Picture Effects

Television Simulator supports a variety of picture effects that can be applied to the simulated screen. Some of them are characteristics of the screen itself, while others are about the content being displayed.

Each of these effects can be enabled or disabled globally in the configuration file, and some can be overridden on a per-channel basis.

Examples

Disable all effects

autoScale: false
scanlines: false
shadowMask: false
noise: false
blur: false
bezel: none
animateChannelChange: false
changeChannelNoise: false
warmup: false

Trinitron-style CRT

autoScale: true
scanlines: true
shadowMask: aperture-grille
noise: 0.05
blur: 1

`autoScale`

Type: boolean

If enabled, the TV screen will automatically scale to fit the display, maintaining aspect ratio and pixel resolution. true by default.

Keyboard Shortcut

Alt + 7 Alt + 7 toggles automatic scaling on or off.

Usage

Value	Result
`autoScale: false`	Disables automatic scaling.
`autoScale: true`	Enables automatic scaling.

`scanlines`

Type: boolean

Turns scanline effect on or off. This cannot be overridden in channel settings.

Keyboard Shortcut

Alt + 1 Alt + 1 toggles scanlines on or off.

Usage

Value	Result
`scanlines: false`	Disables scanlines.
`scanlines: true`	Enables scanlines.

`shadowMask`

Type: none | aperture-grille | slot-mask | dot-mask | boolean

Turns shadow mask effect on or off. This cannot be overridden in channel settings.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Alt + 4 Alt + 4 toggles the shadow mask on or off. Shift + Alt + 4 Shift + Alt + 4 cycles through the available shadow mask types.

Usage

Value	Result
`shadowMask: false`	Disables shadow mask.
`shadowMask: true`	Enables shadow mask with `slot-mask` mode.
`shadowMask: slot-mask`	Slot mask as seen on many consumer TV sets.
`shadowMask: dot-mask`	Triad shadow mask as seen on many computer monitors.
`shadowMask: aperture-grille`	Aperture grille slot mask as seen on Sony Trintitron CRTs

`noise`

Type: number | boolean

Picture noise caused by interference in the signal. This is the default value for all channels, but individual channels can override these settings.

Keyboard Shortcut

Alt + 2 Alt + 2 toggles picture noise on or off.

Usage

Value	Result
`noise: false`	Disables picture noise for all channels by default.
`noise: 0.2`	A value from `0` - `1` can be set for noise and will control its transparency.

By default, noise is blended into the picture using the screen CSS blend mode. You can override this value using the noiseBlendMode property. For example:

noiseBlendMode: multiply

`blur`

Type: number | boolean

The channel content can be blurred to simulate degradations in the picture. By default a 1px blur is enabled. This can be enabled or disabled per-channel, or set globally as a default.

Keyboard Shortcut

Alt + 3 Alt + 3 toggles blur on or off.

Usage

Value	Result
`blur: false`	Disables blur.
`blur: 3`	Integer values will dictate how many pixels of blur will be applied. In this case it’s `3px`.

`bezel`

Type: none | flat | cylindrical

Displays a bezel over the screen to give it the shape of a CRT. Bezels are only displayed when the configured screen has a 4:3 aspect ratio. The default is flat.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Alt + 6 Alt + 6 toggles the bezel on or off. Shift + Alt + 6 Shift + Alt + 6 cycles through the available bezel types.

Usage

Value	Result
`bezel: none`	Disables the bezel.
`bezel: flat`	Displays a flat-screen bezel.
`bezel: cylindrical`	Displays a rounded, cylindrical-screen bezel.

`animateChannelChange`

Type: boolean

Controls whether the picture shakes briefly when changing channels. This effect is enabled by default.

Usage

Value	Result
`animateChannelChange: false`	Disables the channel-change animation.
`animateChannelChange: true`	Enables the channel-change animation.

`changeChannelNoise`

Type: boolean

Controls whether a brief burst of white-noise audio plays when changing channels. This effect is enabled by default.

Keyboard Shortcut

Alt + 5 Alt + 5 toggles channel-change noise on or off.

Usage

Value	Result
`changeChannelNoise: false`	Disables channel-change noise.
`changeChannelNoise: true`	Enables channel-change noise.

`border`

Type: string

Sets an image that repeats behind the TV screen, replacing the solid black background around its edges. Specify the path or URL of an image. If baseDirectory is configured, relative paths are resolved from that directory.

Usage

border: images/wood-panel.png

Omit border to use the default solid black background.

`warmup`

Type: number | boolean

Controls the warmup and cooldown animations shown when the TV is powered on and off. The default duration is 7 seconds.

Usage

Value	Result
`warmup: false`	Disables the warmup and cooldown animations.
`warmup: 0`	Disables the warmup and cooldown animations.
`warmup: 3`	Enables the animations with a duration of 3 seconds.