Visual filters

Visual transition filters allow you to manipulate text and pictures to create multimedia effects on the screen. You have always been able to use scripts for this but the filters make the effects easier to achieve (no programming - whoopee). Although if you are keen on showing off, you can use the scripts to manipulate the filters. You might, for example, make the effect happen at a certain time or when the mouse moves over the text or picture.

It is most likely that you’ll want to use filters on a picture but you can apply visual effects to text if you put the text in a <div> or <span> tag and specify a height and width.

You can use any one of the pre-defined filter effects:

Filter...	Effect...
Alpha	Sets a uniform transparency level
Blur	Creates the impression of moving at speed
Chroma	Makes a specific colour transparent
DropShadow	Creates a drop shadow
FlipH	Creates a horizontal mirror image
FlipV	Creates a vertical mirror image
Glow	Adds radiance to the outside edges
Grayscale	Greyscales a picture
Invert	Reverses hue, saturation and brightness values
Light	Projects a light source into a picture
Mask	Creates a transparent mask
Shadow	Creates a solid silhouette
Wave	Creates a sine wave distortion
Xray	Shows just the edges

Each filter has a set of optional parameters that define the nature of the effect, for example the colour. You can also chain visual filters together. For example, add a blur and a drop shadow filter.