Skip to content

Display Widget Effects

Effects are used to apply a variety of fancy graphical effects to the contents of a display widget. The most commonly used effects are dmd and color_dmd which create the look of hardware DMDs (in version of MPF prior to 0.50, these were previously their own widget types). Multiple effects may be combined in a chain, however, effects can be CPU/GPU intensive!

Required settings

The following sections are required for the effects setting of the display widget:

type:

Single value, type: one of the options listed below.

The type: setting controls which effect will be loaded to process the display widget output. Here is the list of available effect types (the settings for each type are found below):

  • anti_aliasing applies a very basic anti-aliasing
  • color_channel_mix swaps color channels
  • color_dmd creates an RGB DMD look
  • colorize applies a color tint
  • dmd creates a monochrome DMD look
  • dot_filter creates a dot filter to look like individual round dots/pixels (similar to a DMD)
  • flip_vertical vertically flips the contents
  • gain applies a gain (brightness) adjustment
  • gamma applies a gamma correction
  • glow applies a pulsing glow effect
  • horizontal_blur Gaussian blurs horizontally
  • invert_colors inverts the colors
  • linear_gradient applies a linear gradient tint
  • monochrome converts the image to monochrome/grayscale
  • pixelate pixelates the image
  • reduce reduces the number of bits per color channel (reducing the number of resulting colors)
  • scanlines displays flickering scanlines (like an old CRT)
  • vertical_blur Gaussian blurs vertically

Settings for anti-aliasing effect:

The anti-aliasing effect does not have any settings.

Settings for color_channel_mix effect:

order:

List, type: int. Default: [1, 2, 0]

The new sorted order of the rgb channels. The list must contain an arrangement of the list [0, 1, 2].

Settings for color_dmd effect:

dot_filter:

Single value, type: boolean (Yes/No or True/False). Default: True

Enables the "dot" look. Setting this to False means that the color DMD will not have dots.

dots_x:

Single value, type: int. Default: 128

The number of DMD dots in the x direction.

dots_y:

Single value, type: int. Default: 32

The number of DMD dots in the y direction.

blur:

Single value, type: float. Default: 0.1

This is the radius of the "glow" of the pixels (when using dot_filter: True). This is expressed as a decimal relative to the size of the pixels. The default is 0.1 which means there's a 10% glow radius.

dot_size:

Single value, type: float. Default: 0.7

The size of the individual "dots", expressed as a decimal relative to what their full size would be. A value of 1.0 will mean that each pixel will fill 100% of the space (e.g. no space in between), and it won't really look like separate pixels.

background_color:

Single value, type: kivycolor. Default: 191919ff

The background color of the display (the color of the pixels when they're "off"). Note: this is a color with alpha channel value.

gain:

Single value, type: float. Default: 1.0

A numeric multiplier that will be applied to every color channel of every pixel in this color DMD widget (brightness).

For example, if you set gain: 1.2, then a pixel on this color DMD's source display that has a color of (100, 100, 100) will be drawn with the color (120, 120, 120). (Each element multiplied by 1.2). Note that values above 255 will be capped at 255.

The default is 1.0 which means that the original colors are unchanged. You can play with this to act as a "poor man's" brightness control, but values too far above or below 1.0 will probably look weird.

shades:

Single value, type: int. Default: 0

This is the number of shades each color channel will be reduced to. The default is 0 which disables it and uses the full 256 shades per color channel, meaning the color DMD widget will use have 256 shades each of red, green, and blue. (In other words, the default is standard 24-bit color for a total of 16.7m colors.)

Note that this setting can produce weird results depending on your source content. If you want an old school look, you might have better luck creating your videos and graphics with fewer colors and then not setting the shades option here.

Also note if you want to use full color (no shade reduction), it's better to set this to 0 and not 256 since 0 will disable this processing which will be less overhead.

Settings for colorize effect:

tint_color:

Single value, type: kivycolor. Default: ff66ff00

The color to tint the pixels in the display.

Settings for dmd effect:

dot_filter:

Single value, type: boolean (Yes/No or True/False). Default: True

Enables the "dot" look. Setting this to False means that the DMD will not have dots.

dots_x:

Single value, type: int. Default: 128

The number of DMD dots in the x direction.

dots_y:

Single value, type: int. Default: 32

The number of DMD dots in the y direction.

blur:

Single value, type: float. Default: 0.1

This is the radius of the "glow" of the pixels (when using dot_filter: True). This is expressed as a decimal relative to the size of the pixels. The default is 0.1 which means there's a 10% glow radius.

dot_size:

Single value, type: float. Default: 0.7

The size of the individual "dots", expressed as a decimal relative to what their full size would be. A value of 1.0 will mean that each pixel will fill 100% of the space (e.g. no space in between), and it won't really look like separate pixels.

background_color:

Single value, type: kivycolor. Default: 191919ff

The background color of the display (the color of the pixels when they're "off"). Note: this is a color with alpha channel value.

gain:

Single value, type: float. Default: 1.0

A numeric multiplier that will be applied to every color channel of every pixel in this color DMD widget (brightness).

For example, if you set gain: 1.2, then a pixel on this color DMD's source display that has a color of (100, 100, 100) will be drawn with the color (120, 120, 120). (Each element multiplied by 1.2). Note that values above 255 will be capped at 255.

