How to create cool disco light-esque text?

[Jon Geddes]

Watch the “Afterista” Tutorials that will show you how to do the write-on text:

https://library.creativecow.net/search.php?q=afterista

Then apply the CC Ball Action to it (set scatter to 0, and adjust grid spacing)

Create a new solid and place it below the text layer, then apply a ramp or gradient to it for color

Set the track matte of the color layer to luma matte of the text layer (or alpha matte, depending on the look you want)

Precompose and apply glow effects, etc.

Jon Geddes
http://www.precomposed.com

[Adam Schoales]

Thanks! That should be perfect! You cows are the BESTEST!

[David Bogie]

You can also look up JUMBOTRON for tutorials. This was back it the days when Cycore effects ere a very expensive third party package and large screens emulated CRTs. LEDs were not available. the Sony Jumbotrons used light bulbs. A l-o-n-g time ago, we learned how to do this by actually creating a triangular matrix of three different RGB signals. Fairly certain the technique was perfected by Brian Maffitt. We split the movie into three channels, applied a Newsprint-style dot mask over each, moved them so they formed a triangle, and colorized the separate layers. Tremendous pain the butt but the effect was deliciously cool.

I was recently asked to simulate low-rez LED signage for some designers. It was easy to create a realistic version using the CC Ball Action technique. This gave the creatives a previz tool so they could appreciate what was going to happen to their text and illustrations as they went form 300 dpi Photoshop files to a sign that was only 74 pixels tall by 400 pixels wide.

bogiesan

[Adam Schoales]

Here’s a test.
https://vimeo.com/6866425

Generally im quite pleased with it, but I want to fix the gradient (theres not enough blue/dark purple showing up) and it writes a little fast.

if anyone has a tip on how to actually cycle through the colours a bit more (like in the original video) that’d be great!

thanks for all the help you guys. such an amazing community here.

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[Panagiotis Filianos]

I know this one’s old, but I tried out everything and due to the font I’m using (https://www.dafont.com/disconight.font) stroke is giving me a hard time.
I’m wondering Adam, how you managed to fill the letters in.
Did you pump up stroke’s brush size?