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Tunnels effect

Julia Morph

Julia Morph is a tunnel and feedback effect in FRCTL, the browser VJ studio. Falls endlessly into a Julia set while the set itself keeps changing shape underneath the fall.

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 Julia Morph free All effects

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

A dark purple field crossed by one glowing scalloped Julia edge, the eye-in-triangle faint beneath — Julia Morph, default settings

What Julia Morph does

Replaces the picture with a Julia set seen from ever closer, two falls crossfading so the zoom never stops, while the set itself slowly changes shape. Morph sets how fast the shape drifts, Zoom how deep each fall goes, Detail how finely the hair on the edge resolves, and Tint, Spread and Glow colour the escape bands.

Using Julia Morph

Where it works: Generated backgrounds for long sets and ambient sections, where footage would run out. The fractal covers most of the frame, so it suits pack loops and visual-only segments more than branded art.
With the music: React leans the shape on the clip's own brightness and energy, not the audio, so moving footage steers it for free. For the track, B2 (sub bass) on Glow lights the band edges, and a slow LFO on Tint turns the palette.
Starting point: Morph a quarter, Zoom centre, Detail three-quarters, React hard left, Spread a quarter, Glow centre.

Controls

Morph: How fast the set changes shape. This is the control that makes it endless — the fall is bounded, the morphing is not, so at zero it becomes a fixed shape being fallen into and above it the destination is never the same twice.
Zoom: How far each fall travels before the next one takes over. Deep is a fast plunge, shallow is a slow drift across the filigree.
Detail: How long a point is followed before it is called trapped. Low renders the set as soft blobs, high resolves the hair around its edge.
React: How much the picture pulls the seed around. The set leans toward whatever the clip is doing without the footage ever being drawn.
Tint: Where the palette starts on the wheel.
Spread: How fast the palette cycles through the escape bands. Narrow is one colour family in relief, wide runs the whole spectrum out through the arms.
Glow: Light thrown along the band edges, which is what picks the filigree out of the field.
Speed: Rate of the effect motion. Centre is the authored speed, hard left a tenth of it.

Pairs well with Julia Morph