current operators, and the only ones with flat legacy storage keys. Older documents referencing them reopen unchanged.

Colour operators

Color correction

Brightness −1 … 1, default 0 · Contrast 0 … 3, default 1 · Saturation 0 … 3, default 1 · Hue (°) −180 … 180, default 0

Invert

No parameters. Fully inverts RGB.

Posterize

Color levels 2 … 32, default 6 · Gamma 0.25 … 4, default 1

Geometric operators

These share one parameter payload, so several controls are the same field under different labels.

Mirror

Horizontal reflection 0 … 1, default 1 · Vertical reflection 0 … 1, default 0 · Center X 0 … 1, default 0.5 · Center Y 0 … 1, default 0.5 · Axis rotation (°) −180 … 180, default 0

Legacy Mirror note. A Mirror that already existed before split reflection was introduced keeps its original whole-image flip and reads as horizontal 0 / vertical 0. Its first geometry edit moves it to the split defaults above. Unrelated edits leave the old flip alone — so old sessions only change when you touch them.

Tile

Columns 1 … 16, default 3 · Rows 1 … 16, default 3 · Center X 0 … 1, default 0.5 · Center Y 0 … 1, default 0.5 · Axis rotation (°) −180 … 180, default 0

Twist

Amount −2 … 2, default 1 · Radius (short edge) 0.05 … 2, default 0.75 · Center X 0 … 1, default 0.5 · Center Y 0 … 1, default 0.5

Radius is expressed as a fraction of the shorter canvas edge, so at a centred origin 0.5 reaches the nearest edge and 1.0 is the full shorter edge.

Fisheye

Amount −2 … 2, default 1 · Radius (short edge) 0.05 … 2, default 0.75 · Center X 0 … 1, default 0.5 · Center Y 0 … 1, default 0.5

Warp operators

These share one parameter payload. Note that Frequency (cycles) and Map scale are the same stored value with two labels, so animating one moves the other.

Wave Warp

Displacement amount −0.5 … 0.5, default 0.08 · Frequency (cycles) 0.25 … 32, default 4 · Phase 0 … 1, default 0 · Angle (°) −180 … 180, default 0

Ripples

Displacement amount −0.5 … 0.5, default 0.18 · Frequency (cycles) 0.25 … 32, default 4 · Phase 0 … 1, default 0 · Radius (short edge) 0.05 … 2, default 0.75 · Center X 0 … 1, default 0.5 · Center Y 0 … 1, default 0.5

Polar Kaleidoscope

Segments 2 … 32, default 6 · Angle (°) −180 … 180, default 0 · Center X 0 … 1, default 0.5 · Center Y 0 … 1, default 0.5

Displacement

Displacement amount −0.5 … 0.5, default 0.1 · Map scale 0.25 … 32, default 4 · Phase 0 … 1, default 0 · Angle (°) −180 … 180, default 0

Displacement uses the source's own luma as its map.

Slice Glitch

Displacement amount −0.5 … 0.5, default 0.25 · Slices 2 … 128, default 12 · Pattern seed 0 … 1024, default 1 · Phase 0 … 1, default 0

Clone operators

These share one parameter payload. Spacing (short edge) and Radius (short edge) are the same stored distance value under two labels.

Linear Cloner

Copies 1 … 16, default 5 · Copy scale 0.05 … 2, default 0.32 · Spacing (short edge) 0 … 2, default 0.25 · Angle (°) −180 … 180, default 0 · Copy rotation (°) −180 … 180, default 0 · Opacity per copy 0 … 1, default 0.9 · Center X 0 … 1, default 0.5 · Center Y 0 … 1, default 0.5

Radial Cloner

Copies 1 … 16, default 8 · Start radius (short edge) 0 … 2, default 0.33 · End radius (short edge) 0 … 2, default 0.33 · Start scale 0.05 … 2, default 0.22 · End scale 0.05 … 2, default 0.22 · Start copy rotation (°) −180 … 180, default 0 · End copy rotation (°) −180 … 180, default 0 · Fan arc (°) −360 … 360, default 360 · Fan offset (°) −180 … 180, default 0 · Master copy rotation (°) −180 … 180, default 0 · Opacity per copy 0 … 1, default 1 · Center X 0 … 1, default 0.5 · Center Y 0 … 1, default 0.5

Iterate

Copies 1 … 16, default 8 · Copy scale 0.05 … 2, default 1 · Scale per iteration 0.25 … 1.5, default 0.78 · Copy rotation (°) −180 … 180, default 12 · Spacing (short edge) 0 … 2, default 0.045 · Angle (°) −180 … 180, default 0 · Opacity per copy 0 … 1, default 1 · Center X 0 … 1, default 0.5 · Center Y 0 … 1, default 0.5

Tunnel

Tunnel sits in the clone family despite looking like a warp: it is rendered by the same cloning kernel as the three cloners above and shares their parameter payload.

