First, create a Quad object for your foreground book cover and create a Background object for your background. Set your Quad and Background to the same material (ideally a book cover we're going to use as a placeholder). Then follow these steps:
1. Select your background object in the Object Manager, navigate to the Effects tab in your Object Inspector. This area is what I will call the "Effects stack"
2. On the right edge of the screen should be a tab called "Effects". Open that tab. I will call this area the "Effects library"
3. In the "Blur & Sharpen" folder in the Effects library, drag a Gaussian Blur to the Effects stack.
4. In the "Color Correction" folder in the Effects library, drag a Color Adjust to the Effects stack.
5. Right click on the ColorAdjust1 effect in your effects stack, and click Properties. A window should pop up. You can adjust the brightness down to your desired darkened effect.
6. Right click on the GaussianBlur1 effect in your effects stack and click Properties. You can tinker with these numbers to get the desired blur effect, or you can try out a different type of blur from the Effects library.
Once the background looks the way you want it, you're going to want to permanently link the material of your background to that of your quad:
1. Select your Scene object in the Object Manager.
2. Right click on the scene object.
3. Click "Edit Script Events"
4. Double-click "OnPrepare" in the left column.
5. Copy and paste this code into the blank area to the right:
dim bg, quad as xpBaseObject
dim mat as xpMaterial
self.getObjectByName("Background1", bg)
self.getObjectByName("Quad1", quad)
quad.getMaterial(0, mat)
bg.setMaterial(0, mat)
6. In the code above, on line 3, replace the word Background1 with the name of your background object. Don't remove the quotes.
7. In the code above, on line 4, replace the word Quad1 with the name of your foreground quad. Don't remove the quotes.
8. Under the "Script" menu on the top left corner of the Script Editor window (next to the File menu), click "Compile". Another way to do this is by clicking on the Orange lightning bolt icon at the top.
9. You can now close the script editor window. The code is saved to the scene.
Note: If you're comfortable with Visual Logic, an easier way to link the two objects' materials is to connect the output of Quad1>Faces>Face block to the input of Background1>Faces>Face block, where 'Quad1' is the name of your foreground quad object and 'Background1' is the name of your background object.
Now that your materials are linked between the two objects, now you'll just want to publish the foreground quad object.
1. Select on your foreground quad object in the Object Manager.
2. Click the Template Links tab in the Object Inspector.
3. Ensure that the "Publish Object" checkbox is checked.
4. Ensure that the "Material" checkbox is checked.
Now your scene should be properly set up. When the operator selects a different image while preparing the Take Item, the background image should now be a darkened and blurred version of that image.
Hope this helps.
Jeff Rietman
#XPression