The default is 1.0 which means that the original colors are unchanged. You can play with this to act as a "poor man's" brightness control, but values too far above or below 1.0 will probably look weird.

shades:

Single value, type: int. Default: 0

This is the number of shades each color channel will be reduced to. The default is 0 which disables it and uses the full 256 shades per color channel, meaning the color DMD widget will use have 256 shades each of red, green, and blue. (In other words, the default is standard 24-bit color for a total of 16.7m colors.)

Note that this setting can produce weird results depending on your source content. If you want an old school look, you might have better luck creating your videos and graphics with fewer colors and then not setting the shades option here.

Also note if you want to use full color (no shade reduction), it's better to set this to 0 and not 256 since 0 will disable this processing which will be less overhead.

luminosity:

List, type: float. Default [.299, .587, .114]

This defines the luminosity factor for each color channel. The value for each channel must be between 0.0 and 1.0.

dot_color:

Single value, type: kivycolor. Default: ff5500

The color of the dots in the DMD. Defaults to classic DMD orange.

Settings for dot_filter effect:

dots_x:

Single value, type: int. Default: 128

The number of dots in the x direction.

dots_y:

Single value, type: int. Default: 32

The number of dots in the y direction.

blur:

Single value, type: float. Default: 0.1

This is the radius of the "glow" of the pixels. This is expressed as a decimal relative to the size of the pixels. The default is 0.1 which means there's a 10% glow radius.

dot_size:

Single value, type: float. Default: 0.7

The size of the individual "dots", expressed as a decimal relative to what their full size would be. A value of 1.0 will mean that each pixel will fill 100% of the space (e.g. no space in between), and it won't really look like separate pixels.

background_color:

Single value, type: kivycolor. Default: 191919ff

The background color of the display (the color of the pixels when they're "off"). Note: this is a color with alpha channel value.

Settings for flip_vertical effect:

The flip_vertical effect does not have any settings.

Settings for gain effect:

gain:

Single value, type: float. Default: 1.0

A numeric multiplier that will be applied to every color channel of every pixel in the display widget (brightness).

For example, if you set gain: 1.2, then a pixel on this display that has a color of (100, 100, 100) will be drawn with the color (120, 120, 120). (Each element multiplied by 1.2). Note that values above 255 will be capped at 255.

The default is 1.0 which means that the original colors are unchanged. You can play with this to act as a "poor man's" brightness control, but values too far above or below 1.0 will probably look weird.

Settings for gamma effect:

gamma:

Single value, type: float. Default: 1.0

Sets the gamma factor of the effect.

Settings for glow effect:

blur_size:

Single value, type: float. Default: 0.5

The blur width in pixels

intensity:

Single value, type: float. Default: 0.5

The base intensity of the glow effect

glow_amplitude:

Single value, type: float. Default: 1.0

The amplitude of the pulsing glow. Set to 0 if you want to disable the pulse.

glow_speed:

Single value, type: float. Default: 1.0

The frequency of the glow effect in Hz.

Settings for horizontal_blur effect:

size:

Single value, type: float. Default: 4.0

The blur width in pixels.

Settings for invert_colors effect:

The invert_colors effect does not have any settings.

Settings for linear_gradient effect:

color_stops:

Dictionary, type: float:kivycolor. Default: None

This defines the colors along the gradient. Each key is a floating point number in the range [0.0, 1.0] (inclusive) representing the position along the gradient while the value is the RGBA color at that position. Key values must be written in double quotes, for example: "0.1": ff00ff00

angle:

Single value, type: float. Default: 0.0

The angle of the gradient in degrees. A value of 0.0 produces a horizontal gradient with the first color stop on the right while a value of 90.0 produces a vertical gradient with the first stop on the top and so on.

Settings for monochrome effect:

luminosity:

List, type: float. Default [.299, .587, .114]

This defines the luminosity factor for each color channel. The value for each channel must be between 0.0 and 1.0.

Settings for pixelate effect:

pixel_size:

Single value, type: int. Default: 10

Sets the size of a new 'pixel' in the effect, in terms of number of 'real' pixels.

Settings for reduce effect:

shades:

Single value, type: int. Default: 16

This is the number of shades each color channel will be reduced to. Note that this setting can produce weird results depending on your source content. If you want an old school look, you might have better luck creating your videos and graphics with fewer colors and then not setting the shades option here.

Settings for scanlines effect:

The scanlines effect does not have any settings.

Settings for vertical_blur effect:

size:

Single value, type: float. Default: 4.0

The blur width in pixels.

Something missing or wrong? You can fix it!

This website is edited by people like you! Is something wrong or missing? Is something out of date, or can you explain it better?

Please help us! You can fix it yourself and be an official "open source" contributor!

It's easy! See our Beginner's guide to editing the docs.

Page navigation via the keyboard: < >

You can navigate this site via the keyboard. There are two modes:

General navigation, when search is not focused:

  • F , S , / : open search dialog
  • P , , : go to previous page
  • N , . : go to next page

While using the search function:

  • Down , Up : select next / previous result
  • Esc , Tab : close search
  • Enter : go to highlighted page in the results