Introducing... Glitch Control

I Love Glitch Art, I Don't Love How Hard It Is To Make

I've loved glitch art for about as long as I've been using computers, but I never actually tried to create any until around 4 or 5 years ago when I made a horror short film for one of my college classes about a serial killer with supernatural glitch-y powers (It's a long story).

At the time, I tried following along with some tutorials, but I was never able to really wrap my head around them. Eventually, I was happy settling for some pre-made animations that I could just slap onto my timeline and call it a day. But, looking back, it's always irked me about how the effects I used weren't quite right. I mean, they were fine... but they weren't great.

When I set out to create Glitch Control, I wanted to build a tool for users to quickly and easily create custom glitch animations that were perfect for their projects. Why spend hours looking for a preset that just so happens to look how you want it to, when you can spend five minutes and get the perfect look on your own?

So, What Does It Do?

Great question! Glitch Control, as of now, has 4 modules that each perform their own effects. These modules are RGB Controls, Displacement, Stretch, and Color Cycle. Let's break it down and explain what each one does.

• RGB Controls - RGB Controls allows you to create the classic RGB split effect with the click of a button and the drag of a slider. Add some animation to the red, green, and blue sliders to achieve a nearly instantaneous glitch effect that will feel both familiar and personal.

• Displacement - If you've ever tried to open a piece of software and accidentally opened it 15 times, the displacement module will feel very familiar to you. The displacement module takes the source image and duplicates it a number of times with a specified spacing on the X and Y axis. You can get some really whacky effects with this one by playing around until you get something you like. I've used it for quick glitch-y fills, to stretch a subway car into some caterpillar looking thing, and tons more.
• Stretch - The stretch module is a great way to add some extra spice to a transition or glitch effect. It takes a specified line of pixels and, as the name implies, stretches it across the screen. Another fun thing to try is animating the stretch position to roll down the screen, acting as a sort of "pulling back the curtain."
• Color Cycle - I can only describe the Color Cycle module as dipping your footage in acid. It distorts the RGB data of your footage on a pixel-by-pixel basis to create some really crazy looking visuals. Just click it on, and tweak the sliders to get some insane footage in seconds.

Modular By Design

If you've seen any of the other posts about Glitch Control, you may be asking what I mean by the "modular framework" I keep referring to. Well, by grouping the effects into separate modules rather than one big culmination it allows you to maintain greater control over which effects do and don't get processed by your computer.

Long story short, if you want to use one effect, but you don't want to use another, you don't have to waste time rendering them both out. Thus, saving you time on your renders and giving you a smoother experience while you edit.

Wanna Give Glitch Control A Spin?

Convinced you need Glitch Control in your life? You can purchase it here.