Lens System Browser

The Lens System Browser is the primary interface for selecting, inspecting, and managing lens systems in Flares OFX. It allows you to use existing presets, modify them, or create fully custom lens systems tailored to your production needs.

Overview

Lens systems define the optical and artistic behavior of flares and are stored as JSON files. The browser exposes two distinct categories of lens systems:

Factory presets (read-only)
Custom lens systems (user-editable)

This separation ensures that default presets remain stable while allowing full flexibility for user and studio customization.

Preset and Custom Lens Directories

Factory Presets (Read-Only)

Default lens system presets are installed with the plugin and cannot be modified directly from within the Lens System Browser.

FlaresOFX.ofx.bundle/Contents/Win64/assets/lens_systems

These presets are intended as starting points and reference implementations.

Custom Lens Systems (User-Editable)

Any lens system that you modify and save from within the plugin is written to the custom lens system directory.

$FLARESOFX_DATA_DIR/assets/lens_systems/custom

Lens systems stored in this location are fully editable and safe to version, share, or deploy across multiple projects.

Preserving Factory Presets

The separation between preset and custom directories ensures that:

Factory presets remain untouched and consistent
Plugin updates do not overwrite user-created lens systems
Custom work can be safely versioned or shared

Adding Custom Presets to the Preset Library

If desired, users may promote custom-created lens systems into the main preset library by manually copying them into the preset directory.

When doing so, ensure that:

The corresponding thumbnail files are also copied
Thumbnails are placed in the appropriate thumbnails directory
Preset and thumbnail directory structures remain consistent

Without the thumbnail files, lens systems will still load but may not display correctly in the browser.

Studio Considerations

For studio environments, the FLARESOFX_DATA_DIR environment variable can be configured to point to a shared network location.

This allows:

Multiple workstations to access the same custom lens systems
Centralized lens development
Consistent results across artists and shots

This setup is commonly used in conjunction with studio or offline licensing workflows.

Further advanced topics such as direct JSON editing, lens system versioning, and pipeline integration are covered in later sections.