COW Tutorials: After Effects Creating Light Streaks

[Dotan Baytman]

Finally a tutorial from andrew been waiting for it long time
very cool tutorial
thanx

[Mylenium]

Nicey (though admittedly you left out the tedious parts ;-))

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Andrew Kramer]

Thanks guys, Yeah true Mylenium… Anytime you’re doing random artistic stuff, it’s really hard to have a definite sequence of steps because everything changes. It’s all about tweaking this and moving that, til you can get it just right. It’s kinda like having a client sitting over your shoulder while trying to design a logo or something, it’s hard to be inspired.

Andrew

[Mylenium]

I know the feeling. That’s why I really enjoy doing my articles – lots of breathing room for my crazy ideas.

Mylenium

[Pour Myl

[Jay Thompson]

What if you wanted to parent the “emitter” to another layer, say a soda bottle. So it looked like the bottle was flying around and being trailed by the light streaks. Any problems with parenting in your porcess?

Jay Thompson
Thompson Visual Design & Storytelling
7 Marjean Ct.
Kirkwood, MO 63122

[Steve Roberts]

Very nice, Andrew!

[Andrew Kramer]

Thank you thank you,
I received a couple of emails about, animating paths with this effects and yeah, just attach the light to a 3d null object or just animate the path, if you want to make it write something or wrap around something, just create a mask in the shape of text and copy the mask shape parameter and paste it the the light’s position. Then set the particles to emit longer. Also when going from one letter to another letter turn the particles per second to zero, and have a one frame change from say 2000 to 0 and then 0 to 2000 this will shut the emitting off whil the light gets into position to write the next charachter.

I mentioned this briefly in the originally recorded tutorial but I cut it out to keep it short (somewhat) I also had to cut out some pretty funny jokes too.
I took the easy way like as Mylenium pointed out and used an expression to make motion rather that linkin the light to tracking data from live action sources. But You can just as easily link and object in 3d space to the lights position, like perhaps a bottle of coke and someone nice enough can explain how to set an expression so the coke bottle “faces” the camera on it’s travels.

The bottom line is because it’s emitting from the light, you can do anything you want with animating the position and linking it to paths or nulls for doing graphics etc.

Thanks,
Andrew Kramer

[David Bogie]

I am in awe of folks who understand expressions and can think in 3D on a screen. I do neither well. So thank you for creating this cool effect for us.

Is there any other particle system that is usable besides Particular? Anything else?

bogiesan

This is my standard sigfile so do not take it personally: “For crying out loud, read the freakin’ manual.”

[Jeremy Garchow]

Sweet tutorial, but for some odd reason I cannot get http://www.trapcode.com off of mind. i want to go out and buy more http://www.trapcode.com. Do they sell that at the concession stand?

Do you know what is causing this Mr Kramer or is it the videocopilot.net voodoo you do?

[Steve Roberts]

You know, Andrew, you may have found one solution to the AE twisty ribbon problem. Use a custom particle which is a wide but short solid (maybe 50×1) or a stroked 2-point mask, use your tutorial to create the ribbon, then animate the particle’s rotation at the appropriate path points to provide the twists and turns. If you give the comp a high frame rate, it smooths out the bumps, as you surmised.

Whaddayathink?

(Or did you mention that idea in your tut …? Gotta watch it again)