Animation of video special effects

A video special effects apparatus for performing an animated sequence of effects on a sequence of images in a video signal, comprising:

• a core program object for controlling processing on the sequence of images;
• the core program object being resident in a core processor having a memory;
• a plurality of render processor plug-in program objects responsive to said core program object, said render processors being arranged in a directed acyclic graph, each operable to render an output result relating to successive images from input data relating to other images received from a preceding render processor in said directed acyclic graph and in response to operational parameters relating to that render processor;
• metadata corresponding to each render processor in said directed acyclic graph being loaded into said memory;
• the metadata defining the operational parameters of the render processors including input and output interfaces;
• the metadata being used by said core program object to determine a proper execution sequence to perform said animated sequence of effects;
• the render processor plug-in program objects being loaded into said memory only in response to execution of the render processor by said core program object;
• said metadata requiring less memory space than the corresponding render processor plug-in program object;
• and
• each operational parameter being defined by a parameter plug-in object to communicate a parameter value to said render processor plug-in object.