Fairy wand sparkle trail

[Michael Szalapski]

Tons of resources for that here. Basically, you’ll want to play with the settings so that it gives you the look you want (check the resources I linked), then motion track the tip of the wand, apply that tracking info to a null object, and tie the position of the emitter to the null’s position with expressions.

– The Great Szalam
(The ‘Great’ stands for ‘Not So Great, in fact, Extremely Humble’)

No trees were harmed in the creation of this message, but several thousand electrons were mildly inconvenienced.

[Sue Bauer]

Thank you so much for your response, Michael. I had seen some of those resources but hadn’t tried that search feature you linked to. That’s a great mega-resource! I will poke around through those although some of them looked like they required a lot of expressions and I don’t have a great programming mind. When I’m learning something new I like a lot of hand-holding, but maybe it’s time to jump into the deep end! I managed to make some fairy dust but frankly it looks very lame and amateurish. That’s why I like step-by-step tutorials because the results are usually very polished and professional looking. If you find one that is very specific, do let me know please. In the meantime, I will try to put together something from the bits and pieces out there. I still have not found anything as comprehensive as I’d like, such as the tutorials here on Creative Cow and Video Copilot. That’s what I’m really hoping for this Christmas!

[Sue Bauer]

Does ANYONE have a step-by-step tutorial? I spent a lot of time trying to use the resources but my skill level is not advanced enough, which is why I’m posting in the beginner’s thread. If someone has the ability to create a tutorial, I would be eternally grateful. I have looked and looked and have not found anything specific. There are lots of people asking and unfortunately I’m not sure a tutorial exists.