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Liquid effect

Ferrofluid Sheen

Ferrofluid Sheen is a liquid video effect in FRCTL, the browser VJ studio. Transparent oily sheen and iridescent film across the full frame, with a slow breathe.

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 Ferrofluid Sheen free All effects

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

The eye-in-triangle illustration under a pale iridescent oil film of fine rainbow ripples — Ferrofluid Sheen, default settings

What Ferrofluid Sheen does

Lays a pale oil film over the whole frame: cellular pools, fine grain and thin rainbow ridges, with white glitter where the ridges peak. Blacks and any empty canvas around the picture take the heaviest coat. Texture sets grain size and film density, Pool the size of the pooled cells, Gloss the rainbow and sparkle, and Breath how far a slow swell moves everything.

Using Ferrofluid Sheen

Where it works: Makes dark, contrasty art read as a wet print, so it suits cover art, logo plates on black, and letterboxed clips where the empty bars would otherwise sit dead.
With the music: Breath already swells the film slowly on its own. Send B8 (hats) to Gloss so the glitter flickers with the hi-hats, and a bar-synced LFO to Pool if you want the cells to throb.
Starting point: Texture centre, Pool centre, Gloss a quarter, Breath a quarter, then raise Gloss until glitter starts catching on the ridges.

Controls

Texture: Cellular grain scale and film density across the frame.
Pool: Cellular oil pooling between ridges.
Gloss: Iridescent ridges and white micro-sparkle strength.
Breath: Slow swell of field and pools (loop phase).
Speed: Rate of the effect motion. Centre is the authored speed, hard left a tenth of it.

Pairs well with Ferrofluid Sheen