Glitch.GUI User Guide
NOTE - This program was designed primarily for working with still-images. This guide will start with the instructions, however, to work with video & then build up from there to working with images. Hah, take that.
To be completely honest, this guide will be best understood if you run the program at the same time and try things out as they come up. It will make everything infinitely more comprehensible.
When you first start the program, you’ll see something very much like this:
Now, let’s take a look at the main console:
Hover the cursor over the control to see a tooltip with information about that item's purpose.
#1 Content information about current task. Interesting to look at, but nothing you’ll interact with. ((Some diagnostic information can be had here.))
#2 is the search-results window. Results gotten from using the filter search (#5) will show here. Double-clicking a result will cause it to be applied as your main filter, as will clicking the ‘Select’ button (#6).
#3 is the filter-category list
#4 is the filter list
#5 is the filter-search field. Enter text here to search for a specific filter. For example, a search for “stutter” will show results of ‘DefStutter’, ‘StutterFilter’, & ‘FrameStoreStutter’, while a search for “xor” will give many, many more results. Search terms are not case-sensitive. NOTE: search will return only results from within whatever category you have the ‘Filter Category’ (#3) set to—-for example, any search performed with the category-field set to ‘New Filter’ will only return a bunch of results that start with “New_this&thatetcetc” You get the idea.
#6 shows the button controls. We’ll get into their functions at greater length elsewhere.
#7 is the currently-active first filter (more about this later).
#8 is the basic menu. Again, we’ll get into their functions at greater length elsewhere.
#9 is the progress bar. The progress bar only moves when using video clips, not stills, and will continue to progress as long as the program is recording; otherwise, it is disabled. When you want it to stop, just click the ‘Stop’ button on the Toolbox window. Once in stop mode, hit ‘Step’ to step to the next frame. This is something you can do if you want to change the filter-settings in the middle of your processed clip while recording–simply press stop, change the settings, then press start again to have the effects change mid-clip.
The first thing I do when starting to work with a new video clip is usually to toggle the 'Repeat' option in the 'Record' dialogue (basic menu, #8). That way, I can sort through filters looking for whatever I want without having to keep restarting the video-clip.
Then, under 'File', click 'Create new art' which will open the 'Start new Animation' dialogue-box. Here you'll choose which clip to work with and where to save it.
Filename Prefix - This is for the filename to be outputted; it gives a unique name for each different video/session. For a video about fish, for example, you would put Fish1 or FishVideos into the field and get a result that looks something like this: Fish1.Video1-Fri.Mar.15.17.44.02.2024-592x352. Notice that it attaches a timestamp–very helpful!
You can also designate how many frames/second to use for the FX-processing used for your clip--this determines how fast the animation is processed on your computer, e.g. how many times to apply the animation per second, not the frame-rate at which it will record. This setting is ignored in video mode.
'Image Delay' is a value you set when using an image to slow down the animation. If you set it to 60 fps and set the image delay animation will look like it is going slower. This is also a setting which is ignored in video mode.
'Record on start' - This is the box you’ll tick when you’re done picking and choosing filters and how to apply them, and you’re ready to commit to recording your processed clip. Ticking this box will cause the 'Record Options' window to pop up (you can also access this dialogue by clicking the 'Rec Settings' button in the Toolbox).
Record Options
Here you'll choose how you want to save your processed clip.
FFMpeg path will only be of interest to you if you need to change the path of the FFmpeg executable; you can (and should) otherwise leave it alone.
The 'Select' button chooses where you want your file to be saved. (Pro-tip: you may find it helpful to create a new folder at this stage to save your .png-sequences into, as it can get messy otherwise)
Codec: choose between x264, x265, and .png—to be saved as either .mp4 or .png sequence.
CRF is the compression used to make the video, and affects the file size. The larger the CRF, the more compressed and smaller file size, but with less quality. These settings are fine as they are.
Leaving your videos at the same frames/second as they were originally is entirely up to you, you can change that here if you want to. Doing so may affect the video synchronization, I dunno.
