Spotlight Pixel Bender Filter

This is an advanced filter which renders dynamic colored lighting on a display object in Flash.  Consider it a work in progress — It's not as full featured as Photoshop's "Lighting Effects" filter, but it is capable of creating a wide array of effects.  The kernel's main algorithm was ported from NVIDIA's Shader Library, but I had to make some pretty heavy modifications to make it more functional for the Flash world.  It has 8 parameters:  ambientColor, angle, azimuth, coneAngle, distance, intensity, position, and spotColor.

  • ambientColor - color to apply to all pixels of the image
  • angle - angle at which the spotlight is projected (in degrees)
  • azimuth - angle between the image plane and the spotlight (in degrees)
  • coneAngle - angle of the spotlight's "opening" (in degrees)
  • distance - distance from the spotlight to the center point
  • intensity - intensity of the spotlight
  • position - x, y, z position of the spotlight
  • spotColor - color of the spotlight

There are so many different ways that you could use this effect, I will probably devote a few more posts to showing additional examples.  In this demo, I created a couple of draggable handles that you can use for positioning the spotlight, and some preset configurations (try the dawn, day, and dusk buttons).  Next time, I'll incorporate some animation.

Application - Source

[kml_flashembed movie="http://www.rphelan.com/flex/SpotlightDemo/SpotlightDemo.swf" height="600" width="420" /]

About this entry

You’re currently reading “Spotlight Pixel Bender Filter,” an entry by Ryan Phelan

Published:
10.28.08 / 10am
Category:
Flex, Pixel Bender