GENERAL

The Plug-ins Browser shows you all the available standard SCRATCH and third-party effect plug-ins available within SCRATCH. You can create a short list of Favorites or instantiate them quickly from the Recently Used list. The Plug-ins Browser is available from the Matrix / Node / Effects, or Matrix / Fill/Mat / Effects buttons.

PLUG-IN SELECTION

PLUG-IN TREE

This shows all plug-in vendors and the groups of plug-ins they provide. There is the ability to select 'ALL' plug-ins at the top of the tree list, which is the default selection unless one exists in the Most Recently Used List in which case that is used.

SELECTION LIST

The Display Thumbnails button will toggle the plug-ins list on and off, revealing a text based view underneath. By default it is ON.

Thumbnail view

This shows the all the plug-ins from currently selected plug-in group in image form. Where images are not available from the plug-in provider attempts are made to display the actual vendor's image and if not then the default Scratch logo is displayed.

Text view

This contains a text based list of all the plug-ins displayed in the Image List. The plug-in's version number can be obtained here.

FAVORITES AND RECENTLY USED

Favorite plug-ins can be added to this list for faster look up. The list is alphabetically sorted. You can use the Add to Favorites and Delete Favorite buttons to maintain the list.

The Recently Used list is maintained automatically; each time a plug-in is used it is added to the top of the list. When the Plugins Browser is first opened it tries to select the top item Recently Used plug-in first.

Both lists are maintained on the user level, meaning that every SCRATCH user will have its own list of favorite and recently used plug-ins.

PLUG-IN OPTIONS

GLOBAL PRESETS

Settings for a plug-in can be saved as .pls files as explained earlier in this chapter. Presets can be made available from inside the Plugins Browser by saving them in the folder C:\Program Data \Assimilator\Settings\Plugins (on PC), or Library/Application Support/Assimilator/Settings/Plugins (on Mac). When you select a plug-in the Plugins Browser, SCRATCH will check that folder to determine if there are presets available with the selected plugin. If there are, these will show in the Global Presets list section.

Note: Presets are by default stored on in the plugin folder of the current project.You can however navigate to the global plugin folder or copy preset files to the folder through Windows Explorer.

APPLY SELECTION

Clicking the Apply Selection will close the Plugins Browser and open the plug-in parameter menu. If a preset was selected the values of that preset will have been applied.

Tip: You can also double-click a plug-in icon to apply it on the current shot.

PLUG-IN CONFIGURATION

The Plug-in Browser relies on plug-ins being arranged in a proper structure so that it can work out the Vendor, Grouping and the Plug-in Image. This structure is slightly different depending on the type of plug-in.

• SCRATCH NATIVE SPA PLUG-INS - These plug-ins can exists anywhere on the system. See Chapter 10 for more details on SCRATCH's plug-in search methods. If there is also an image present with the same name and a '.tif ' file extension then it will be displayed instead of the standard circle icon.
• OFX PLUG-INS - The structure for OFX plug-ins differ slightly with each Vendor. The general standard is for them to exist in the folder 'C:\Program Files\Common Files\OFX\Plugins '. Depending on how the Vendor has arranged their plug-ins, there can be a folder per plug-in or a single folder with all the plug-ins in it. If Scratch cannot find an image with that name it then tries to find one using the Grouping and then the Vendor names. If all else fails then the standard circle icon is used.