Colour Fade Node

The Colour-Fade effect allows you to animate a change in colours for an element in your scene.

The Colour-Fade node works a lot like the Colour-Override node, in that it allows you to replace the palettes used by elements in your scene with different palettes, and to replace individual colours with different colours. But it also has a “Fade” function, that has a value between 0 and 100, which interpolates between the original colours and the replacement colours. Hence, by animating this function to go from 0 to 100 over a couple frames, you can animate the transition between the original colours and the replacement colours.

Connection

To use the Colour-Fade node, simply connect it under the element, effect or composite on which you want to perform a colour fade. The Colour-Fade node will take the image sent to its input (top) port, and output the image with the colour fade applied to it through its output (bottom) port.

Just like the Colour-Override node, the Colour-Fade node works by travelling up the node system to replace the colours in the vector artwork. Hence, it does not work with bitmap images, but it does work with vector images connected to bitmap composites and bitmap effects.

Properties

The Layer Properties for the Colour-Fade node are similar to the Colour-Override node, except that it has a Fade function and does not support overriding textures.

General Properties

Parameter	Description
Name	The name of the node as it appears in the Node View and the Timeline view. Each node must have a name that is unique to its containing group.
Fade	An animatable function for the percentage of interpolation between the input image’s original colours and the override colours. This parameter can be set to any value between 0 and 100. At 0, the input image preserves its original colours. At 100, the input image’s colours are fully replaced by the override colours. At 50, the input image’s colour are interpolated halfway towards the override colours.
Colour Interpolation	This allows you to customize how the interpolation between the original colours and the override colours is calculated. By default, colours are interpolated in RGB mode, which means that the red, green and blue values are interpolated from their original values to their override values directly. This may not produce the best results. You can choose between the following colour spaces: RGB (Red, Green & Blue): Interpolates from the original colour’s red, green and blue values to the override colour’s red, green and blue values. HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value): Interpolates from the original colour’s hue, saturation and value to the override colour’s hue, saturation and value. HSL (Hue, Saturation, Lightness): Interpolates from the original colour’s hue, saturation and lightness to the override colour’s hue, saturation and lightness. NOTE This parameter is not related to the colour space management functionalities of Harmony, such as your scene’s colour space or the rendering colour space.
Hue Interpolation	This option allows selecting the type of interpolation used for the hue value and is available when the Colour Interpolation is set to HSL or HSV. The following options are available: Linear: Interpolates the hue value linearly between 0 and 360. Provided for legacy reasons. Circular Shortest: Linear hue value interpolation from the source colour to the destination colour using the shortest distance, passing through 360 to 0, and vice versa if shortest. Circular Clockwise: Clockwise value interpolation, wrapping around 360 to 0 if necessary. Circular Counterclockwise: Counterclockwise value interpolation, wrapping around 0 to 360 if necessary.

Palette Overrides

This section of the Colour-Fade node allows you to fade from the input image’s original palettes to alternate palettes.

For this to work, the colour swatches in the original palette and in the alternate palette must have the same colour IDs. This can be achieved in one of the following ways:

By “cloning” the palette, a new palette is created with swatches that have the same colour IDs. You can modify the colours in a cloned palette without affecting the colours in the original palette. Hence, you can fade from a palette to its clone.

To clone a palette, right-click on that palette in the Palettes list of the Colour view, and select Clone in the context menu.
By “cloning” the original colour swatches to a different palette. This can be useful in the case where you already cloned a palette, but added a new swatch to the original palette. You can clone the new swatch to the cloned palette and give it a different colour if needed.

To clone a colour swatch, right click on that swatch in the Colour view and select Copy in the context menu. Then, select the palette where you want to clone the swatch, right-click in the swatches list and select Paste As Clones in the context menu.

Icon	Parameter	Description
	Add database palette	Allows you to add a palette that is located anywhere in your Harmony Server database to the list of palettes that can be used as overrides. If you’re working on an Harmony Stand Alone scene, this allows you to add a palette that is located in your scene’s environment, job, scene or element palettes to the list of palettes that can be used as overrides. NOTE Typically, a Harmony Stand Alone scene only has environment and job palettes if it was exported from a Harmony Server database with those palettes.
	Add filesystem palette	Allows you to add a palette that is located anywhere in your workstation’s file system to the list of palettes that can be used as overrides.
	Palettes	The list of palettes that can be added to the Whole Palette Overrides list. By default, this list contains all of the scene palettes as well as palettes linked to the elements affected by the Colour-Fade effect. Palettes can also be added using the Add database palette and Add filesystem palette buttons above.
	Delete current palette entry	Removes the currently selected palette from the Whole Palette Overrides list.
	Whole Palette Overrides	The list of palettes that will override the palettes in the input image. When a palette is added to this list, any colour in the input image that has the same colour ID as any colour in one of the palettes in the list will be replaced with the colour in that palette. For example, if your character uses the palette MyCharacter_Day, and you’ve cloned that palette to create an alternate palette for this character named MyCharacter_Night, adding MyCharacter_Night to this list will make the Colour-Fade effect fade all of the colours from MyCharacter_Day to the colours in MyCharacter_Night. You do not need to add the original palette to any list in the Colour-Fade’s layer properties. As long as the colours in the override palette have the same colour IDs as the ones used in the input image, the Colour-Fade node will find the original colours and replace them—see Palette Overrides. To add a palette to this list, select it in the Palettes list, then click on the Add button between the two lists.

