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Geometry effect

Bloomback

Bloomback is a kaleidoscope and geometry effect in FRCTL, the browser VJ studio. Filaments swell out of the frame and travel, growing new ones behind them as the picture feeds the bloom.

Runs live on video, images, a camera or generated art. Stack it with any other effect, and route LFOs, envelopes or any of ten audio bands to its controls so it moves with the music.

Try Bloomback free All effects

The untouched demo art: an eye inside a triangle over wavy teal, blue and peach lines — Source

The eye-in-triangle art on a dark ground, ringed in dense yellow, green and violet neon contour lines — Bloomback, default settings

What Bloomback does

Keeps a memory of the picture's brightness, redraws it each frame slightly zoomed and turned, and traces it as neon contour rings, so shells peel off bright areas and travel with new ones breeding behind. Grow and Spin start at centre, which holds the memory still. Push Grow right to send rings outward or left to pull them in, Spin to curl them, and Sustain to thicken the nest.

Using Bloomback

Where it works: Long builds and ambient passages where the visuals should evolve rather than loop, and live camera sets where movement leaves ringed trails. It rewards holding one source for a while.
With the music: The rings cycle through the field without routing, and Speed sets that rate. B2 on Grow lets the sub push shells outward in surges, and B7 on Spin twists them on each snare.
Starting point: Grow at three-quarters, Spin just right of centre, Sustain at three-quarters, Bands at a quarter, Cycle at a quarter, Glow at centre.

Controls

Grow: Whether the held frame swells or shrinks each pass. Centre holds still, either side sends the filaments travelling.
Spin: Turn per pass, which curls the breeding rings into spirals instead of even shells.
Sustain: How much of the held frame survives each round. Past centre the nest stops decaying and keeps thickening.
Bands: Contour rings across the accumulated bloom. Low is a few travelling shells, high is a dense nest.
Tint: Rotates the whole rainbow around the wheel.
Cycle: Hue step per ring. Low spreads one rainbow over many rings, high gives every ring its own colour.
Glow: Light falling off the strokes. Hard left is a bare filament, up high each one blooms into the frame around it.
Speed: Rate of the effect motion. Centre is the authored speed, hard left a tenth of it.

Pairs well with Bloomback