Lumit v0.4.0

The second half of the node graph is built, and an entire composition can be built within the node graph, with both branching and merging. The audio workspace has a all new audio timeline, containing only audio and allowing for more complex audio work. The camera has been overhauled to fix issue with it’s transform properties, and provide additional controls. And finally the viewer has been rebuilt to allow for multiple items open. There are also a couple of new effects, and several fixes.

Still beta, so please test and report anything that isn’t right so that we can clean it all up before the next release. Future releases will likely focus more on cleaning up and QoL items to aim for the main release, so if there’s something missing or helpful we can add please tell us!

What is new

Node graphs

• A node graph is now a form of composition. Composition ▸ New node graph (or the project panel’s menu) makes one, with Read boxes bringing footage and comps in, an Output box at the end, and wires that branch and merge in-between. This is built from the proposal in #106 (requested by @Airyzz).
• Merge and Switch boxes. Merge lays one picture over another with a blend mode and opacity, and Switch shows whichever of its inputs the Index says, so a driver or a keyframe can flick between pictures.
• Any effect or driver is a box, so its rows keyframe, take expressions and take wires exactly as they do on a layer. Points wires work inside a graph too.
• Apply a node graph to a layer as an effect. The layer’s picture goes in as the graph’s first Input, the graph’s other Inputs become the effect’s rows, and the Output is what comes back out.
• Time inside a graph. Echo, Motion blur, Datamosh, Posterize time and the accumulation motion blur all read their input box at the times they need, and a new Time offset box shows its input shifted in time.
• Expressions can read a graph’s Input by name with input("Name").
• Sound comes through a graph’s Read boxes.
• Precomp layers can be retimed. Retime on a precomp maps the nested comp’s time the way it does on footage.

The Audio timeline

• The Audio workspace has its own timeline, built for mixing. Every row is a track with mute, solo, an fx switch, a twirl onto Volume and its own effects rack, and a Wave or Spectral display option on the right.
• Tracks hold clips. Trim them, slide them, drag one onto another track, overlap two for a crossfade, drag the top corners for fades, and right click for the five fade shapes or a custom curve. Each clip has its own gain line and its own effects.
• In the layer Timeline, a comp that has been edited in the Audio timeline shows a Sound mix row at the bottom with the audio layers folded behind it. Double click it to open the Audio workspace, or right click to convert the mix to a precomp.
• Fifteen built-in audio effects: Gain, Stereo width, EQ, Graphic EQ, Compressor, Limiter, Gate, Distortion, Delay, Reverb, Chorus, Phaser, Tremolo, Vibrato, and Wah.
• The Audio level node has a Source row: This comp, Layer, or Clip, with Peak and High outputs beside the two it had.
• Volume keyframes can be deleted and edited in graph view.
• A Detach audio button on any row that is still a picture too, it cannot be edited in the audio timeline until it is detached from it’s video source.

The camera

• One/two-node cameras and camera settings dialogue under the Layer menu.
• Depth of field renders.
• Added the visibility switch on camera rows.
• The camera tools work in the new model, plus a unified camera tool, and 3D views with wireframes from the view picker on the Viewer bar.
• Projects saved before this open with the camera ported, with no visual changes.

Viewers

• Open as many Viewers as you like from the Window menu, each on its own comp. The Timeline, effect controls, node graph, and Audio panel all follow whichever view you last selected.
• A lock for each view, keeping its picture visible while you open another composition.
• Each view carries its own magnification, channel, and exposure, unless Share view options is ticked.
• Compare two views as a wipe or a split screen with a draggable divider.

Effects

• Pixel sort, after the Pixel Sorter plugin for After Effects. Runs of pixels between Min and Max are put in order along their row or column, sorted by red, green, blue, luminance, hue, or saturation, with Stretch and Mirror span modes (requested by @airyz).
• Mood lighting under Stylise. Soft coloured light over the picture, with evolution (requested by @scrutielicious).
• Glow gets a Falloff slider that gathers the light into a bright core with a faint reach, and chromatic aberration on the glows halo.
• The shake’s motion blur has a Samples control, from 2 to 64 (issue reported by @requa_).

Smaller things

• Moving the pointer across a clip’s thumbnail in the project panel scrubs it, and a sound file gets a play button to preview audio.
• Layer ▸ New shortcuts added.
• A new layer lands directly above the selected layer rather than at the top of the stack.
• Ctrl+Shift+D and the razor leave the second half selected instead of the first.
• The shader editor has syntax highlighting for WGSL, and its border and text alignment are fixed (with fixes from @Airyzz in #134).
• OFX plugins now show only the controls they mark as visible, in the plugin’s own page order, and are told when a value changes, so a control the plugin shows later turns up when it should (issue reported by @requa_).

Performance

• Footage wider or taller than 8192 pixels came out blank. It now decodes, and has reduced memory usage.
• The waveform lanes in the Audio workspace draw in one call, which is significantly faster.
• Driver evaluation reuses its parameter arenas rather than allocating every frame (with fixes from @maseckt in #130).
• Expressions have limits on operations, string size, and array and map size, so a runaway expression in a project can’t eat all your memory (with fixes from @maseckt in #133).
• Lumit now keeps note of memory a render uses on the card and in RAM, with budgets read from the machine, and eases before it runs out: it stops filling the cache, and hands work to the card sooner. Settings ▸ Preview and cache shows both budgets, how full they are, and how many requests were dismissed.
• Motion blur samples are combined one at a time rather than all held at once, so 32 samples at 4K no longer keep 2 GB of finished pictures.
• A particle layer under extreme retime could stall the render, and shader caches grew without bound as you typed. Both are bounded now.

Fixed

• OFX plugins failed on clips bigger than 1080p with “does not fit a ring slot” (reported by @requa_).
• Hidden OFX parameters were drawn anyway, and changing a value never reached the plugin (reported by @requa_).
• Volume keyframes couldn’t be deleted (reported by @electricfx).
• The playhead jumped a few frames at a time in adaptive playback rather than moving smoothly.
• Dropping footage from the project panel below the top row was two undo steps.
• Project files, OCIO configs, EXRs and roto sidecars are read with size ceilings, so a malformed or malicious file is refused (from the audit by @maseckt in #132).
• Plugin brokers use unguessable names and a handshake, so another program on the machine can’t pose as Lumit or as a plugin, and an OFX plugin has a memory quota.

Before you update

• A retimed layer is now silent. Before this it wasn’t wired, so a retimed layer’s sound played at its original speed.
• A layer with its fx switch off no longer applies audio plugins, and a hosted audio plugin runs at the export’s sample rate rather than always at 48 kHz.
• The camera model has changed. Old projects are converted when they open and should look the same, but if a camera shot looks off after updating please report it.
• On Flatpak, Lumit now sees your home folder and removable drives rather than the whole filesystem. A drive mounted elsewhere needs a flatpak override.

Known gaps

• Viewers on a second monitor are not implemented until Flutter’s windowing API is stable.
• A node’s box keyframes don’t show in the Timeline yet, and a graph placed as a precomp has its Inputs in the engine but not on the layer’s rows. Both are next.
• Mood lighting’s digital and streaks variants are not built.
• The Audio timeline has no buses or sends yet, every rack is an insert.

Thanks very much for reading, and for all the reports and requests that went into this one. Have a great time with it <33 I’ll possibly be able to get one small fix with any bugs found out in the next few days, however from the middle of this week I will be gone until the 4th of October, during which I cannot work on Lumit.