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Activity Forums Adobe After Effects Lightning Effect – Is it possible to get a thick bolt with a glow?

  • Lightning Effect – Is it possible to get a thick bolt with a glow?

    Posted by Stewart Goldstein on August 5, 2005 at 9:06 pm

    I want to use the lightning effect for a cartoon effect. My goal is to have a very thick core, and a transparent glow around the edges. (It’s supposed to look like it is coming out of someone’s eyes.)

    The core should be yellowish, and the outer glow, red. So far, the only way I can make the thick, yellow core stand out is to use “Normal,” but the only way to make the outer part of the bolt translucent and glowing is to use “Add.”

    Try to imagine a Photoshop object that is solid, with a prominent Outer Glow Layer Effect, if that helps.

    Also, should I apply the Lightning Effect directly to the image layer, an Adjustment Layer, or is there another way?

    (This is AE 5.5, Production Bundle, in case that’s important.)

    Thx,
    Mike

    Jonathan Miller replied 21 years, 1 month ago 2 Members · 1 Reply
  • 1 Reply
  • Jonathan Miller

    August 6, 2005 at 6:19 am

    What would probably work best here is Tracode’s Shine plugin.

    You could take your lightning layer, precomp it, then add Shine to the precomp layer. You could mess around with the colors to get them just right, an you could probably adjust the thickness of the middle by adjusting the “boost light” parameter. Then, you could adjust how much glow there is by dropping the ray length to zero and bump it up a notch or two.

    You can always go to Trapcode and download the demo.

    Good luck!

    Jon
    TreeLine Productions
    Fort Collins, CO USA

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