light emitting type

[Darby Edelen]

Should the background be dark where the light isn’t emitted? Or should the type only be increasing the brightness of the background?

Darby Edelen

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Can you post a image that is close to what you’re envisioning? It would make it easier for us to understand the issue.

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Marc Nibor]

Ok, I guess my description was just bad.
Let me try again…

In short: I want type to act as a lightsource. Is there a way to do this in AE?

In my scene all layers are 3D. The scene is lit by a 20% Ambient light, so it’s quite dark. What I called “background” in my previous post is actually a “brickwall” image. Infront of the brickwall is some moving text flowing in midair. I want the text to act like it was a neonsign and emit some light onto the wall.
I have already tried to attach a pointlight and a spot to the text, but it looked horrible because of it’s shape. It just did not look like the light was coming from the text.

Right now I just had an idea how I probably could fake it. Maybe I could just put a copy of the type layer right in front of the wall, then size it up, blur it or add a glow effect and set it to be fullbright. But I’d still prefer to use a “real” lightsource if possible.

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Here’s a quick idea I had- maybe you can use it.

5008_textlightemittercs55.aep.zip

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Marc Nibor]

Thank you VERY much Ted! Your approach seems to be much better then mine, since it works “out of the box” on multiple items in the background regardless of their Z values.

I did put some blur on the type in the text comp which made the result look exactly as desired.

There is just one thing I could not figure out yet.
The spot still produces a visible lightcone onto the background.
I tried to get rid of it, but I couldn’t. Shouldn’t the light coming from the spot be completely blocked by the “lightgel” layer – except for the text areas? I don’t know where the light is coming from??? The solid you used in the lightgel layer is completely black – not grey – so it’s supposed to block 100% – isn’t it?

[Darby Edelen]

The spotlight in the scene has it’s shadow darkness set to less than 100%. You’ll want it at 100%.

Also, consider not using the text as an alpha track matte and instead just leaving the text on top of the black solid. That way the color of the text will be cast by the light.

Darby Edelen

[Tudor “ted” jelescu]

Light 1 – turn Shadow Darkness up tp 100%

Tudor “Ted” Jelescu
Senior VFX Artist

[Marc Nibor]

PERFECT!

Thanks a lot