Effects

Effects are timeline layers. They process the image produced by your scene and by effects below them.

TL;DR

• Order matters. Lower tracks are processed first. Higher tracks process the result.
• Move effects up/down when the result feels wrong.
• Depth effects run before color effects.
• Object effects are composed before global effects.
• New projects use the layered effects engine since Banger.Show 5.0.16.

How effects are applied

Banger.Show renders in this order:

1. Scene objects, images, videos, text, lights, and backgrounds.
2. Object effects and depth effects.
3. Global effects from lower tracks to higher tracks.

That means an effect higher on the timeline sees everything below it as input.

Common order examples

Bloom → Brightness

Bloom reacts to the original bright pixels. Brightness changes the bloomed result.

Brightness → Bloom

Brightness changes the image first. Bloom reacts to that adjusted image. Darkening before Bloom can reduce the glow; brightening before Bloom can create more glow.

Pixelation → Noise

Pixelation makes blocky pixels. Noise is added on top as fine grain.

Noise → Pixelation

Noise is pixelated too, creating larger noisy blocks.

Effect types

Global effects affect the full frame: Bloom, Brightness/Contrast, Color Grading, VHS, Noise, Pixelation, Vignette, and similar effects.

Object effects belong to scene objects. For example, object glow is created before later global effects, so Color Grading or Bloom can still change it.

Depth effects use 3D scene depth. SSAO is the main example. These run before global color effects.

Effect reference

Rain overlay

Add Rain from Effects → Texture to make your scene look like it is behind wet glass. Rounded droplets and flowing trails refract the full composition, including artwork, videos, text, and earlier effects. Rain is available only in projects using the layered effects engine.

• Amount controls the droplet layers and how wet the glass looks.
• Speed controls droplet motion; zero freezes the glass pattern.
• Drop size controls the size of the droplets and trails.
• Refraction controls how strongly droplets distort the scene.
• Blur controls the defocus behind the glass; trails remain clearer.
• Opacity mixes the wet-glass result with the original scene.
• Color tints the droplets and trails, not the entire scene. White leaves their original color unchanged.

All controls support keyframes. Amount or Opacity at zero leaves the scene unchanged. With Color set to white, setting both Refraction and Blur to zero also bypasses the effect. The glass is already wet when the clip begins, with no warm-up.

Rain uses the same droplet field as the Rain background shader, but processes your scene instead of requiring an uploaded background image. It is easiest to see over detailed artwork or footage; a flat color has nothing to refract.

Object motion blur

Add Motion Blur from an object's effects list to smear it the way a film camera would while it moves. It works on any object that supports object effects, in both 2D and 3D mode.

Motion Blur follows the object's real movement: keyframed or audio-reactive position, rotation, and scale, Auto Rotate, and camera movement. Spinning objects blur along curved arcs. The smear spreads on both sides of the object's current position, like a film camera's shutter. A still object is left unchanged.

• Intensity sets the shutter length. 100% matches a classic 180° film shutter; higher values give longer smears.
• Quality sets the maximum number of blur samples. Short movements use fewer samples automatically.
• Mix blends the blurred result with the original object.

Intensity and Mix support keyframes and audio reactivity.

Effect order matters: place Motion Blur after Shadow, Stroke, or Glow to smear them together with the object.

Motion Blur also blurs the animation inside Shader backgrounds, objects with a shader material, Sparkles, Ferrofluid, Pulsar, Spectre, and Circle, including audio-reactive motion. It renders that object several times within the shutter, so it costs more than blurring movement alone: Quality sets how many renders it uses. Very fast motion can show separate copies instead of a smooth smear; raise Quality or lower Intensity.

While the editor preview is playing, Motion Blur uses Low quality to keep playback smooth. Paused frames and exports use the Quality you set.

Motion inside other objects, such as Video objects, video backgrounds, waveform bars, or lyrics, is not blurred. They blur only when the object itself or the camera moves. Parts of an object outside the frame do not leave a trail into the frame.

Object trails

Add Trails from an object's effects list to leave fading copies of the object where it was a moment ago. Trails follow keyframed or audio-reactive movement and camera movement. Each copy shows the object as it looks now, so a visualizer or animated object that stays in place leaves no trail.

• Echoes sets how many copies follow the object.
• Spacing sets how many frames apart the copies are. Larger values spread the trail further.
• Opacity sets how visible the nearest copy is.
• Decay fades each following copy more than the one before.
• Blend → Behind draws the copies under the object. Add brightens where copies overlap, which suits glowing objects.

Echoes, Spacing, Opacity, and Decay support keyframes and audio reactivity.

Trails are created before the object's other effects, so Glow, Stroke, Shadow, and Motion Blur apply to every copy. With Trails on, Motion Blur smears each copy along its movement but not the animation inside it.

Shader backgrounds and video spheres fill the frame, so Trails are not available for them.

Layered effects engine

Since Banger.Show 5.0.16, new projects use the layered effects engine. It follows timeline order more predictably, especially when multiple effects overlap.

Older projects keep the legacy renderer so existing visuals do not unexpectedly change. If you manually migrate an older project to layered effects, some looks may differ slightly.