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Liquid effect

Oil Slick

Oil Slick is a liquid video effect in FRCTL, the browser VJ studio. Thin-film interference rainbows ripple over noisy thickness maps.

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 Oil Slick 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 washed in saturated rainbow oil-film colours of cyan, yellow and magenta — Oil Slick, default settings

What Oil Slick does

Paints thin-film interference colours over the picture, the rainbow you see on a puddle of petrol, following a noisy thickness map that drifts slowly. The film is strongest toward the centre and fades out toward the edges. Thickness sets how large the colour patches are, Film how saturated they get, Spread how far from the centre the slick reaches, and Tint where the rainbow starts.

Using Oil Slick

Where it works: Rave-flyer covers and bright social loops where the art needs a colour overhaul more than distortion. No pixels move, so logos and type keep their exact shape.
With the music: With B2 (sub bass) on Spread, the slick grows out from the centre on each sub note and pulls back after. A slow free-running LFO on Tint keeps the rainbow drifting through the wheel.
Starting point: Thickness a quarter, Film centre, Spread three-quarters, Tint hard left, then raise Thickness until the patches break into finer bands.

Controls

Thickness: Noise scale on the film thickness field.
Film: Iridescent spectrum saturation vs source.
Spread: How far the slick covers from the center.
Tint: Where the interference rainbow starts on the wheel.
Speed: Rate of the effect motion. Centre is the authored speed, hard left a tenth of it.

Pairs well with Oil Slick