Hot Air Balloons Swizzled

Photos taken at The 2nd Putrajaya, Malaysia Hot Air Balloon Fiesta 2010 Swizzled. Enjoy.

Creating High Level Shader Language (HLSL) pixel shaders

To create the pixel shaders used in the Swizzler, knowledge of HLSL is necessary. HLSL is quite similar to C at first glance, but it has a lot of fundamental differences. A useful tool for writing shaders is Shazzam.



Shazzam will allow you to easily compile and preview the shader and also automatically generates C# and VB code for easy integration into your project. Here's a brief HLSL tutorial for you beginners out there.

Tinting and Sepia Effect

It's pretty easy and straightforward to apply monochrome tinting using the Swizzler. One of the most famous monochrome effects that is widely used is the sepia effect.

Lomo Effect

The Lomo is a type of camera that can produce oversatured photos with a vignette effect and also other effects with different lenses. Here's how to reproduce the Lomo effect using the Swizzler.

 

 

The Swizzler 0.8 Release

 

 

Download:

• ifile mirror
• MediaFire mirror 

New in this version:

Video Effects and Transitions Showcase

Video and transition effects showcase. The transitions cycle alphabetically in order so all of them are shown. I only applied a few shader effects later on. Sorry about the low framerate (I really need a new machine), but it only stutters during recording. Even my 3 year old Dell laptop can run the application at full speed smoothly for full 1080p HD video at a full screen resolution of 1280 x800. I'll try to upload a smoother video when I get my hands on some real hardware. Till then, enjoy.

Version 0.8 will be released soon.

The Swizzler 0.72 Effects Showcase Video

The video is finally up. I recorded this using my 3 year old Dell Inspiron laptop sporting only a Mobility Radeon X1400. The framerate for recording is kind of low because of my low specs, but the application can process full HD video (1080p) at full speed. Check it out.

The Swizzler 0.72 public beta release download

The swizzler 0.72 latest stable public beta is now available for download:

[Download Here]


New features in this version:

• Working playlist controls
• Transition effects now implemented
• Shader effects can be implemented simultaneously with transition effects
• Transition effects and transition time can be changed individually for each clip. Just select the clip in the playlist and change the settings. The program will remember them.
• Picture display time however, is universal. It can be changed at any time by changing the value in the settings box.
• CPU effects for speed comparisons between GPU processing and CPU processing  ;)
• For best results, make sure the transition time is less than the clip / picture duration.
• For even better results, use videos/images of the same resolution.

The Swizzler 0.7 public beta coming soon.

New Features:

• Implemented transition effects (for both video and photo)
• 20+ new transition effects
• 30+ GPU accelerated shader effects
• Also included 4 CPU generated effects for speed comparison
• Shuffle works with transitions
• The default value for transition time is 2secs but can be set individually
• Photo slideshow display time is universal

Features:

• Video player (up to full 1080p HD video supported)
• Photo slideshow viewer
• Able to queue videos and pictures in the same playlist
• Supports all media formats supported by windows media player
• Can open multiple files at once. Select multiple files while opening
• 30+ GPU accelerated special effects
• Some effects parameters can be controlled using slider
• Parameter maximum and minimum values can be changed using text boxes under slider
• 20+ GPU accelerated transition effects
• Drag video window to move around
• Right click video window to maximize
• 3 play modes: Repeat single, Loop and Shuffle
• Double click on playlist item to play

The Swizzler 0.1a Download

[Also featured on The Vortex Electrica Blog ]


The Swizzler (currently version 0.1alpha) (edit: it's not really alpha as it's stable and working. I just named it alpha because it's a very early version (this is the first release) and there is much more to come) is a GPU accelerated windows media player application capable of applying special effects to high quality video (up to full 1080p HD video has been tested to run smoothly) System requirements are windows, .NET framework 3.5 sp1 (installed if you have the latest windows update). It is now available for preview download here.