• Adobe After Effects

  AE lens flare: size and motion = how?

  Posted by James Miller on July 11, 2010 at 10:17 pm

  Hi there,

  I’m battling away with AE’s lens flare and short of buying one, can anyone offer some insight – if its not possible it would be good to know.

  Ok so in short I have a title, want to put a lens flare behind and move the center point as the camera pans. This I can do no problem BUT when I drop the flare on either and adjustment layer or a solid, it fills the whole space and there is no scale/ size option.

  This is a problem because;
  the flare is too big using the comp size
  on an adjustment layer you can see the edges when you move the camera away – also too big
  creating a smaller solid means you can see the edges

  I thought of trying to build something in a precomp but I come across the same two problems every way I try. I can see the edges and it makes keyframing harder then it should be.

  What I want to do isn’t that difficult, but without a scale or size option on the flare I can’t see a way to make it work!

  Any suggestion, even to say you can’t do it, would help at this point.

  Cheers!

  If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving isn’t the sport for you.

  Billy Soar replied 15 years, 5 months ago 3 Members · 4 Replies
• 4 Replies

• 

  Steve Roberts

  July 11, 2010 at 11:01 pm

  Lens flare is designed to operate on the whole frame in a 2D layer.

  – to change size, try adjusting the intensity of the flare
  – if you see edges, try applying the grow bounds effect before (above) the flare in the effects stack
• 

  Billy Soar

  January 21, 2011 at 11:05 am

  I know this is an old thread but im facing the same problems. I didnt have a problem with lens flares before. When i place the lens flare it fills the comp to the edges. When i turn the blen mode to add you can still see the edges. I cant use grow bounds filter because you can only increase the flare and not decrease the size.

  Someone please help lol its really annoying and ive been looking everywhere.
• 

  James Miller

  January 21, 2011 at 11:56 am

  Hi there. The short answer is you can’t do it. There is a layer built into the flare that tints the whole comp – this is why you can see the edges no matter what you try other then feather. I ended up taking the plunge and purchasing Optical Flares – haven’t looked back since. Hopefully they will get around to fixing it at some point.

  Like the post above says, you can have limited joy with a balance of feather, boundarys and intensity – but it’s frustrating. Video Copilot’s optical flares is the best product I found
• 

  Billy Soar

  January 21, 2011 at 3:12 pm

  thanks dude. I was hoping that you would of figured it out. I knew somthing wasnt right. I tried reducing the brightness and blending it. It just didnt look right. Cheers mate.

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