Lightning and AE basics

[Kevin Camp]

you should be able to find lightning specific tutorials, just google after effects lightning. but a simple way to control the visibility of the basic lightning effect would be to apply it to a new adjustment layer over your footage. then just modify the opacity of the lightning adjusment layer as needed

as far as audio, you need to set that when you render, just click your output module, at the bottom of the render settings is audio, turn it on and set options as needed.

[The_new_mr]

I’ll check that thing with the opacity of the layer out. Thanks. But what about changing the length of the lightning? Is the only way of doing it is to have a seperate lightning object on a seperate layer each time I want to change the length of the lighning and change their respective opacities at different points in the video? There must be an easier way to do it. The guy in the following video says he did it pretty quickly. It’s a funny video too 🙂
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CX-BviuxeGs

Yeah, I saw that audio was off under the settings for render but I couldn’t turn it on. It was an unclickable option if you know what I mean.

I’ve googled for a lightning tutorial a number of times but couldn’t find anything unfortunately. I’ll keep looking. Does anyone know anywhere where I can read a good tutorial explaning the basics of after effects (such as using layers and changing their opacity etc)?

Unfortunately, buying a good tutorial isn’t much of an option due to my location.

Some contents or functionalities here are not available due to your cookie preferences!

This happens because the functionality/content marked as “Google Youtube” uses cookies that you choosed to keep disabled. In order to view this content or use this functionality, please enable cookies: click here to open your cookie preferences.

[Kevin Camp]

if you need multiple lightning strikes appearing at the same time, or overlapping, you will need multiple lightning effects (since the effect only creates one bolt). you can create multiple bolts either on the same layer by adding additional lightning effects (somewhat restrictive), or a single effect on a separate adjustment layers (most flexible). length of the bolt is determined by the start and end points (changing values or pulling those handles). key framing those points (or values) will animate the length of the bolt, as in your sample.

[Kevin Camp]

as far as audio… if you have audio in your comp and you use a rendering codec/format that supports audio, then you should be able to enable audio in your render.

[The_new_mr]

Yeah, I had gotten a couple of lightning bolts on the screen at the same time before. I think the main problem I need to know now is keyframing. I don’t know how to keyframe and it sounds like exactly what I’m missing. Any pointers to a tutorial that’ll explain keyframing? Thanks again for all your help.

[The_new_mr]

Got the keyframes thing worked out. Stumbled across a site that gave the very valuable information I needed which was to click on the clock symbols 🙂 Messing about with layers now. Thanks to all who helped.

[The_new_mr]

I tried the adobe help files but couldn’t find anything that helped. Maybe I didn’t look hard enough or something. It would be good if there was a beginner’s guide to AE basics or something in the help file.

Anyway, thanks for that link. I’ll be sure to check it out 🙂