You can also resize your processed video-clips to whatever dimensions with the 'Stretch' option here.
In the image above, you can see that I’ve chosen to work with a clip called “jjjj.mp4” in my @FOLDER_1 folder, the same folder into which still-images will be auto-saved (more about that later). I’ll be saving my processed clip as a png-sequence into a new folder inside my @FOLDER_1, in its original dimensions.
Once you’re done setting up how and where you’d like your processed clip to be saved, click the ‘Save’ button to save these settings and return to the ‘Start new Animation’ window. Once you hit that ‘Start’ button, the magic begins! A new window pops up, the ‘Display window’, where you can see the results of all your effects applied to your clips. You can close this window if you like and reopen it at any time by clicking the ‘Show/Hide Display Window’ button in the Toolbox.
That’s the most-basic use of the GUI for video-processing right there, with a single filter applied in a no-frills manner. Now let’s start examining those frills and what we can do with them.
In the basic menu (#8), you’ll find a few hidden controls that will allow you to add all kinds of new effects and modifiers to the effects you’ve already applied.
The first thing you’re gonna want to do is to set some of your preferences. Under the ‘File’ pull-down, choose ‘Preferences’:
Ticking the ‘Save Directory Paths’ button is generally a good idea. This setting causes the program to remember the last directory it’s used, so that you don’t have to keep navigating there to save things, etc. It’s just a good time-saver.
If you want to create custom filters (& yes we’ll get into that in a bit) then you’ll need to establish a custom save-file (*.dat) to store them so you can work with them. It’s easier than it sounds: just press the button with the three dots & a new dialogue will pop up:
Call it whatever you like & then press the ‘Save’ button. NOTE: You’ll need to have write-permissions for whatever location you choose, so don’t try using the ‘Program Files’ or ‘Windows’ folders!
The preferences in the fractal-fields are for the filter ‘Low_Fractal’. They have to be precise so if you don’t know what to put here then you probably shouldn’t change anything.
The two color-pickers marked ‘Chroma Key’ are for the ‘New_Layer_0_GreenScreen’ and ‘GreenScreen Opposite’ filters. The box on the left marks the lower RGB and the right selects the upper RGB-value – this is the range used to determine how much of a color to replace in your clips. Remember to click ‘Save’ any time you change this value!
Here’s how to use the Chroma Key/GreenScreen function:
You set layer 0 in the 'Layers Window' to whatever you want to replace the green (or whatever color) with: again, you can use either a still-image or a video-clip.
Then, set the chroma key's RGB-values or leave it the default.
Run your green screen video from the 'Create new Art' dialogue as your main clip, and then select one of the GreenScreen filters from the 'New' filter-category. Hollywood, here you come!
The GreenScreenOpposite filter changes which parts are displayed, reversing the mask to change the green area to black, and replace parts from within the mask with your layer 0 video-clip. It's so much easier for you to see for yourself how it works than it is to try to describe it in Non-Martian.
The ‘Show Debug on Startup’ tickbox is self-explanatory: if you don’t want to see the Debug Console when you start the program, then you’ll untick the box. Dig it. You can call it back up anytime you want from the ‘Window’ pulldown in the main menu (#8) by clicking ‘Show Debug’, and close it any time without interrupting the program by clicking the ‘Exit’ X up in the right corner of the ‘Debug Console’.
Now you’re getting ready to mix it up! There are several ways to apply more than one filter at a time to your processed clips.
The ‘First’ option is the simplest of these, so we’ll start with that. Simply enough, choose the filter that you want to apply first, & then click the ‘First’ button in the Button Controls (#6). The filter you’ve chosen will now appear listed next to (#7) the currently-active first filter listing & will act as a modifier to whatever filter is applied next. Makes sense, right? If you no longer want to use whatever filter as your first, you can set it to another filter & click the ‘First’ button again to change it, or click the ‘Clear’ button (#6) to have no filter set as ‘First’. See, simple.
