Dust and Scratches Overlay

Everything below can be changed without touching the animation. Hand the list to an agent, or edit the values at the bottom of the component file.

• Density

  density · number

  How dirty the print is, 0 to 1: how many dust specks and hairs flash in each frame, and how heavy the grain is. 0.3 is a well-kept archive print, 0.5 the classic old-film look, 0.9 a reel that has been through a hundred projectors. At 0 only the scratches, weave, flicker and a light grain remain.

  now: 0.5

• Scratches

  scratches · number

  How many vertical scratches take turns running down the picture, 0 to 6. Each comes and goes on its own schedule and drifts slightly sideways while it runs. 3 keeps one to three on screen most of the time; 0 is dust only.

  now: 3

• Weave

  weave · number

  Gate weave, 0 to 1: the whole picture drifting a pixel or two, the way film wanders in an old projector gate. 0.5 is about 1.5 pixels at 1080p, 1 about 3. It moves the stand-in street and the scratches; over exported transparent video it can only move the scratches, so if you build in Remotion, wrap your own clip in the offsets from the exported gateWeave() to weave it too.

  now: 0.5

• Flicker

  flicker · number

  Exposure flicker, 0 to 1: the picture brightening and dimming slightly from frame to frame, like an unevenly printed reel. 0.5 is at most about 4% either way, which reads as film without distracting; 0 holds the exposure steady.

  now: 0.5

• Stage

  stage · boolean

  Draw a stand-in shot, an old city street with a tram, under the texture so the look can be judged on something. Turn it off, with ground off, to export the texture alone on a transparent background and lay it over your own footage.

  now: true

• Ground

  ground · boolean

  Paint the brand's ground colour under the texture when the stand-in street is off. Off leaves the background transparent, which is what you want over your own footage.

  now: false

• Brand

  brand · string

  Brand token id, one of the keys of BRANDS. It tints the stand-in street and colours the dirt: dust is the brand's darkest tone, dirt on the negative its lightest. The default, field, gives a warm faded print with an olive tram.

  now: field