Individual Colour Overrides

This section allows you to fade specific colours in the input image to new custom colours.

Icon	Parameter	Description
	Colours Eyedropper	Allows you to pick a colour from the Camera or Drawing views. To do this, click on the icon once, then click on the colour you want to select in the Camera or Drawing view. The colour’s palette will become selected in the Palettes list, and the colour swatch itself will become selected in the Colours list. NOTE If the colour you clicked on is not in one of the palettes listed in the Palettes list, it will not be selected. By default, the Palettes list only list palettes that are used by the input image of the Colour-Fade node, so make sure the node is properly connected to its input image in the Node View.
	Colours	The list of colours in the palette selected in the Palettes list in the section above. Allows you to select which colour to add to the Individual Colour Overrides list.
	Add	Adds the selected colour from the Colours list to the Individual Colour Overrides list.
	Delete current entry	Removes the currently selected colour from the Individual Colour Overrides list.
	Individual Colour Overrides	The list of colours in the input image that the Colour-Fade effect must override. To add a colour to the list: Select the palette containing the colour in the Palettes list in the top left corner. Select the colour to override in the Colours list in the bottom left corner. Click on the Add button between the Colours list and the Individual Colour Overrides list. The selected colour will be added to the list. To select what to do with this colour: Click on the drop-down arrow in the Mode column and select one of the following: Override Colour: If this colour is overridden by one of the palettes in the Whole Palette Overrides list, this option will prevent this specific colour from being overridden. Colour Not Visible: Fades out the selected colour. New RGB Only: Fades the selected colour to a new colour with custom red, green and blue values, without affecting the colour’s alpha value. New Alpha Only: Changes the colour’s alpha value without affecting its red, green and blue values. New RGBA: Fades the selected colour to a new colour with custom red, green, blue and alpha values. If you’ve selected New RGB ONly, New Alpha Only or New RGBA, click on the colour swatch in the New column to open a Colour Picker dialog in which you can select the new colour to replace the selected colour with.

Render Selected Colours Only

This section allows you to make the Colour-Fade node make all but a sub-set of colours in the input image fade out.

Icon	Parameter	Description
	Colours Eyedropper	Allows you to pick a colour from the Camera or Drawing views. To do this, click on the icon once, then click on the colour you want to select in the Camera or Drawing view. The colour’s palette will become selected in the Palettes list, and the colour swatch itself will become selected in the Colours list. NOTE If the colour you clicked on is not in one of the palettes listed in the Palettes list, it will not be selected. By default, the Palettes list only list palettes that are used by the input image of the Colour-Fade node, so make sure the node is properly connected to its input image in the Node View.
	Colours	The list of colours in the palette selected in the Palettes list in the section above. Allows you to select which colour to add to the Render Selected Colours Only list.
	Add	Adds the selected colour from the Colours list to the Render Selected Colours Only list.
	Delete current entry	Removes the currently selected colour from the Individual Colour Overrides list.
	Render All / Render Selected Colours Only drop-down	This drop-down allows you to select whether Render Selected Colours Only mode of the Colour-Fade node is enabled: Render All: All colours in the input image are rendered. Render Selected Colours Only: Only the colours in the Render Selected Colours Only list are rendered, regardless of whether or not they are overridden with a different colour. Other colours are filtered out and appear invisible.
	Apply to Matte Ports on Input Effects	If the output image of the Colour-Fade effect is connected to the Matte port of any effect, by default, even if the Colour-Fade effect is configured to only render selected colours,
	Individual Colour Overrides	The list of colours in the input image that the Colour-Fade effect must override. To add a colour to the list: Select the palette containing the colour in the Palettes list in the top left corner. Select the colour to override in the Colours list in the bottom left corner. Click on the Add button between the Colours list and the Individual Colour Overrides list. The selected colour will be added to the list. To select what to do with this colour: Click on the drop-down arrow in the Mode column and select one of the following: Override Colour: If this colour is overridden by one of the palettes in the Whole Palette Overrides list, this option will prevent this specific colour from being overridden. Colour Not Visible: Areas filled with the selected colour become invisible. New RGB Only: Areas filled with the selected colour fade to a new colour with custom red, green and blue values, but the colour’s alpha value remain unchanged. New Alpha Only: Areas filled with the selected colour value fade to the same colour with a different alpha value. New RGBA: Areas filled with the selected colour fade to a new colour with custom red, green, blue and alpha values. If you’ve selected New RGB ONly, New Alpha Only or New RGBA, click on the colour swatch in the New column to open a Colour Picker dialog in which you can select the new colour to replace the selected colour with.