Is Skyline (New Trailer) Using VCP Optical Flare?

[Michael Szalapski]

It could be Optical Flares or it could be Knoll Light Factory. Both are used an awful lot these days. There’s been a resurgence lately.

Knoll Light Factory is the industry standard. Optical Flares is the new hotness. Optical Flares works excellently with AE’s lights so Knoll Light Factory added a script that does essentially the same thing so they’re both pretty comparable. Optical Flares is cheaper and adds the option to show “dirt” on the “lens” so a lot of people go for it. I’m still using Knoll Light Factory.

You know, it wasn’t too many years ago that lens flares were bemoaned by every motion graphics designer as being cliche and awful and thus the obvious use of them died out everywhere except for local car dealership commercials. But it seems they’re coming back, partly due to the fact that “everything old is new again”, partly becuse the integration of Knoll Light Factory and Optical Flares with AE’s 3d space is now pretty cool, and partly because KLF and OF give you a ton of cool looks that differ from AE’s built-in lens flare.

– 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.

[Jimmylee Remillard]

Yeah, I just think its pretty amazing how everyday people are making these plug-ins and new effects through After Effects which has just become noticed as a pro standard. I love the After Effects community, everyone wants to learn, everyone wants to teach, everyone wants to share.