Fireflies effect

[Darby Edelen]

I would recommend looking into Particular, specifically the new Motion Path feature and the other Air physics properties.

https://www.trapcode.com/products_particular.html

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Mike Clasby]

Can you just make a firefly with a glowing tail (another layer parented to the body/wings) then flicker the opacity of the tail with a flicker expression, like Dan’s here:

https://www.motionscript.com/mastering-expressions/random-3.html

The expression is for a 3D light, but works fine for Opacity.

To get the basic firefly “rising from the ground”, keyframe the basic rise (position), to get that erratic movement of fireflies, you can add a wiggle (position of the body), with:

wiggle (1,30)

Change the Frequency (the 1) or the Amplitude (30) as needed.

Put expressions on by, Copying (Ctrl C) the expression, Alt-click the stopwatch (say Opacity), then Paste.

To get brighter bights and Whiter whites, for the tail, see Andrews tut on 32 bit, here:

EarthQuake with 32bpc

https://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials.html?id=33

Anyway, once you get the look you like, precomp the firefly, duplicate it as many times as you want fireflie and move them around so they start in different places.