Some of the filters in the ‘New Filter’ category are designed to work with layers only; they start with “New_Layer_##_this&that”. Layers are extra effects that can be layered into your processed clips; they can be either video-clips or still-images. You can access them by clicking the pull-down menu from ‘Record’ in the basic menu (#8) and selecting ‘Show Layers’. This will give you the ‘Layers Window”:
Your processed clips will have effects applied to them according to the order in which you assign them in the ‘Layers Window’ dialogue, and which of the layer-effects you choose from the ‘New Filter’ options available.
There are 3 active layers that can be used in combination with the New filters. These filters contain the word “layer”, followed by a number representing which layers it uses: 0 for layer 0, 01 for layers 0 and 1, and 012 for all three.
In the example above, you can see that I’m using an image for layer 0 and the other two layers are still unassigned. Filters that work with more than one layer at a time (for instance, New_layer_012_shuffle) won’t work unless you have each of those layers assigned.
A couple of the ‘New’ layers work with green-screen chroma masking
Custom filters can be reloaded between uses of the GUI because they’ve been saved in a .dat-file. They’ll be listed in the ‘Custom’ category in your Filter Category pull-down menu (#3) in the order you’ve created them. Custom filters can use as many filters in combination as you want, and are applied in the order in which you’ve set them.
There are several ways to add filters to your Custom filter:
From the ‘Filter’ pull-down in the basic menu (#8), select ‘Custom Filter’; you can also press Ctrl+C on your keyboard. This will call up the ‘Create Custom Filter’ window. Select your filter from the filter list and then click the ‘Add’ button.
Or, in the main GUI-window, select your filter and click the ‘Add’ button in the button controls (#6). This will call up the ‘Create Custom Filter’ window with your filter added to the list.
Or, search for your filter with the search-field (#5), select your filter from the results window (#2) and click the ‘Custom’ button (#6) to add it to the list.
When you’ve finished adding filters to your new custom filter and putting them in the order that you want, give it a name in that ‘Name’ text-field and then click the ‘Set Filter’ button. It will now appear in your list of custom filters. Hooray!
If you select the filter category ‘Custom’ in the ‘Create Custom Filter’ window as shown above, your custom filters will be listed there, and it will load the different filters from each of them into the listbox as they’re called up. At this point, you can make changes to your custom filter and then click the ‘Update’ button to apply the new settings. You can do this while the program is running.
The red/green/blue checkboxes are to mask out a certain channel when that filter is called in the custom. To use this feature, tick off which color-channel you want to have effected before you click the ‘Add’ button. Newly-added filters will have R, G, &/or B listed next to the filter-name in the list-box to indicate that those channels will not be affected by that filter.
‘Save Playlist’ has nothing to do with audio; this button saves the current list of filters as a playlist that you can load in the ‘Filter Categories’ list (#t3).. Clicking this button will prompt you to name and save your playlist-file; again, you’ll need to have write-permissions so save it somewhere you’ll remember.
Think of it as a storage slot to keep your favorite filters all in one place, where you can move through the filters faster.
The ‘Video Controls’ are only accessible when the video is stopped. You can access these from the basic menu (#8) in the ‘Record’ pulldown menu by clicking ‘Controls’, or by typing Ctrl+X on your keyboard.
In this window, you can drag the scroll bar and hit the ‘Set Pos’ button to jump to that location in your clip. Then, hit ‘Start’ from the Toolbox to resume. You’d do this if you wanted to be able to jump around the video before starting or stopping your recording, while changing which effects are being applied.
We’ll get into more of that later on in this guide, when we discuss using the Toolbox for image-processing.
‘Release stored frames’, which can be found both in the ‘Filter’ pull-down in the main menu (#8) and as the ‘Release’ button in the button controls (#6), resets the filter's stored frames, the same as when you change the filter. Some filters perform calculations across cached frames to get the desired effect; use ‘Clear’ to free up those frames.
In the ‘Audio’ pulldown found in the basic menu (#8), you can find the ‘Mux Audio’ command.
