Re: Andrew’s Lightsaber Tutorial

[Darby Edelen]

[Christlike] “Andrew explains that in order to fix this problem, the mode should be set to “Lighten”; however, when I do this, the entire layer is lighten and it effects the entire project. How do I set a keyframe for the mode of “Lighten” just on certain frames?”

I assume he was explaining how to create the flash of light that two lightsabers make when they connect? You cannot animate the blending mode of a layer, you animate the opacity of the layer which affects how ‘much’ that layer is blended.

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Robert Shank]

Actually, Andrew was not talking about the bright light that occurs when two lightsabers hit, but speaking of the intersect of two lightsabers…rather than just have one lightsaber on top of another (which doesn’t look good)…Andrew explains that changing the mode to “Lighten” will solve the problem at the certain frame…but when I do this, it effects all the frames.

Andrew doesn’t even address about the big pulse of light when two light sabers hits one another.

If anyone reading this thread could offer help or suggestions…it would be great…please view Andrew’s short lightsaber tutorial, which I am speaking of, so you can tell exactly what I am saying…just fast forward to the end.

[Malcolm Desoto]

well, you still can’t animate a layers blending mode. Without watching the tutorial, I’d suggest splitting the layer the moment the blades intersect; and then setting the separate layer to Lighten. If you still don’t get the result you’re after, maybe you’ll have to isolate the blades with a mask or a key.

[Darby Edelen]

If you’re using the Animation presets that Andrew included with the tutorial then I’m really not sure what the problem might be.

The preset is based on the ‘Beam’ effect, which generates its own alpha by default. Check to make sure you haven’t accidentally changed any of the settings on the lightsaber layers, and make sure that you apply the preset to empty solids above your video footage.

Those are the only suggestions I can make without knowing more about the situation =)

Darby Edelen
DVD Menu Artist
Left Coast Digital
Aptos, CA

[Lord Scales]

[Malcolm Man] “well, you still can’t animate a layers blending mode. Without watching the tutorial, I’d suggest splitting the layer the moment the blades intersect; and then setting the separate layer to Lighten. If you still don’t get the result you’re after, maybe you’ll have to isolate the blades with a mask or a key.”

That’s better!
I never tested changing the mode to Lighten, but I think Add looks nicer. Lighten seems to cut off the brightness of the Lightsabers in the intersection and if you look at Star Wars (better in the SW III), in the scene Anakin fights Count Dooku and he says “I sense great fear in you, Skywalker…” we can see a bright yellow point around the point where the sabers are connected (in that case the point is quite big, and transfer modes’d not achieve the effect). In other scenes we see something similar, so maybe change to Add’d look nicer for this yellow point. Well, I don’t know about what was the topic in which Andrew gave the tip and I don’t know either if this will work nice for the preset, but here is my opinion.

[Joshua Sprague]

Yeah, i just downloaded Andrew’s plug-in pack for this effect and and when i load it into after effects and try to place it on a layer, after effects shows an error referencing that says:

“This Favorite contains 3 references to missing effects. Please install the following effects to restore these references. (“Glow”)

The Missing effects i particular are Saber Control, Fx Glow, and Fx Extra Glow.

Does anyone one know what these effects are or have any insight on whether this my just be an error. Because I have CS3 master collection. So as far as I know it’s the full package and all up to date.