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Lens Flare with Alpha
I’ve created a simple lens flare animation in AE that I’m hoping to be able to render ou t to QT qith an Alpha Channel. Typically when I use a lens flare in AE, I just create a black solid, add the Lens Flare to it and set the transfer mode to screen. BUT, transfer modes only works when you have something underneath it. I’ve tried doing Luma Keys. I’ve tried changing the background color to blue and doing a chroma key in FCP, but those two options did not bring about a nice clean key. Any suggestions?
Greg
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10 Replies
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Since you’re using FCP, you can still use transfer modes.
Render your lens flare on a black solid in AE (without a transfer mode) and bring the footage into FCP. Once it’s in your timeline, right click on the footage and select Composite Mode: Screen. That should do the trick.
CS3, FCS2
[Note: Using Particular, 3-D Stroke, and now Form do not instantly make your designs “teh awesome.”] -
Well whattaya know. I wasn’t aware FCP used transfer modes. Thanks Paul.
Greg
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Although I’m not sure that it’s still offered for free and separately from the Knoll Light Factory plugin set it was originally made for, there is a simple plugin called “Knoll Unmult” that you add to the black solid your flare is on to get the flare alone with the rest of the layer as alpha. If Red Giant doesn’t offer it free, there is also an UnMult plugin offered by one of the many small AE plugin makers … I don’t recall which one (maybe Frishcluft or FAN), but you could probably find it pretty easily with a little research.
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Knoll’s fabulous little goodie UNMULT is still a free download from Red Giant. Far more useful than merely moving lens flares to alphas but that’s all we seem to know how to do with it.
bogiesan
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“that’s all we seem to know how to do with it.”
Hmmm, although it’s unclear to whom the “we” refers, that still sounds pretty condescending. It seems to me that the original poster just asked for a solution to a specific problem, rather than to be dazzled by the depth and breadth of anyone’s knowledge of uses for UnMult plugins.
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I’ve been here since DAY01 and bogiesan has been here as a COW Head and still comes around therse parts to help out. I doubt that bogiesan was being condescending. Perhaps you’re reading too much into what was posted.
But I can’t resist asking bogiesan what other uses either Unmult or XMult have.
Cheers
RoRKbroadcastGEMs – AEPro Volume 02 (Professional Adobe After Effects Project Files – Now Available).
Adobe After Effects Training in Asia.
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Roldand, point taken … perhaps I did read too much into what was said.
With that said, while I understand that my newly created account is misleading, I don’t really see the relevance of that subject since I never questioned how long anyone had frequented or how much anyone had contributed to the COW … I simply responded to what (perhaps mistakenly) seemed an unnecessary shot at my simple attempt to help someone solve their problem. I have no interest whatsoever in getting into a hissing match with people I don’t even know yet actually respect anyway (you, Roland, since I have appreciated your posts here for 10 years or so now, which is no disregard to David since I simply don’t recall having read his posts before). So, I’ll just take this opportunity to kindly remove myself from the conversation, thank you.
Cheers.
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Ah, I mentioned that I’ve been here as a COW Head since Day 1 cos I wanted you to know that I’ve ‘known’ bogiesan for a long time. He likes to inject some humour whenever possible. hich is why I doubt there was any malice in his post. And I appreciate it cos sometimes it can get pretty dry over here. WLet’s move on towards better things.
Cheers
RoRKbroadcastGEMs – AEPro Volume 02 (Professional Adobe After Effects Project Files – Now Available).
Adobe After Effects Training in South East Asia.
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This method works because I tested it before.
“You can do this in AE by creating your lens flare on a black solid, pre-composing the lens flare, then applying the ‘Set Matte’ effect to the pre-comp and changing its blend mode to Luminescent Premultiply.
If you don’t change the blend mode to Luminescent Premultiply then your black background will be incorrectly multiplied into your image.
The downside of this technique is that you need to go into the pre-comp to animate the lens flare.”
Darby Edelen
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[Let’s move on towards better things.]
I agree entirely … I’m sure a simple case of humor not always coming across as such or the way intended in writing as it would if spoken.
Cheers.
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