Depth repetition 0.1 … 4, default 1 · Travel phase 0 … 1, default 0 · Spiral twist −2 … 2, default 0.1 · Angular repeats 1 … 16, default 1 · Vanishing fade 0 … 0.3, default 0.025 · Angle (°) −180 … 180, default 0 · Center X 0 … 1, default 0.5 · Center Y 0 … 1, default 0.5

Vanishing fade is an aperture rather than a soft edge: it fades the tunnel's infinite depth. Note that Tunnel uses its own depth/twist/repeats/aperture parameters and ignores Copies and Copy scale entirely.

Keying, blur and pixel operators

Luma key

Threshold 0 … 1, default 0.35 · Softness 0.001 … 0.5, default 0.1

Keyed-out pixels stay gone through wet blending — see The effect stack.

RGB split

Split (px) 0 … 80, default 12 · Split direction (°) −180 … 180, default 0 · Red offset (× distance) −2 … 2, default 1 · Green offset (× distance) −2 … 2, default 0 · Blue offset (× distance) −2 … 2, default −1

Bloom / Glow

Intensity 0 … 2, default 0.6 · Radius (px) 0 … 100, default 18.4

Radius has no authored default of its own: until you set it, it resolves as 4 + intensity × 24, which is why adding a Bloom / Glow shows 18.4 rather than 0.

Pixelate / Bit Crush

Cell size (px; 0 = off) 0 … 100, default 24 · Bit depth (0 = off) 0 … 8, default 0 · Dither amount (Bit Crush) 0 … 1, default 0

The two halves are independent: cell size 0 disables pixelation and bit depth 0 bypasses quantization, so you can run either effect alone. Dither adds an ordered 4 × 4 quantization threshold pattern when Bit depth rounds above zero; Dither amount 0 keeps the undithered path. It does not enable quantization while Bit depth is off.

Time and edge operators

Strobe

Rate (Hz) 0.1 … 30, default 4 · On fraction 0.01 … 1, default 0.5 · Phase 0 … 1, default 0

Binary gain — either full or nothing — follows the logical composition time stamped on the per-render instance. A driver may modulate Rate, On fraction or Phase; its chosen driver clock does not replace the Strobe gate's time source.

Global pause freezes it at the phase it reached. A paused frame holds that single gate — on or off — rather than continuing to flash, and resuming continues from the held phase. The app's own check asserts exactly this: the paused frame is byte-identical to the last frame before pausing, and resuming picks the gate back up from the held logical time.

Its live clock is a per-render value stamped onto the instance each frame, and it is deliberately not saved into sets or .uvjfx presets.

Edge Outline

Thickness (px) 0.5 … 12, default 2 · Edge threshold 0 … 1, default 0.025 · Edge gain 0.1 … 20, default 12 · Source color 0 … 1, default 0

A Sobel-style gradient magnitude across RGB and alpha, so it outlines transparency edges too, not just luminance steps.

Temporal operators

Feedback

Blends the live input with the previous accepted output, with optional history zoom, rotation and shift.

Feedback amount 0 … 0.99, default 0.8 · History zoom 0.5 … 1.5, default 1.01 · History rotation (°) −45 … 45, default 0 · History shift X −0.5 … 0.5, default 0 · History shift Y −0.5 … 0.5, default 0

Trails

Mixes the input with recent accepted input frames using a normalized decay weighting.

History frames 1 … 32, default 8 · History decay 0 … 1, default 0.8

Frame Delay

Outputs the requested number of accepted frames behind the input. It outputs transparency while there is insufficient history; this delay is a frame count, not a fixed number of seconds.

Delay (accepted frames) 1 … 32, default 4

Freeze

A Hold value of at least 0.5 retains the captured frame. Below 0.5 it follows and refreshes the live input. With no held history, the first eligible input supplies the frame.

Hold (0 = live, 1 = frozen) 0 … 1, default 1

The temporal controls are authored parameters. Runtime history is absent from the saved parameter payload; its reset token identifies the instance's history.

RenderWave operator

Kaleidoscope · RenderWave

Segments 1 … 32, default 6 · Rotation (°) −180 … 180, default 0 · Input zoom (×) 0.1 … 8, default 1 · Input rotation (°) −180 … 180, default 0 · Black background toggle, default off

This is the only effect that runs through the RenderWave runtime rather than Core Image or the app's own Metal kernels. It needs a prepared GPU frame; without one the scope renders black with "RenderWave effects runtime is not prepared."

See RenderWave shaders.

Not verified