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how do you make light streaks/trails?
I have seen this effect many times, not sure how to describe it. Right now I have seen it in a cell phone commercial (cingular?) where they are whipping the phone around and streaks of light are trailing behind it. I have also seen this effect in the AE Saleen examples where what looks like streaks of color moving in a snake-like pattern tracing random parts of the car…if you know what I’m talking about, how do you do it?
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3 Replies
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This has actually been discussed here many times. One common solution is to use a particle system such as Trapcode Particular. Typically what you do is set the particle emitter to follow the source – say, the phone being whipped around – and the particles are made to stay put, namely be emitted with 0 velocity. You then set the particles to start fairly bright and glowy, decaying over time, and you allow enough of them to get emitted so you get the appearance of a continuous streak.
Of course, if you need something fancier like the new iPod commercials, this may not be workable (you may need to work with actual 3D paths in a 3d app, deforming the streaks as actual geometry or extruding some geometry along the paths). but in many situations the particle trick works really well.
AA
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I’m not familiar with the ads you’ve mentioned but your description provides a clue that Trapcode’s Particular can certainly perform the feat. Should you not have Trapcode then check out Bill O’Neil’s COW tutorials on creating smeared colors.
HTH
Roland Kahlenberg
broadcastGEMs
customizable animated backdrops with Adobe After Effects project files -
Do you have te links for the videos you have seen?
That would help a lot.
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