Effects Pipeline
Ghost Arcade includes 89+ real-time visual effects across 16 categories. Effects are applied per-layer through a drag-and-drop chain system that lets you build complex visual treatments by combining simple, focused effects in sequence.
How Effects Work
Every layer in Ghost Arcade has its own independent effect chain. To add an effect, open the effects panel for a layer and browse or search the effect library. Click an effect to add it to the bottom of the chain. Each effect in the chain processes the output of the one above it, so order matters.
Reorder effects by dragging them up or down in the chain. The layer content enters at the top, passes through each effect from top to bottom, and the final result is what appears on the canvas. This sequential processing means you can get very different results by rearranging the same set of effects.
Each effect has its own parameter controls that appear when you expand it in the chain. Parameters are specific to each effect type and update in real time as you adjust them. Every effect also shares a common set of controls for mix level and bypass.
Common Effect Parameters
While each effect has unique parameters, every effect in the chain shares these standard controls:
- Mix / Intensity — Controls how strongly the effect is applied, from 0 (no effect, original image passes through) to 1 (full effect). This lets you dial in subtle treatments or blend between the processed and unprocessed signal.
- Bypass Toggle — Temporarily disables the effect without removing it from the chain. The effect is skipped during processing but retains all its parameter values. Useful for A/B comparison to see what a specific effect contributes to the overall look.
- Parameter Ranges — All numeric parameters have defined minimum and maximum values displayed alongside their sliders. Hover over a parameter name to see its range and default value. Double-click a slider to reset it to the default.
Effect Categories
All 89+ effects are organized into 16 categories. The effect browser lets you filter by category or search by name.
Distortion
Break apart and rearrange pixels. Pixel sort reorders pixels by brightness along rows or columns for that iconic databend look. Glitch introduces block corruption and channel shifting. Displacement uses a source image or noise to push pixels around. Wave, ripple, and fractal warp apply smooth or chaotic spatial deformation.
Color Grading
Shape the color and tone of your layers. HSL adjust gives per-channel control over hue, saturation, and lightness. Curves provides precise tonal control with a spline editor. LUT applies lookup table color transforms for cinematic grading. Temperature and tint shift the overall warmth or color cast.
Blur
Soften, smear, and defocus. Gaussian blur is the standard smooth blur. Radial blur spins from a center point. Motion blur streaks in a single direction. Zoom blur rushes outward from a focal point. Bokeh simulates the characteristic shapes of out-of-focus highlights from camera lenses.
Stylize
Transform layers into graphic or illustrated styles. Posterize reduces color depth for flat graphic looks. Halftone and dot screen convert images to print-style dot patterns. Edge detect isolates outlines. Sketch and crosshatch simulate hand-drawn rendering.
Generate
Create visual elements from scratch. Noise generates Perlin, simplex, or random static. Gradient produces smooth color transitions. Pattern, grid, and stripes create geometric textures that can be animated and used as source material or blended over existing layers.
Keying
Remove backgrounds and isolate subjects. Chromakey removes green or blue screen backgrounds with adjustable tolerance and spill suppression. Luma key removes pixels based on brightness, useful for isolating bright elements against dark backgrounds. Alpha matte uses another layer as a transparency mask.
Light & Glow
Add luminous atmosphere. Bloom bleeds bright areas outward for a dreamy feel. God rays cast volumetric light shafts from a source point. Lens flare simulates camera artifacts. Glow wraps subjects in soft light. Light leak overlays analog film exposure artifacts.
Warp
Bend and fold space. Kaleidoscope reflects the image into symmetric segments. Mirror flips along configurable axes. Fisheye, barrel, and pincushion apply lens-style curvature. Swirl twists the image around a center point with adjustable radius and angle.
Atmosphere
Add environmental texture and mood. Fog fades edges into a color wash. Vignette darkens the border area for focus. Film grain overlays organic noise. Scanlines and CRT simulate retro display artifacts with adjustable line spacing, curvature, and chromatic aberration.
Text & Pattern
Convert imagery into typographic and geometric representations. ASCII art replaces pixels with characters based on brightness. Matrix rain overlays cascading character streams. Tile and mosaic break the image into repeated or averaged blocks.
3D
Add dimensional depth to 2D layers. Depth of field blurs areas based on a simulated focal plane. Parallax shifts layers at different rates to create a sense of physical depth. Pseudo-3D extrusion gives flat elements a stacked, extruded appearance.
Depth
Apply effects that vary based on depth information. Z-blur applies variable blur intensity across depth ranges. Depth fog fades distant areas into a color. Depth color grade shifts hue, saturation, or brightness based on distance from camera, useful for creating atmospheric perspective.
Trails
Leave traces of motion over time. Echo composites previous frames with decay. Motion trail smears moving elements along their path. Persistence holds bright pixels for a configurable duration, creating long-exposure-style streaks from any animated source.
Feedback
Route a layer back into itself for recursive visual complexity. Video feedback zooms, rotates, and re-composites the output into the input, generating infinite tunnel and fractal-like patterns. Recursive buffer accumulates frames with transformation. Delay offsets timing for rhythmic visual echoes.
Tips for Working with Effects
- Effects stack across layers. The final composite is built from all visible layers, each with their own effect chain. You can split complex looks across multiple layers instead of piling everything onto one chain.
- Use bypass to A/B test. Toggle individual effects on and off to hear what each one contributes. This is the fastest way to understand how your chain is shaping the final output.
- Keep chains short for performance. Every effect in the chain adds a render pass. For live performance at 60fps, aim for 3–5 effects per layer. If you need more complexity, distribute effects across multiple layers.
- Combine subtle effects for complex looks. Instead of pushing a single effect to extremes, layer several effects at low mix values. A touch of film grain, a gentle vignette, and a slight color shift together create more nuanced results than any one effect at full intensity.
- Order matters. Applying blur before edge detect produces soft outlines. Applying edge detect before blur produces smeared lines. Experiment with reordering to discover new looks from the same set of effects.
- Feedback and trails are GPU-intensive. Effects in the Feedback and Trails categories maintain frame buffers over time. They produce stunning results but consume more memory than single-frame effects. Use one or two per composition at most during live performance.