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Liquid effect

Liquid Displace

Liquid Displace is a liquid video effect in FRCTL, the browser VJ studio. Slow molten waves that bend the photo.

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 Liquid Displace 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 with the triangle's edges bent into soft waves and the colours shifted bluer — Liquid Displace, default settings

What Liquid Displace does

Two crossed sine fields push the picture sideways and up and down at once, so straight lines turn into slow, rolling S-bends that drift across the frame. Frequency packs more bends in, Displace sets how far they swing, and Channel bleeds the colours toward a blue-red-green swap. Direction picks which way the crests travel.

Using Liquid Displace

Where it works: A gentle heat-haze wobble for cover art and slow intros, because the bend is small enough that type and faces stay readable. It also sits well under a vocal breakdown, where heavier warps fight the singer.
With the music: Nothing here listens to the track, so give it a source. B2 (sub bass) on Displace makes the bends swell with the low end, and a slow beat-synced LFO on Channel rolls the colour swap in and out every four bars.
Starting point: Displace at centre, Frequency a quarter, Channel hard left, then raise Displace until straight edges start to roll.

Controls

Displace: Wave displacement amplitude.
Frequency: Wave spatial frequency.
Channel: BRG channel shuffle strength.
Direction: Which way the waves run.
Speed: Rate of the effect motion. Centre is the authored speed, hard left a tenth of it.

Pairs well with Liquid Displace