‘Source File’ will not be the clip you’re currently processing, but a saved file (.mov, .mp4, or .mkv formats only) that you’ve already created–so keep in mind that you have to save the file before you can mux the audio back in.
‘Audio to Copy’ will be the vid-clip from which to extract audio, usually the original clip that you used to create your processed video-file. Note that it does have to be a video-format clip.
‘Destination File’ is where you choose the name for the muxed file you’ll be creating. It will be saved as an .mp4 file.
Then, when you’re ready, press the ‘Mux Files’ button to complete the process of mixing your original audio back into your processed video clip–noisy good fun!
In the ‘Tools’ pulldown found in the basic menu (#8), you can find the ‘Rotate’ command. ‘Rotate’ changes only the metadata; it doesn't re-encode the video, so VLC will play it rotated, but if you try to reload it into the GUI it won’t show up as rotated.
So, at long last, we get to the meat of the matter: how to use Glitch.GUI to manipulate still-images. Glad you stuck around!
Glitch.GUI will treat your still-images as video-clips, applying effects to them in an iterative fashion in most cases, as an animation. You can save these animations as video-clips, if you like, as well as specifically-designed still-images.
The process begins the same as for working with video: click ‘Create New Art’ under ‘File’ in the basic menu (#8), select your still-image to process in the ‘Start new Animation’ dialogue and choose an output location for your saved files, then click that ‘Start’ button and you’re off!
Your picture will show up in the ‘Display Window’ as an animated image. Choose your filters and how you’d like to apply them in the same way as you did for video-clips. This is when you’ll start using the ‘Toolbox’ to finetune your application of those filters.
As your still-image cycles through its animation, you can stop it at any time and save the image as it’s currently displayed, with the ‘Stop’ and ‘Save’ buttons. While the animation is stopped, you can progress it forward one frame at a time with the ‘Step’ button, until it reaches the iteration you like best. ‘Save’ it now, or keep altering it by using it as ‘Source’. Clicking the ‘Source’ button will change the image which is being processed, as if you’d started a new animation and used the image currently displayed as your original still-image.
For reference, here’s what it looks like to save a still-image through six steps, using one of the slower filters to better show the progressive iterations:
Next, I’ll take the last image from that sequence and use it as my new ‘source’ (by clicking the ‘Source’ button in the Toolbox, remember?), and apply a new filter to start altering it:
So, that’s how that works.
The ‘Offset Color’ tickbox works with the color-picker box next to it by setting the currently-selected color to be added to the color-values for your image.
So, say you pick RGB(150,150,150) in the color-picker dialog:
…each pixel in the final image will be RGB(150, 150, 150) + RGB(current_value, current_value, current_value); so say the pixel located at position 0,0 is originally colored RGB(25,25,25). Click that tickbox and RGB(150+25, 150+25, 150+25) is the color that pixel will take. Use this if you want to tweak the final colors of your image. Some of these changes can be extreme! Here’s the difference of one step, with and then without the ‘Offset Color’ value of (150,150,150):
The ‘Record’ button works in both still-image and video modes, and will record a video-clip or png-sequence for as long or as short a time as you like, until you press ‘Stop’.
If you wanted to completely change the filter(s) you’re applying in the middle of a video-clip, and you want to choose very precisely where in the video those changes comes, then now is the time to call up the ‘Video Controls’ found by clicking the ‘Controls’ option in the ‘Record’ pulldown in the main menu (#8). You can stop your video with the Toolbox, then navigate to the exact frame using the slider in the ‘Video Controls’, change your filter to the new setting, then start the video again from that position with the new effects applied. You can do this as many times as you like.
The ‘Rec Settings’ button opens the ‘Record Options’ window, the same one found when processing video (i.e. the window that pops up when you tick the ‘Record on Start’ tickbox in the ‘Start new Animation’ window).
And that’s it.
Congratulations, you are now a master of the Glitch.GUI! Thanks for reading this far, and good job!
