HiRes Engine Techniques: Moving Glass Pane

Every time I watched CSI: Miami I made a note to someday reproduce the moving glass pane effect used in the opening titles. It was possible before version 1.3.2 of the engine, but required external proccessing to blur a second copy of the sequence. Now the blurring can be done internally making this a simple task.
We will produce the effect using the internal blurring filter and cropping of a copy laid over the original.
Step-by-step:
  • start with the original image/video positioned and sized as you want it.
  • right click on the image and Clear Copy to the tote bag, then paste over the original - this will become the blurred "glass pane".
  • Click the "Blending" tab and select a blurring filter - soften, soften +, or blur.
  • Optionally from the "Color Proc" tab alter the color or bring up the brightness.
  • Click on the "Timing" tab and set the framerate and duration of the composite. Also set the duration of the top layer (the "glass pane") to the same time, and click on "create" in the transition box.
  • Now click on the "Positioning" tab, we should be at time index 0. Press the control (Ctrl) key, and drag one edge of the pane back - for the example this was the left edge brought to the right.
  • Now set the time index to the last frame, the controls will reactivate when you are on the correct frame.
  • Ctrl drag the opposite edge the opposite but equal direction.
In the example we also added two moving translucent (opacity=20, thickness=6) lines to the edges and offset the blurred image slightly to give the appearance of refraction as the pane moves.
Other things that couild be done are sheen (static or moving translucent white streaks) or reflections (the camera crew maybe?)
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